from the United States Treasury-"She is loaded with wealth”—and he pointed out also that in fifteen of the states "we have not a distinctive agricultural college as the outcome of the act of 1862." Mr. O'Donnell said that as far as he knew "this bill has not been asked for by the farmers.” If the bill is for the benefit of agriculture, “why not confine its provisions to the purely agricultural colleges instead of bestowing a portion of these large sums upon institutions that have established an agricultural chair to comply with the forms of law." A provision to confine the benefits of the appropriation to purely agricultural and cognate subjects had been stricken out in the Senate; if it should be reinserted by the House, he would support the bill.

An amendment to this effect, confining the appropriation "to instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts, the English language, and the various branches of mathematical, physical, natural and economic science, with special reference to their application in the industries in life, and to the facilities for such instruction," was offered by Mr. Joseph D. Taylor of Ohio. Mr. Taylor said that the bill, as it passed the Senate, permitted the agricultural colleges to use the money as they would. They could teach Latin or Greek or Hebrew. "The objection has been made that our agricultural colleges educate young men to be lawyers and doctors and preachers and teachers, and disqualify them for the farm," and the amendment was intended to cure this and prevent these colleges from educating in such a way as to prevent their boys from ever being farmers. "The trouble is that in some of the states there is very little difference between an agricultural college and a literary college."

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The opposition to the bill was led by Mr. Caruth of Kentucky, representing the Louisville District. He said that any man who could find any difference in principle between this bill and the Blair Education Bill for the wholesale subventing of the common school systems was SO endowed with intellectual acumen as would enable him to divide a hair into two parts and to determine its west from its northwest side." The gentleman from Kansas, Mr. Anderson, was always talking here about a railroad lobby, but Mr. Caruth wanted to tell him "that the only lobby I have seen at this session of Congress was the educational lobby composed of the presidents of the agricultural institutions. They have haunted the corridors of this Capitol; they have stood sentinel at the door of the Committee on Education; they have even interrupted the solemn deliberation of that body by imprudent and impudent communications." Mr. Caruth then read a telegram which he said the chairman of the committee had received from this source, protesting because the committee had not seen fit to report the bill in the absence of one of its most distinguished members. "And from that hour to this they have haunted the halls of this Capitol with their presence. They have buzzed in your ears, sir, and in yours, and in the ears of every member of this House. It has been an organized, strong, combined lobby, for the benefit of the agricultural colleges of the country." Mr. Caruth asked what was the purpose? "Do they throw wide open their portals for any boy to enter who may desire? No, there is a golden knocker at the door," because the institutions were paid insti

tutions; if not paid in tuition, then in board. A reference to the practice of a school in Alabama raised a protest from many members as to institutions near their homes, including a protest from General Joseph Wheeler of Alabama and others. Finally, Mr. Lewis of Mississippi asked if the gentleman from Kentucky would allow him to state that “in the agricultural college of the State of Mississippi there are students who earn their own expenses by manual labor." And Mr. Caruth replied," Will the gentleman allow me to state to him that at Yale College, at Harvard College, at Cornell University . . . there are students who earn theirs."

Mr. Turner of New York, after referring to the cost of attending an agricultural college, charged the supporters of the bill with playing politics. "The real animus, the real purpose of this legislation is simply this: The agricultural classes are in a state of unrest, and the great agricultural communities that have given Republican majorities year after year are asking themselves to what end they have given these majorities. Now... if you give the American farmer the same chance that you give the manufacturing class, if you will remove from him the burden of unjust tariff taxation that has weighed heavily upon him for a quarter of a century, he will be able to educate his own sons in his own way without governmental aid.” Mr. Anderson of Kansas said that he had served for five years as president of the Kansas Agricultural College, and defended the agricultural college presidents from Mr. Caruth's charge of lobbying. It was true, Mr. Anderson continued, that "during the first half of the period since the agricultural grant was made in 1862, the colleges organized under it were entirely and naturally devoted to the professional curriculum, and necessarily turned out lawyers, doctors, preachers, and teachers. During the latter half of the period the agricultural colleges, finding that they were not giving a satisfactory education to the farmers devised a curriculum for the purpose of affording specific technical knowledge," and "the object of this bill is to cause these colleges which have been absorbed by professional educators (sic) and which have turned out professional men only to adopt and apply a modern curriculum applicable to the mechanic arts and agriculture alone."

The time limited by the order of the House for debate upon the bill having now expired, the amendment of Mr. Joseph D. Taylor was adopted, and then, after voting down 95 to 53 a motion to recommit with instructions to strike from the bill all references to the authority given to the Secretary of the Interior and the Secretary of the Treasury, the House, by the decisive vote of 135 to 39, passed the bill.

On the following day, August 20, when the bill with the House amendment was again laid before the Senate, Senator Blair moved that the Senate concur in the amendment. The motion was agreed to without debate or dissent, and the Houses being thus in accord, the bill was forwarded to the President, Mr. Harrison. On August 30, 1890, he affixed to it his signature and it became a law.

INCREASED ANNUAL GRANT AUTHORIZED BY

THE ACT OF 1907

THE grant authorized by the act of 1890 went into effect immediately, $15,000 a year being appropriated to each state. An automatic increase of $1000 a year took place for each state, until by 1900 the sum of $25,000 had been reached. The annual appropriation remained at that figure until 1907, except that in 1905 $15,000 a year was added to the original annual appropriation of $15,000 authorized for each agricultural experiment station by the act of 1887. The additional grant of 1907 was enacted in this wise. The bill making the annual appropriation for the Department of Agriculture for the Second Session of the Fifty-ninth Congress being before the Senate on February 21, Senator Nelson of Minnesota brought up the amendment of which he had given notice on January 16. This amendment raised the grant, to be paid out of any money in the treasury, not otherwise, to each state for the agricultural colleges to $35,000 a year, with an increase of $5000 each successive year until $50,000 should be reached. The debate on this amendment covers less than one column of the Congressional Record, and therefore could have been of but very few minutes' duration. Senator Nelson said: "What induces me to present the amendment is that in a great many of the states, especially in the south, they are now establishing country and rural agricultural schools, and the object of the amendment is to enlarge the scope of our agricultural colleges so that they can fit teachers for these local agricultural schools." Senator Bacon did not think the increase was large enough, but Senator Nelson said that it was impossible to make it larger at present with any hope of

success.

The Agricultural Appropriation Bill was in charge of Senator Proctor of Vermont, who resigned the Secretaryship of War in President Harrison's Cabinet to become Senator Morrill's colleague in the Senate. Senator Proctor accepted Senator Nelson's amendment with the statement, which it is difficult to reconcile with the existence of the act of 1890: "I wish to say that there has been no addition to the appropriation for the agricultural colleges since the original act established them, under the bill introduced by Senator Morrill, and I happen to know that it was the Senator's intention the last year of his life to prepare an amendment substantially like that of the Senator from Minnesota." The amendment then being accepted by the chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, it was added to the bill by the Senate.

When the Agricultural Bill was received back by the House on February 26, 1907, the House, as is usual in the case of the great appropriation bills, disagreed with all of the amendments, and sent the bill to conference. On March 1, the Senate conferees reported to that chamber that the conference had been able to come to an agreement upon eighty-eight of the ninety amendments added to the bill by the Senate. Upon two of the amendments, however, the conference could reach no agreement, the senatorial members insisting upon the amendments, and the representatives from the House

refusing to accept them. One of these two amendments was the additional grant to the state agricultural colleges. The Senate, without debate, resolved to adhere to the amendments and requested a further conference with the House. The Vice-President reappointed the same conferees, namely, Senator Proctor, Senator Hansborough of North Dakota, and Senator Simmons of North Carolina.

The same conference report was not presented to the House, owing probably to the pressure of business in the last days of a short session, until the following day, March 2. When Mr. Wadsworth of New York, chairman of the Committee on Agriculture, presented it with the request that the House adhere to its refusal to accept the two Senate amendments and request a further conference thereon, Mr. Clayton of Alabama moved that the amendment making the additional grant to the agricultural colleges be accepted by the House, despite the conferees. He said that it was in line with previous legislation.

Mr. Wadsworth then took the floor and explained that the House conferees had re⚫fused to accept this Senate amendment because it was a most important piece of legislation, including an ultimate expenditure of $1,150,000 a year, and "it had never been considered by the House Committee nor by this House, and had never been considered by the Senate five minutes." Mr. Wadsworth said that there was no state in the Union so poor that it was not able to give to the cause of agriculture anything that that cause might justly ask of it. "The original appropriation in 1862 was made when there were a great many new territories and new states. They were not rich; they had not developed their taxable property, and perhaps in those days it was a sensible proposition." The most serious objection to this proposed legislation, in Mr. Wadsworth's opinion, was that "it opens the widest door towards centralization of power in the Federal Government. It is the longest step towards centralization that this House has ever taken," and then he said: "Let me show you how easy the steps are. Last year we passed the Adams Bill, so called, giving $15,000 a year for the experimental stations. I said then that I was opposed to it and that I thought every state ought to take care of its own and that the next thing in the program would be $15,000 to $25,000 for agricultural colleges. And the step, as you see, has come. Now let me show you the bills that are pending on this line now before the Committee on Agriculture: "To apply a portion of the proceeds of the public lands to the state normal schools.' Now there are twice as many state normal schools as there are agricultural colleges, and twice as many votes behind them to pass that measure in this House. Another is 'for the maintenance of agricultural colleges in congressional districts;' another 'to provide'-listen!-'to provide an annual appropriation for industrial education in agricultural high schools and in city high schools;' another 'to provide an annual appropriation for branch agricultural and branch experimental stations, and regulate the expenditure thereof.""

The next step, concluded Mr. Wadsworth, "would be the public schools," and with it federal governmental supervision over all education. He begged the House to let

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such a measure go over and be considered on its merits, and not "jam it through here on an appropriation bill."

Mr. Clayton replied to Mr. Wadsworth that the proposal had received ample consideration except possibly by the members from the city districts, and "Mr. Speaker, we know what we want to do and when we want to do it, and we propose to pass this measure now in order that poor boys may have the full benefit of a good education in scientific agriculture and the most useful and common mechanical arts." He indicated the argument of the chairman of the House conferees drawn from the large amount of proposed legislation of a similar character, and concluded: "We do not hesitate to give money to Annapolis or West Point. We do not hesitate to give money for our consular service. . . . Let us in this small way encourage agriculture, as we have commerce, her handmaiden.” The danger from centralization is imaginary. "Nobody is afraid that the Government is going to be ruined and centralized on account of this small contribution to the agricultural and mechanical colleges of the country."

Mr. Tawney of Minnesota, the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, obtained the floor from Mr. Wadsworth, and out of the amplitude of his knowledge pleaded with the House not to follow the Senate in all of these reckless increases of appropriations, exclaiming, "Is there no limit, Mr. Speaker, to the extravagance of this Congress?"

Mr. Davis, a colleague of Mr. Tawney, followed him and argued in favor of the amendment. He said it was not centralization, that the states pay 83 per cent of the expense of maintaining this system of agricultural education, and that the land grant colleges have influenced the non-agricultural industries nearly as much as they have improved agriculture. "The engineering courses in these colleges have supplied a large share of the men to develop our vast system of transportation and manufacturing." By increasing the educational facilities in each state, each unit would become stronger. "This amendment means decentralization in every line and word."

Mr. Scott of Kansas followed with a vigorous denunciation of the amendment: "Here we have a measure brought in in the closing hours of this session almost as important as this original act... brought in here without any consideration by any committee in this House, without any consideration on the floor of the Senate, and in such a shape that if it had been brought in here originally it could have been stricken from the bill on a point of order." Mr. Scott considered it "preposterous that the states should come to Congress after having been so generously treated and demand still further grants," and he was glad that Kansas had not done so. In reply to Mr. Perkins of New York, Mr. Scott agreed that the larger proportion of the students from these colleges did not follow agricultural pursuits; "to a large extent they are mostly colleges for general education for those entering all ranks of life." Mr. Scott further contended that there was no commonwealth in the Union that could not amply supply the money now appropriated by this amendment, and he related