Opis: Defence of the Committee on Government Contracts - Dawes Henry L.

Excerpt from Defence of the Committee on Government Contracts: Speech of Hon. Henry L. Dawes, of Massachusetts, Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives

The House having under consideration resolutions heretofore reported by the Committee on Government Contracts -

Mr. Dawes said:

Mr. Speaker: I do not know that I shall have any disposition to Say a single word in opposition to the amendment just submitted by the gentleman from Indiana. When he comes to know the course which this committee has pursued a little more fully than he seems to do now, he will find no occasion for offering it in the light of an admonition to them. The abstruct principle I agree with entirely, and to its application, individually, I have no objection.

The evidence before the committee touching the second resolution has been reported to the Horn. It is proposed at this lime to ask the attention of the House to that resolution and to the evidence which sustains it, and to call for a vote upon it.

Bat,sir, the House will expect from the committee, I doubt not - they certainly have a right to expect from them before they call upon the House to vote upon that resolution - some allusion to matters which have transpired in this House within the last few days. Sir, on Monday last the committee on Government contracts was for a second time in its absence honored with a premeditated and, as it would appear from the Globe, a preconcerted attack upon the personal character and integrity of its members. The committee received notice of this attack by the telegraph when they were quietly and, as they supposed, faithfully discharging the duties the House imposed upon them in the city of New York; and has much as the telegraph was silent upon the fact that it was announced to the House that no member of the committee was present during that attack, it went forth that no reply of the committee was made to it at all, and That they were to he held as silently confessing its justice and its truth. They can hardly expect, and have no right to expect, the House to vote for the resolution if the charges made against the committee on Monday last have any foundation in truth, and therefore it is that it is incumbent upon them, before asking that vole, to any whatever they may have to | say upon the character of these attacks.

The House will bear the members of the committee out in the assertion, that although much time has been occupied in this House concerning it and its transactions, they have never occupied one moment of its lime except in self-defence; they have never taken up one moment of the time of this House in speeches touching their mission or its results, and have I only sought, when driven to it, to defend them I selves as well as they may.

The nature of this second, as of the first, attack on the committee, in its absence, is such that it forbids their silence. That the House should differ with the committee in its conclusions, that the House should differ with the committee in its arguments and in its method of proceeding, is most natural. Differences of that kind with committees of the House are of daily occurrence. They arc always expected, and are always to be met in good temper and without complaint by any committee charged in this House with any of its duties. But attacks upon the integrity and personal character of members of a committee are, I am happy to say, somewhat unusual in this House. Yet it has been the peculiar experience of this committee to encounter them more than once in its progress.

There attacks, Mr. Speaker, have been always made upon the committee in its absence. So far as I am able to know, they resolve themselves into but two charges. I ask the attention of the House, not to any refutation of arguments or conclusions, but simply to questions impugning the committee's integrity of purpose and its fidelity to the House. They consist, I say, of two points. In a report of evid

Szczegóły: Defence of the Committee on Government Contracts - Dawes Henry L.

Nazwa: Defence of the Committee on Government Contracts Speech of Hon. Henry L. Dawes, of Massachusetts, Delivered in the U. S. House of Representatives (Classic Reprint)
Autor: Dawes Henry L.
Wydawnictwo: FB &c Ltd
Kod paskowy: 9781332119127
Języki: angielski
Ilość stron: 20
Format: 15.2x22.9cm
Oprawa: Miękka

Recenzje: Defence of the Committee on Government Contracts - Dawes Henry L.