sonal solicitation of members was energetically employed, but it is declared that this practice is now discouraged.1 It can hardly be suppressed without a radical change of system.

As a rule, the amounts carried in bills reported by the committees are below the aggregate estimates received from the five sources that have been mentioned, and they generally pass the House without extensive change. Then they go to the Senate, which works under rules that give more play to individual action than exists in the House. Under the rules of the Senate, all general appropriation bills are referred to the Committee on Appropriations, except in the case of rivers and harbors, when the reference is to the Committee on Commerce. The rules of the Senate prescribe certain formalities in regard to the insertion of new items or increases of appropriations, but it is so easy to comply with them that the appropriation bills are freely manipulated to meet the views of senators, and they are passed, loaded with amendments, to be disposed of by Committees of Conference between the two houses.2 Senate amendment always increases the total amount of appropriations. From a statement prepared by the clerks of the Committees on Appropriations of the Senate and House, it appears that the

1 See Appendix B.

2 An instructive discussion of the rules of the Senate is contained in the Congressional Record, January 15, 1909, Vol. 43, No. 24, p. 964 et seq. The Senate has a rule that “no amendment shall be received to any General Appropriation bill, the effect of which will be to increase an appropriation already contained in the bill or to add a new item of appropriation." But it appears that the rule is subject to exceptions which empty it of any practical efficacy.

estimates for 1909 aggregated $842,754,993.84; the appropriations, as reported to the House, aggregated $740,220,225.47; as passed by the House, $743,907,820.97; as reported to the Senate, $804,298,384.79; as passed by the Senate, $817,361,374.73; as finally enacted, $794,614,625.80.1 From this it appears that the appropriations, as finally determined by the Conference Committees, were increased through Senate agency over $50,000,000 above the amount granted by the House of Representatives.

1 Congressional Record, May 30, 1908, p. 7676.

III

CONSTITUTIONAL AGENCIES OF BUDGET CONTROL

It

We began our national government with a firm and precise principle of budget control; namely, that the House of Representatives held the purse-strings. was the expectation of the framers of the Constitution that the immediate representatives of the people would control the budget and fix expenditures. The vigilant energy of the House of Commons, in asserting its exclusive right to grant supplies, was conspicuous in the politics of the times. Everybody who knew anything about public affairs knew how intense was the jealousy with which the House of Commons cherished that privilege. During the very period when public feeling in the colonies was getting excited about matters of taxation, a marked instance of this occurred. In June, 1772, when a money bill was returned to the House of Commons with an amendment by the Lords, it was at once rejected, and the Speaker tossed it over the table, whereupon it was kicked by several members on both sides.

The behavior of colonial assemblies was marked by the same spirit of jealousy as to their exclusive right to grant supplies, and it was assumed that the House of Representatives would be similarly disposed. Upon this point the strongest assurances were given to the public by men who took the lead in recommending the

adoption of the Constitution. For instance, in No. 58 of The Federalist it is declared:

"The House of Representatives cannot only refuse, but they alone can propose, the supplies requisite for the support of the government. They, in a word, hold the purse that powerful instrument by which we behold, in the history of the British constitution, an infant and humble representation of the people gradually enlarging the sphere of its activity and importance, and finally reducing, as far as it seems to have wished, all the overgrown prerogatives of the other branches of the government. This power over the purse may, in fact, be regarded as the most complete and effectual weapon with which any constitution can arm the immediate representatives of the people for obtaining a redress for every grievance and for carrying into effect every just and salutary measure."

As a matter of fact, the sole right of the House of Representatives to propose supplies was impaired by the right conferred by the Constitution upon the Senate to propose amendments. But, in contemplation of English constitutional history, the Fathers held that such was the intrinsic strength of the representative branch of the government that no check that might be applied could do more than to insure circumspect and deliberate action. That the settled will and purpose of the House could be denied was regarded as a political impossibility. The question whether the House would not be as likely to yield as the Senate, in case of a conflict, was indeed raised and considered, in this same number of The Federalist, and it was held that the natural preponderance of political force would be so heavily on the side of the House that both the President and the Senate would need the utmost firmness to maintain their position, even when "supported

by constitutional and patriotic principles." The relation of the two houses was again considered in No. 63, with reference to legislation in general, and it was emphatically declared:

"Against the force of the immediate representatives of the people, nothing will be able to maintain even the constitutional authority of the Senate, but such a display of enlightened policy and attachment to the public good as will divide with that branch of the legislature the affections and support of the entire body of the people themselves."

1

The habitual attitude of public opinion toward the Senate will hardly be described as one of affection. A Committee of the Senate in 1896 made a report deploring that "the tendency of public opinion is to disparage the Senate and depreciate its usefulness, its integrity, its power." If there has been any change of tendency since, it is in the direction of increased intensity of opprobrium. And yet every session affords evidence of the ability of the Senate to override the House. An instructive instance appeared in the proceedings of the second session of the 60th Congress, ending March 4, 1909. It is not at all exceptional. Events of the same character take place during every session. But this is so typical in character and so directly pertinent to the cost of the government that it is worth considering in some detail.

The officers in charge of the Pension Bureau have been endeavoring to introduce a more simple and effective system of pension payments. According to a statement made to Congress by the Commissioner of Pensions, "more than 100 different forms of vouchers

1 Senate Report, No. 530, 54th Congress, 1st Session.