Mr. MCPHERSON. I should vote

yea," if I were not paired. Mr. VEST (when his name was called). I wish to announce a general pair with the Senator from Kansas [Mr. PLUMB] in his absence. I have no doubt that he would vote "yea" on the pending question, and so I shall vote. I vote "yea.'

The roll-call was concluded.

Mr. MCPHERSON. Being assured that the Senator from Michigan [Mr. CONGER] would vote yea," I vote yea.

Mr. MANDERSON. I am paired with the Senator from Kentucky [Mr. BLACKBURN]. If he were present I should vote yea."

Mr. CHACE. I am paired with the Senator for Georgia [Mr. COLQUITT]. I should vote" yea" if he were here.

The result was announced-yeas 49, nays 3; as follows:

So the amendment was laid on the table.

Mr. BROWN. I have an amendment somewhat like the one offered by the Senator from Alabama [Mr. MORGAN], which I desire to offer, though after the very decided vote of the Senate against that amendment I shall not call for the yeas and nays on it. It is not an amendment to prevent illegal conspiracies to wreck railroad trains, but to punish those who do wreck them. As I said, I only offer it, and shall not ask to take a vote of the Senate by yeas and nays on it.

SEC.-.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The amendment will be stated. The CHIEF CLERK. It is proposed to add a new section, as follows: That if any person shall willfully and maliciously destroy or in any manner hurt, damage, injure, or obstruct, or shall willfully and maliciously cause, or aid and assist, or counsel or advise any other person or persons to destroy or in any manner to hurt, damage, injure, or obstruct any railroad engaged in interstate commerce, or in carrying the mails of the United States, or any branch thereof, or any bridge connected therewith, or any vehicle, or if any unauthorized person or persons shall turn, move, or in any manner interfere or meddle with any switch, gate, siding, or other appurtenances to any railroad, such person so offending shall be guilty of felony, and, on conviction thereof in the United States circuit court which shall have jurisdiction of the offense, shall be imprisoned for a term of not less than four nor longer than eight years. If death ensues from such act to any person, the offender shall be guilty of murder and punished accordingly. This penalty shall in no case interfere with the of fender's liability to civil damage.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from Georgia.

Mr. CULLOM. The amendment is substantially the same as the other, and without any disrespect to the Senator from Georgia I move to lay it on the table.

Mr. BROWN. I will state to the Senator from Illinois that when I was on my feet before I said I should not discuss it, because the other had been discussed, and although I intended to have made some remarks upon it the vote of the Senate was so decided that I shall refrain from doing so.

Mr. CULLOM. I withdraw the motion to lay the amendment on the table if the Senator desires to make any remarks.

Mr. BROWN. No; I do not desire to discuss the question after the decided vote of the Senate upon the amendment of the Senator from Alabama. I have already stated that I merely wish to put the amendment on the record and have a vote upon it; and as I stated when up last. I shall not call for the yeas and nays.

Mr. CULLOM. I move to lay the amendment on the table.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on agreeing to the motion of the Senator from Illinois to lay the amendment on the table. The motion was agreed to.

Mr. INGALLS. My colleague [Mr. PLUMB], who is absent from the city, before his departure requested me to offer the amendment, of which he had previously given notice and which I now send to the desk.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The amendment will be read.

The CHIEF CLERK. It is proposed to insert the following as a new section:

That it shall not be lawful for any railroad company, or for any manager, officer, or employé of any such company, to issue or deliver to any member of Congress, or to any officer or employé of the Government, or to any person at the request or on behalf of such member of Congress or employé, or to any member of the family of such member of Congress, or officer, or employé, any pass, check, or other instrument entitling the person to whom issued, or any other person whomsoever, to ride over any such railroad, or any part thereof, free or for a rate or charge less than that required to be paid by the general public; and it shall likewise be unlawful for any member of Congress, or for any officer or employé of the Government, to apply for or receive, for himself or for another, or to use, any such pass, check, or other instrument, or in any way to travel over any such railroad, or any part thereof, at and for any rate or charge lower than that charged to the general public; and any person who violates any of the foregoing provisions shall be subject to imprisonment not exceeding six months, or a fine of not less than $500, or both such imprisonment and fine, in the discretion of the court.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on agreeing to the amendment proposed by the Senator from Kansas.

Mr. INGALLS. I ask for the yeas and nays.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. TELLER. I offer an amendment to the amendment. I move to add:

That it shall not be lawful for any railroad company chartered or created by the United States, or any railroad company that has at any time received aid or assistance from the United States, either in money or by grant of land, to issue passes to any person or persons, or to allow any person or persons to travel on said railroad, or any part thereof, at and for a rate less than that charged for general travel over said road, save and except only the officers and employés of said road.

The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The question is on agreeing to the amendment of the Senator from Colorado to the amendment of the Senator from Kansas.

Mr. TELLER. Mr. President, I doubt very much the propriety of putting any legislation upon the bill with reference to passes. If we

do, it seems to me there is no reason why we should say to the railroad company that a certain class should not receive passes. So far as we have the power to control such a matter, I suppose we might say by statute at any time that a member of Congress should refrain from accepting passes. We might say that other officials of the Government should so refrain. I do not suppose we could say to a railroad company, simply because it is engaged in interstate commerce, that it shall not give passes to citizens of a State or to any one they see fit. The restriction must be put upon the person holding official station, and not upon the road. But here are roads which we have chartered, have created, in which the Government of the United States has a proprietary interest; it is interested in the receipts from the passenger traffic. If there are any

roads in the country which are suffering at all from this system, they are the roads which the Government holds its lien upon; and if we are going into this question at all, if we are to make any rule about passes, we ought to make one that will cover the case which I propose to cover in my amendment.

I think myself, however, that the bill ought not to be loaded down with that kind of an amendment. I am quite willing at any time to join in the passage of a general law of that kind, but it is not specially germane to this bill, and there is no particular reason why such a provision should be put on the bill at all.

Mr. PLATT. I agree with the Senator from Colorado that it is not exactly germane to the bill to put on this amendment, and perhaps as a member of the committee I ought to oppose its being put on the bill; but I am so well satisfied that the whole system of issuing passes not only to members of Congress but to everybody else is a discrimination against persons that I can not hesitate to vote for the amendment, it being proposed.

I do not wish to make any argument in favor of it, but I want to read a little from the testimony of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, who is now the president of the Union Pacific Railroad Company. Speaking of the difficulty of preventing rebates, he said:

A large shipper-and it is to large shippers that rebates are made-may have to pay an apparently sustained rate between Chicago and Omaha, while he secretly receives his rebate on local shipments to Galena or Rock Island. Again, he may pay the sustained rate on one article and receive the rebate on another, or finally he may pay the full rate to-day and receive the rebate in some other shape to-morrow. All these things are done, and done habitually.

Then he came to the pass system:

But the free-pass system is the favorite method of influencing traffic, and that is resorted to almost as a matter of course. The average shipper is fast getting to look on a pass as his right, and he thinks more of it than of several fold its money value to him. The extent to which this abuse has grown is very alarming. It is still growing.

Then ensued this colloquy:

Senator PLATT. That is one of the things which might be remedied by positive law about as easily as anything else.

Mr. ADAMS. How would you go to work to remedy it?

Senator PLATT. By forbidding the issuing of passes.

Mr. ADAMS. If you would, in a way that will be effective, forbid the issuing of passes. I would agree at once to make a considerable reduction in our passenger rates.

Senator PLATT. Would you like to have it done, if it could be done?

Mr. ADAMS. Nothing would please me more. I should like to have a heavy penalty imposed for every pass issued. I do not, as a rule, like to work through legislation in these matters, but if you will pass a law prohibiting all free passes and subjecting to fine and imprisonment any man who signs a pass or any conductor who takes a pass up

Senator PLATT (interposing). Or any man who rides on a pass.

Mr. ADAMS (continuing). Or any man who rides on a pass, it would make a happy day for railroads and railroad managers.

The CHAIRMAN. You would feel that one good step had been taken?

Mr. ADAMS. If effective, such a law would relieve us of one of the greatest annoyances, outrages, and abuses that now exist in connection with the railroad business.

The CHAIRMAN. And yet you feel that you are compelled in self-defense to issue them?

Mr. ADAMS. Our free transportation over the Union Pacific amounts to $2,000 a day. I do not mean by that to imply that we give it away to that amount, because the carriage of our employés is included. Also very many people to whom passes are issued would never travel if they did not have a pass. Probably a very large percentage of the $2,000 a day-I will not say whether 40 or 50 or 60 per cent. of it-is travel of the non-paying kind, but last week the return of passes sent in to me footed up $14,000 in fares.

The CHAIRMAN. You think probably half of that would be to employés? Mr. ADAMS. To employés and telegraph operators, and to all the innumerable persons in some way connected with the operation of the road.

Then further on Mr. Adams said:

The pass system is an outrage. There is no reason whatever why any one ̧ should be carried free over a railroad any more than why he should be boarded and lodged free at a hotel, drive free in public carriages, or order goods without paying for them in shops. Yet, and especially in the West, things are getting to such a pass that no man who has money, or official position, or influence-especially political or newspaper influence thinks he ought to pay anything for riding on a railroad. The company which flings about passes right and left is "liberal," the company which refuses to do so is "stingy," and it shall assuredly be made "red hot" for it when the Legislature meets.

Mr. KENNA. Mr. President, under ordinary conditions I should not hesitate a moment to vote against this proposition. I do not approve it, because I have no doubt on earth, on the principle and theory implied by the amendment, that any man in this Congress or out of it who could be bought by a railroad pass could be much more conveniently bought by the ready cash. So that so far as the real merit of the proposition be concerned, I should not hesitate at all to vote against it.

We all know that this nation of more than fifty millions of people, in a struggle which began twenty years ago, and possibly more, for the intervention of some power to restrain the unrestrained railroad corporate combinations, has come to realize the fact that if any such intervention be made it must be made by Congress. That Congress is composed of two Houses, one numbering seventy-six members and the other three hundred and twenty-five, with the possibility and probability, perhaps I would not overstep the bounds of propriety if I said with the certainty that there is not a man in either House who does not sit today with a pass over some railroad in his pocket. I am not only ready to concede but ready to maintain that he has received with perfect good faith and with perfect sincerity and honesty, and without a thought of improper motive or purpose, that pass. And yet the public presentation of this issue does not quite present the spectacle to the people of the United States which we ought to confront. For because of a conventional semblance, because of a conventional relationship as between those of us here who are called upon to legislate upon so grave a subject as this, I should vote, if at all, for this amendment.

I reiterate, I do not believe in the principle it asserts, because any man who may be bought or influenced by a railroad pass in his pocket could be better, more reasonably, and conveniently managed by the cash. Mr. SPOONER. Mr. President, the proposition applied to the Pacific railway companies, that they should not be permitted while in debt to the Government, and in default, to carry hundreds and thousands of persons as a matter of compliment or favoritism without com

pensation, seems to possess force. It would seem to be, in a sense, a measure of protection to the Government, if it were practicable, that as to such railway companies a provision of this kind should be adopted. But I desire to call the attention of the Senator who advocates this amendment to the fact that railway companies in this country to-day, and it has been so for a great many years, do not give passes simply as a matter of compliment, nor simply as a matter of securing favor or protection, but they have been and are often used as a means of procuring and keeping business.

The proposition to embody in the law a prohibition, applicable only to the Pacific Railway Companies which owe the Government, against issuing passes, leaving to the railway corporations whose roads are being operated by the side of the Pacific roads the unrestricted power to issue them to shippers, to purchase or influence business by means of them, would certainly put the Pacific railway corporations at a very great disadvantage. I suppose there is hardly a railroad company in the country which takes a shipment of stock which does not give to the party or parties in charge of the stock a pass or passes. While corporations which sustain no such relation to the Government of the United States as the companies mentioned in the amendment are at liberty to give passes, they will use that power to procure business, and to impose such restrictions upon the subsidized companies and leave unrestricted their rivals and competitors would be unjust to the companies and detrimental to the interest of their patrons and to the interest of the United States.

Then there are corporations which have received and earned land grants which owe the Government nothing and which would fall within the amendment of the Senator from Colorado. Right alongside of those roads railroads are being operated by companies which have received no land grants; and the effect of the amendment if it became the law would be, as I say, to give the corporations which have received no grants a very great advantage in the way of competition against those who would be embraced by the amendment.

The prohibition should be directed at all companies coming within the provisions of this bill or at none.

Mr. KENNA. I hope my friend did not in any sense whatever misunderstand my proposition.

Mr. SPOONER. Not at all.

Mr. KENNA. I believe the amendment to be utterly futile and utterly worthless, and the declaration of a principle which implies a reflection upon gentlemen of standing and character, both in and out of Congress, and that it ought not to enter into our legislation.

I have been reminded in the statement I made a moment ago, that I had no reason to doubt that every member of both Houses of Congress had passes in his pocket which he had received honestly and sincerely, without any thought of reciprocation, that the statement might be too broad. I know nothing about that. I only spoke in the broad sense of what I understand and conceive to be the principle of the amendment; and I repeat what I have already said, that I believe the amendment to be calculated-perhaps "calculated" would imply a motive, and I will withdraw that if it does-but I believe the amendment in effect would operate eventually to defeat a measure which everybody concedes to have good objects in view, and to be in the interest of a salutary public object.

Mr. SPOONER. I only want to say to the Senator from West Vir