People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 34, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1896 — DEAD STATESMAN. [ARTICLE]

DEAD STATESMAN.

COME HIGH AND CONGRESS REFUSES TO CHEAPEN. ranenU* and Obituaries gnat* aad House Decline to Omit Them —Growth of the Seaadal —Commissary Supplies —Home Bee eat Extravagances. (Special Correspondence Globe-Democrat.) Washington.—Senator Peffer has 500 newspaper comments on his congressional funeral bill. Not one of these comments is unfavorable. The bill has come before the senate three times and been sidetracked three times on parliamentary pretexts. It will never pass. Statesmen cling to their perquisites, in death as in life. Congressional eulogies are as farcical as congressional funerals are scandalous. In the house a few days ago a heroic .effort was made to do away with the congressional eulogies. It commanded just thirty-one votes. Those voting in the negative numbered 130. This division took place on the heels of a statement from former chairman of the committee on printing that in a single congress the bill for printing eulogies of deceased members had eost over SIOO,OOO. The house had a funny time in discussing the proposed reform.

Mr. Lacey, of lowa, .told of a constituent who had written asking for “some memorial addresses, because, as he said, there was nothing he read with so much pleasure as the obituaries of congressmen.” (Laughter.) “The whole country is about in the same mind,” commented Mr. Walker, of Massachusetts, and there was another roar of great laughter. Mr. Curtis, of New York, told how one of these memorial addresses “had transformed a venerable bachelor of mature years into a married man with wife and many children. (Laughter.) I need hardly say that this account of the deceased member somewhat disturbed his friends at home, who had always supposed that their distinguished representative at Washington had pursued an entirely different course of life.” (Great laughter.) Having had their jokes, the statesmen voted down the proposition to stop delivering eulogies to empty seats and indorsed the continued printing of them, with steel-plate engravings, in sombercolored books, at a cost of $50,000 or thereabouts annually.

The eulogies will be delivered and the funerals will go on after the old plan. It has cost us up to date over SIOO,OOO to bury dead senators. Senator Peffer’s bill does not propose that senatorial deaths shall be ignored. It provides that when a senator or representative dies at Washington, the branch of which he is a member shall appoint a committee “to properly prepare and incase the body of the deceased and forward it in charge of a sergeant-at-arms to the home of the deceased and deliver it to his family or to his relatives.” This is to be done at government expense, but “no action or proceeding requiring the expenditure of public money other than is herein provided for, shall be taken.” This is the proposed legislation which the press so unanimously indorses. Senator Hawley of Connecticut, Senator Mills of Texas, Senator Faulkner of West Virginia and Senator Mitchell of Oregon have in turn found parliamentary objections which have prevented a vote on the bill. Doubtless some other senators will be ready the next time the bill comes up as “unfinished business” to shunt it out of the way. One day the bill was to be considered at 2 o’clock. That day the senate adjourned at 1:48. Where Senator Peffer finds an unanswerable argument is in thegrowingextravagance in attending these funerals. Up to 1847 there had been forty-eight deaths of senators, and in only eleven of these cases was the senate called upon to spend any money. When senators died at their homes or during a recess of the senate, it was not deemed necessary for the government to turn undertaker. Now, however, no senatorial death is allowed to escape the contingent fund. Down to 1847 no senatorial funeral cost as much as SI,OOO. Since 1877 every senator but one who has died has been buried at government expense. It is perhaps worthy of mention that the last senatorial death before 1877 which did not cost the government anything was that of Lewis V. Bogy of Missouri. Mrs. Leland Stanford did not permit the senate to pay any of the bills of her husband’s funeral, but the Hearst obsequies cost the government $21,322.55. Some of the more recent congressional funerals illustrate the elasticity of the expense accounts. When Representative Houk of Ohio dropped dead during the last congress, he was given a casket that cost $350, to which was added a copper lining at a cost of SIOO more. A brick grave and a marble slab were put in by the thrifty cemetery management in Ohio. It cost $937.24 to take the committee from Washington to Dayton and back, and them en route. When these bills were audited it was found necessary to disburse in addition $74.60 for meals en route. Dayton is about fifteen hours from Washington. The committee was evidently composed of good feeders.

Another recent congressional funeral was that of Representative Chlpman, whose body was taken to Detroit. Here are a few of the queer items in the Chipman fufteral account: One-half dozen glasses $lB Six professional bearers..,. 18 Shaving 5 Pall-bearers’ invitations 5 .Canopy at grave 10 Soloist and male quartet....! 35 Four clergymen’s fees 40 Choir and organist 40

Mr. Chipman wan pot into a $550 casket and taken to Detroit in a special car at a cost of $669.39. The committee that went with the casket spent $492.51 for Pullman berths and “commissary supplies,’’sl4s.7s for “rooms, porters’ fees and transportation”—another ease of healthy appetites on a sad errand. Here is a compilation which shows how the scandal has been developing, and in which is found the inspiration for the Peffer bill: Deaths of representatives during the years 1890 to 1894 inclusive numbered 21 Their obsequies cost the government a total of $26,792 67 An average of 1,275 84 During the same four years eleven senators died, and the average expense of their funeral ceremopies was.... 4,542 02 Total for senate $49,962 22 Total for last two congresses $76,758 89 The first senatorial funeral at which government expense was incurred was that of Francis Malbone of Rhode Island. Among the items charged to the contingent fund in connection with the funeral of Senator Malbone were: Sixteen pounds of crackers $3 00 Eleven and a quarter pounds of cheese 2 81 It appears from the record that the committee to audit and control the contingent expenses allowed the item for crackers but rejected the bill for cheese. Senator Peffer had his attention called to the congressional funeral scandal when he, as chairman of the committee, was called upon to look over and approve the bills for the funeral of his colleague, Senator Plumb. He cut down one charge of SSOO to $l5O. But even after the scrutiny which the senator gave the items the total was $3,082.75. This was more than SI,OOO less than the average for the last ten senatorial funerals, but it was “equal to the estimated value of an average American farpi,’ / as Senator Peffer puts it. In the funeral expenses of Senator Plumb, paid by the senate, it appears that after paying S4OO for a casket and $55 for embalming the body in Washington, the committee employed another undertaker at Kansas to re-em-balm the body and to attend it two days, for which $l5O was paid. The sashes bought for the twelve members of the committee to wear cost $46.48. It appears that after reaching Emporia the members of the committee scattered In various directions to their homes, and then put in individual bills for what they spent in getting back to Washington by various roundabout ways. “Commissary supplies en route” for those twelye gentlemen cost $153.41. "Commissary supplies” cover a multitude of expensive habits. In the old contingent expense accounts of congressional funerals were found wine, brandy, cognac, almonds, raisins, syrup, soda water and so on. These items never appear now. “Commissary supplies” sounds better. When congress footed the bill for the nation’s hospitality to Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian patriot, one item in the official expense account was:

Champagne, sherry, madeira, postage, cigars, lemonade, bar bill, washing, medicine, post office stamps, porterage, and messengers, hack hire paid at different timer, telegrams, sugar, brandy and whisky in room, porter and ale, envelopes, barber’s bill $658.82 Brandy and whisky were called “brandy and whisky” in those daysf and not “commissary supplies.” One curious discovery, resulting from Senator Peffer’s industrious investigation is the fact that distance usually has little to do with the cost of a congressional funeral. Senator Plumb was buried at Emporia, Kan., and Senator Kenna at Charleston, W. Va. Emporia is more than 1,000 miles west of Charleston. Senator Kenna’s funeral cost $34.75 more than Senator Plumb’s. “Commissary supplies, meals and lunches” for the Kenna funeral cost $432.48 —about three times the cost of the same for the trip from Washington to Emporia. Charleston, W. Va„ is eleven hours’ ride from Washington. Besides this $432.48 for ‘“commissary supplies, meals and lunches” on the Kenna funeral trip, there was a charge of $76.50 for room and board while at Charleston. A Washington undertaker went on the trip and received $45 for his funeral services, while the Charleston undertaker got $56 more for his funeral expenses. The two items already mentioned for “commissary supplies” and for “room and board,” aggregating over SSOO, do not Include $29.75 for breakfast at an eating station en route. The car which carried the body of Senator Kenna was draped at a cost of $55. “Besides, undertakers,florists and hotelkeepers all perform their work and make their charges on the same grand scale,” Senator Peffer observes. How little distance figures in the expense accounts is shown by two senatorial funerals. The bodies of Senator Miller and Senator Hearst were taken to California. Senator Miller’s funeral cost $3,532.34. Senator Hearst’s cost $21,322.55. Senator Vance was buried in North Carolina, a little more than a day’s ride from Washington, but the expense account was $4,438.66. ' The first senatorial funeral that cost over $1,500 was that of Senator John C. Calhoun, for whose interment in South Carolina the government paid $3,106.47. Tliat same year the contingent expense account was drawn on for another senatorial funeral in South Carolina, and the amount was only $1,726.10. The Y,ery next senatorial funeral was Henry Clay’s. It cost the senate $5,447.02. The minuteness with which the generous accounts are kept is striking. No pennies escape. In the case of Charles Sumner o( Massachusetts, the items

charged to the contingent fund amounted to $4,687.99. Not in so muclk as a single cent was the government wronged. The funeral of Senator Hearst leads all others in costliness. Henry Clay’s comes next, and after that is Charles Sumner’s. Senator Beck’s body was taken to Kentucky at a cost of $4,453.45. The custom of drawing on the contingent funds for funerals of statesmen be£an, as already stated, ♦ th cases where deaths occurred at Washington when congress was sitting. It now extends to senators and representatives wherever they die. The last senatorial death was that of Senator Stockbridge of Michigan, which occurred at the senator’s home. A committee of senators was appointed and sent to the funeral at a cost of $1,171.92. Representative Myron B. Wright died during recess in the last congress. The sergeant-at-arms made up a party to attend the funeral and charged the expenses, $1,414.80, to the contingent fund. It will be noted that the cost of assembling a committee to witness the burial of a dead senator or representative at his home when congress is not in session is much greater now than the cost of giving a funeral in Washington and of sending all the way home with an escort was a few years ago. “The average congressional funeral,” says Senator Peffer, “is nothing more than a party of goodnatured gentlemen having a good time at the public expense.” In the fifty-second and fifty-third congresses there were twenty-one funerals of representatives; that is twenty-one funerals in four years from 1891 to 1895. The cheapest was that of Representative James Phelan, of Memphis, who died in the Bermudas, and was taken thence to Tennessee at an expense to the government of only $345.80.. The most expensive of these twenty-one funerals was that of J. L. Chipman, of Detroit, which cost $2,308.40. The body of the Hon. J. W. Kendall was escorted to the mountain home in Eastern Kentucky at a cost of $2,166.56, and one of tht members who went with it wrote forf the papers a very humorous description of the expedition on his return to Washington. W. B. S.