Jurisdiction over the appropriations is distributed among eight different committees of the House. The Committee on Appropriations now has charge of six of the regular appropriation bills. These are: (1) that making appropriations for legislative, executive, and judicial expenditures, (2) the District of Columbia Appropriation bill, (3) the Fortification bill, (4) the Pension bill, (5) the Sundry Civil, (6) all Deficiency Appropriation bills. The Committee on Military Affairs has charge of two of the regular appropriation bills: the Army bill and the Military Academy bill. The Foreign Affairs Committee has charge of the Diplomatic and Consular Appropriation bill. The Agricultural Committee, the Naval Committee, the Post-office Committee, the Committee on Indian Affairs, and the River and Harbor Committee have charge each of one bill with a title corresponding to that of the committee handling it. There are thirteen regular appropriation bills, and in addition there is a deficiency appropriation bill, which is quite as regular as any other bill, so that there are really fourteen regular appropriation bills, handled by eight different committees.

Thus we find in the House of Representatives a budget situation which parallels that which has heretofore existed in the executive branch - a distribution of power among separate and independent authorities, without provision for any unified control coördinating income and expenditure. It is the instinctive propensity of every executive department, and of every bureau in each department, to resist any reduction in its allotment of funds. It is the inclination of each of the special appropriation committees to

resist any diminution of its share of the whole amount appropriated. Each strives to get as much as it can for the public service under its supervision. Thus there is a powerful combination of influence in favor of lavish expenditure, and there is absolutely no organized agency of control by which these expenditures under various heads may be coördinated and adjusted to income. Chairman Tawney says: "In my judgment this is one of the chief causes for the rapid increase in our appropriations for public expenditures.":

In addition to the estimates which are transmitted by the Secretary of the Treasury at the opening of every session, and which are known as the regular estimates, additional estimates keep pouring into the House during the session. These are known as supplemental estimates. Chairman Tawney says that this practice has been restrained by legislation aimed at it. Nevertheless supplemental estimates are still numerous every session. They are of all sorts and are sometimes for trivial amounts. The documents of the 60th Congress, 1st Session, include a supplemental estimate of $3.50 for one tire furnished for the bicycle used by a messenger of the Court of Claims.2

It is a curious feature of existing practice that while the Secretary of the Treasury must be notified of the cost of a bicycle tire and be the channel of communication of the Court of Claims for such an item, there is no such requirement as regards judgments rendered by the court, although they involve large amounts. Statement of these is transmitted by the Clerk of the Court

1 See Appendix B.

2 House Document No. 921, May 8, 1908.

in a letter to the Speaker of the House. The Court has no power to enforce its judgments, and they are not satisfied until Congress appropriates money for the purpose.

Still another class of estimates reach Congress, apart from those transmitted by the Secretary of the Treasury, either as regular or supplemental estimates; namely, the engineering estimates. An ordinary source of such estimates are investigations and surveys ordered by Congress, by means of what are known as concurrent resolutions. Their character raises a constitutional question which seems to have escaped the attention it deserves.

The Constitution provides (Art. 1, Sec. 7) that 'every order, resolution, or vote, to which the concurrence of the Senate and the House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the United States, and before the same shall take effect shall be approved by him, or being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds of the Senate and the House of Representatives, according to the rules and limitations prescribed in the case of a bill." It is, however, assumed by Congress that a concurrent resolution is exempt from this constitutional requirement. The distinction is very fine. A joint resolution reads: "Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled," etc. So worded, a resolution must be presented to the President and is subject to his veto. A concurrent resolution reads: "Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring),"

etc., or else in reverse order, that body being named as the resolving party in which the resolution is offered. The form is quite unknown to the constitution and indeed seems to be in direct violation of the constitution, but it has long been established in actual practice. It is habitually employed in starting the surveys and in procuring the reports on which the appropriations made in the River and Harbor bill are based.

In addition to these classes of expenditures, the appropriation committees are expected to provide for expenditures directed by the legislation of the session. The regular estimates and the supplementary estimates are based on existing law, the engineering estimates are made in pursuance of orders of Congress previously issued. But during the session, public works, buildings, extensions of public service, enlargement of bureaus, and increases of pensions may be authorized, entailing additional expenditures. Great numbers of bills are introduced at every session proposing expenditure for various objects. These are referred to committees and from time to time omnibus bills are reported which include many separately introduced bills. Regular measures of this character are the Pension bill, the River and Harbor bill, and the Public Buildings bill. These bills are made up by a confederation of interests, — a process which, in political phraseology, is known as "log-rolling." These are bills which, because of the distribution of favors which they make among the congressional districts, are known as the "pork barrels." The term is so well established in our political nomen

clature that it has been used by President Taft in public addresses.1

From this review it appears that there are five sources from which emanate the demands for appropriations:

1. The regular annual estimates transmitted by the Secretary of the Treasury at the beginning of each session of Congress.

2. The supplementary estimates, also transmitted by the Secretary of the Treasury.

3. The judgments of the Court of Claims.

4. The reports of the engineers of the war department.

5. Authorization of expenditures by enactments made during the session.

Eight different committees of the House of Representatives frame and report bills granting appropriations in response to these demands. It is the practice of these committees to send for heads of departments or chiefs of bureaus, and have them explain the necessity for the appropriations for which the estimates have been transmitted. Here, again, the department heads, and indeed the different bureau chiefs of a department, may act independently in pressing the appropriations, each working to get all he can. Until recently per

1 The following is an extract from a speech delivered by President Taft at St. Louis, on October 26, 1909:

"Now there is a proposition that we issue $500,000,000 or $1,000,000,000 of bonds for a waterway, and then that we just apportion part to the Mississippi and part to the Atlantic, a part to the Missouri and a part to the Ohio. I am opposed to it.

"I am opposed to it because it not only smells of the pork barrel, but it will be the pork barrel itself. Let every project stand on its bottom."