James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[299] to explain these things, but had never been able to get one, and now he wanted to go to headquarters.

Mr. Wentworth was not satified with this at all, and asked why the gentleman from New York did not call on him. He was ready to give him any information he had.

Mr. Greeley—That call is not in order. [A laugh.]

Mr. W.—But he objected to the passage of a resolution imputing that the Secretary of the Treasury had dictated a Tariff bill to the House.

Mr. Washington Hunt—Does not the gentleman from Illinois know that the Committee of Ways and Means called upon the Secretary for a Tariff, and that he prepared and transmitted this Tariff to them?

Mr. Wentworth—I do not know anything about it.

Mr. Hunt—Well, the gentleman's ignorance is remarkable, for it was very generally known.

Mr. Wentworth renewed his motion to lay the resolution on the table, on which the Ayes and Noes were demanded, and resulted Ayes 86, Noes 87.

Jan. 4th. Congress, to-day, showed its spite at the mileage expose in a truly extraordinary manner. At the last session of this very Congress the mileage of the Messengers appointed by the Electoral Colleges to bear their respective votes for President and Vice President to Washington, had been reduced to twelve and a half cents per mile each way. But now it was perceived by members that either the mileage of the Messengers must be restored or their own reduced. ‘Accordingly,’ wrote Mr. Greeley in one of his letters, ‘a joint resolution was promptly submitted to the Senate, doubling the mileage of Messengers, and it went through that exalted body very quickly and easily. I had not noticed that it had been definitively acted on at all until it made its appearance in the House to-day, and was driven through with indecent rapidity well befitting its character. No Committee was allowed to examine it, no opportunity was afforded to discuss it, but by whip and spur, Previous Question and brute force of numbers, it was rushed through the necessary stages, and sent to the President for his sanction.’

The injustice of this impudent measure is apparent from the fact, that on the reduced scale of compensation, messengers received from ten to twenty dollars a day during the period of their necessary absence from home. ‘The messenger from Maine, for instance, brings the vote of his State five hundred and ninety-five miles, and need not be more than eight days absent from his business, at an expense ’