annually. They were not far out of the way, as our experience has proven.

"In my judgment this is one of the chief causes for the rapid increase in our appropriations for public expenditures. If the jurisdiction over appropriations were vested in one committee, as it was prior to this time, it would not have been possible during the last eight years to have increased the annual appropriations for the army from $24,000,000, the average annual appropriation for the army for the eight years preceding the Spanish-American War, to $83,000,000, the average annual appropriation for the eight years last past, including the present fiscal year, 1910; nor would it have been possible to have increased the appropriation of the navy from $27,500,000, the average annual appropriation for the same period prior to the Spanish-American War, to more than an average of $102,400,000, for the eight years last past, including the current fiscal year, 1910. Nor would the increase for other departments, for which appropriations are made by individual committees, be as great; nor would we have had the deficit in our revenues during the past two years we have had.

"Whether this defect will ever be remedied or not, I am unable to say. It cannot be done unless it is the result of a great popular demand, for the reason that these seven committees, which have a membership of nineteen each, would combine to prevent the House from taking away from them jurisdiction over particular appropriation bills which they now possess. It may be that the effect of Section 7 of the sundry civil appropriation bill will to some extent check the increase in appropriations for these departments for which these different committees recommend appropriations. It was my thought in securing the enactment of this section that we might possibly check the rapid increase in such appropriations by the adoption of this section.

"The plan which the President has adopted under this section throws upon the head of each department the responsibility for his aggregate estimates with reference to the combined aggregate estimates for all the departments; and in this way the one may keep the other down to the minimum.

"When the estimates are submitted to Congress, they are referred by the Speaker of the House to the several committees

having jurisdiction over particular appropriations for which the estimates are made. The practice is then for these committees to send for the heads of the departments, the bureau chiefs in the department, and have them fully explain to the committee the necessity for the appropriations for which estimates are made. At these hearings these officers are closely examined by the committee regarding the subject-matter of their estimates and after such examination the committee then makes up its bill, recommending the amount which in its judgment should be appropriated under each particular head.

"The rule differs somewhat in the Committee on Appropriations, for that committee has jurisdiction over five general appropriation bills and all of the deficiency appropriation bills. The Committee on Appropriations is divided into seven subcommittees, the seventh one having jurisdiction over permanent appropriations. But owing to the legislation making these permanent appropriations this subcommittee has nothing to do. Each subcommittee considers the estimates for expenditures under the appropriation bill over which it has jurisdiction, and when the bill is finally prepared by the subcommittee it is reported to the full committee and the full committee recommends to the House the passage of the bill as prepared and submitted by the committee.

"Outside of the demands for appropriations which come to Congress through the regular estimates, we have what is known as supplemental estimates; and prior to the 59th Congress the practice was to submit a large part of the estimates for appropriations through supplemental estimates. This practice grew out of the carelessness of the departments in making their general estimates covering all of the needs of their respective departments for the year for which the estimates were made. That is, after the general estimates were submitted and Congress was in session, they would discover that they had neglected to estimate for certain appropriations and would then submit them in the form of a supplemental estimate. This practice I endeavored to check by making it unlawful to submit a supplemental estimate except on account of some expenditure authorized by the session of Congress to which the regular estimates had been submitted, or on account of the happening of some emergency which could not be

anticipated at the time of preparing and submitting the regular estimates.

"In addition to the supplemental estimates, demands for appropriations come from the recommendations of the board of engineers of the War Department to the Committee on Rivers and Harbors. Their recommendations are made in connection with reports on investigations for river and harbor improvements, which investigations are usually made under the direction of Congress. Hence, the appropriations made upon the report of the engineers of the War Department are not usually carried in the regular estimates.

"Another source of appropriations is in the authorizations for appropriations carried in legislation which is enacted during the session; that is, if a bill authorizing a service passes and becomes a law, it then becomes necessary to appropriate the money for carrying into effect this law or providing for the service which it creates. So that the sources from which emanate the demands for appropriations are: first, the regular annual estimates, submitted by the Secretary of the Treasury at the beginning of each session of Congress, including the estimates of all the executive departments of the government; second, the supplemental and deficiency estimates; third, the reports of the engineers of the War Department for river and harbor improvements; and fourth, new authorizations or authorizations enacted at the session of Congress for which the annual appropriations are made, including appropriations for the payment of claims allowed under the Bowman act or recommended under the Tucker act.

"The demands that are made by individual members of Congress and senators upon the Committee on Appropriations, independent of the regular and supplemental estimates, are very few and are never granted unless the appropriation asked for has been previously authorized by law, or unless the House by unanimous consent includes such a demand in one of the appropriation bills, for under the rules of the House no appropriation can be considered, except by unanimous consent, unless such appropriation has been previously authorized by law.

"The difficulty in practice which the Committee on Appropriations has in trying to keep the appropriations within the estimated revenues arises from the fact that the several committees which

have jurisdiction over the appropriations for a particular department appropriate for the field service only of that department, or for the naval or military establishments. That is, their appropriations are entirely for the service outside of the city of Washington over which the respective departments have jurisdiction, or for the naval or military establishments outside of the Navy and War Departments at Washington. These appropriations being expended out in the districts and states represented by members of the House and Senate, the departments for which the appropriations are made can always rely upon the representatives and senators in whose districts and states these appropriations are to be expended to support almost any demand they make; and it has not been an uncommon thing for the bureau chiefs to line up or to lobby with the representatives and senators in whose districts or states the appropriations are to be expended for the purpose of securing their support on the floor of either House. I have even known bureau chiefs to prepare briefs and arguments for members to be made on the floor of the House in support of proposed increases in appropriations recommended by the Committee on Appropriations. But I am glad to say that as the result of efforts of myself and my associates on the Committee on Appropriations this practice has been almost completely done away with. It obtains yet to some extent, but it is not done as openly as it used to be.

"I know it is a popular impression that members of the House and Senate demand appropriations upon their own responsibility, but this is not the fact. As I said before, they do it occasionally, but it is only where the appropriation asked for has been previously authorized by law. The clamor on the part of members and senators for appropriations is in support of appropriations which are estimated for regularly by the departments or included in supplemental estimates; and their motive, as I have also stated, is the fact that the money is to be expended in the field service of the government, or in the navy yards or at the military posts in the districts or states which the members or senators represent."

APPENDIX C

POST-OFFICE APPROPRIATIONS

THE following is the essential portion of a communication received from former Postmaster-General Meyer, under date of February 26, 1909:

"It is the opinion of the Department that in the large cities buildings should be constructed exclusively for post-office use, especially designed for that purpose, and located in the immediate vicinity of the union railroad stations, so that the cost of transporting the mails between the post-offices and the stations may be saved and the distribution facilitated. At the urgent solicitation of the Department, Congress has acquired a site for a new postoffice building in Washington, immediately adjacent to the new Union Station, and an appropriation has been secured for a new post-office building in the city of Chicago, the purpose being to locate it as near as possible to the principal railway stations where the mails are received and despatched. A post-office building is also in process of construction in the city of New York immediately above the terminal station of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. A site has also been secured for a new post-office building in the city of Saint Louis and plans are now being perfected for the construction of a building, the site adjoining the Union Station.

"As a general rule, however, in the preparation of the Public Buildings bills the executive branch of the government is not consulted with respect to making appropriations for the new public buildings. At the last session of Congress more than twenty millions of dollars were appropriated for the construction of public buildings for the exclusive use of post-offices in the smaller cities and towns, where the Department had made no recommendation for new buildings. The initial cost of public buildings, together with the