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extension is general and urgent. It is just that the great agricultural population should share in the improvements of this service.

Again, in his last annual message, the President says:

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"The rural free-delivery service has been steadily extended. The attention of Congress is asked to the question of the comRensation of the letter carriers and clerks engaged in the postal service, especially on the new rural free-delivery routes. More routes have been installed since the 1st of July last than in any like period in the Department's history. While a due regard to economy must be kept in mind in the establishment of new routes, yet the extension of the rural free-delivery system must be continued for reasons of sound public policy. No governmental movement of recent years has resulted in greater immediate benefit to the people of the country districts.

"Rural free delivery, taken in connection with the telephone, the bicycle, and the trolley, accomplishes much toward lessening the isolation of farm life and making it brighter and more attractive. In the immediate past the lack of just such facilities as these has driven many of the more active and restless young men and women from the farms to the cities, for they rebelled at loneliness and lack of mental companionship. It is unhealthy and undesirable for the cities to grow at the expense of the country; and rural free delivery is not only a good thing in itself, but is good because it is one of the causes which check this unwholesome tendency toward the urban concentration of our population at the expense of the country districts."

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These indorsements demonstrate beyond the possibility of question that under Republican rule this service, fraught with so much good to the people of the rural communities, has been nurtured and cared for until it has become one of our permanent institutions, against which no political party will ever dare raise a voice.

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At present New York has nearly 2,000 routes in operation; Pennsylvania, 2,100; Indiana, 2,200; Ohio, 2,500; Illinois, 2,800; Minnesota, 1,600; Missouri, 2,000; Nebraska, 1,000. In fact, almost all cases pending during the past year have been disposed of, and wherever an adequate number of people desired the service it has been established and put in daily use.

INCREASED VALUE OF FARM LANDS,

The testimony of those who enjoy this service from all over the country proves that by reason of the free rural delivery the actual value of farm lands has been greatly increased. 'I have had farmers inform me that they would not dispense with the service for $50 or even $100 per annum. It has been estimated that the value of farm lands has risen by this means as high as $5 per acre in many States. A moderate estimate would show a benefit to the farm lands of from $1 to $3 per acre.

A better knowledge of trade conditions is always of great advantage. The farmer is not only the producer, but he is also his own salesman, and it is essential that he should be acquainted with the daily prices of the produce he raises in order to know when it will be to his advantage to market his goods. He is now enabled to receive a city daily paper giving him quotations and prices of stock and produce, and in fact the changing values of everything he raises on the farm. By means of this better communication with the markets he is able to obtain better prices for all that the farm produces. He can also receive and dispatch mail much more quickly than beforein fact, he can in many cases obtain an answer to his letter on the day following its dispatch. In the old days our rural inhabitant was obliged to send to the post-office for his mail, and in the busy season, when his horses were busy in the fields, a week would sometimes elapse before he or any of his family could reach the post-office. Now there are delivered daily in the course of a year a half million pieces of mail on rural routes throughout the country to the farmers and inhabitants of the sparsely settled regions.

Increased facility always brings increased use and enjoyment. The increased number of letters written and newspapers subscribed for and received has so greatly augmented the revenues of the country's postal service as to make the rural free-delivery service almost self-sustaining.

Rural free delivery is encouraging the building of good roads. The farmer desires the delivery of his mail, and the Department wisely insists that each locality must furnish roads easily traversed if such a benefit is to be bestowed. In many localities, therefore, our people have taken the matter of good roads into consideration, and through their supervisors and commissioners have improved grades, turned waterways, built bridges, and thus not only aided the delivery of mail, but have facilitated general communication among our people.

This service has been practically established and built up within the last eleven years. During the last Administration of President Cleveland rural free delivery was condemned and rejected by the Committee on Post-Offices and Post-Roads of the House. Under this same Democratic Administration in 1894 the Postmaster-Général refused to make use of the appropriation of $10,000 offered him to begin the service. He stated that the project was unwise and could not be carried out. Under the Republican Administration it has been extended until it has become one of the most beneficial and useful portions of legislation provided by the Federal Government. It has become, under Republican prosperity and Republican administration of law, thoroughly established as one of our permanent institutions. Its general use and benefits are conclusive proof of the wisdom of recent Republican progress.

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Mr. SPEAKER: The solicitude of the honorable gentleman from Missouri [Mr. DE ARMOND] on behalf of himself and his colleagues for the sanctity of the Constitution of the United States is decidedly refreshing. It is within the memory of most of us in this Chamber, and those in whose memory it is not have read in history, that the time was, Mr. Speaker, not so very long ago when the Democratic party was not so solicitous for the Constitution as my honored friend from Missouri appears to be to-day. Their solicitude to-day seems to be over the matter of having useless roll calls. The absence of solicitude half a century ago with reference to a question of vastly greater consequences, a question which involved not a mere matter of procedure, but the matter of the life of a nation, and I am glad that the time has at last come when our Democratic friends are so solicitous that the' Constitution should be sacredly lived up to. [Applause on the Republican side.]

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The gentleman from Missouri intimates that the Republican side of the House desires to do away with the roll calls because of some fear of making a record upon some question before the House. Mr. Speaker, the Republican party in this House, the Republican party in this nation, is prepared to-day to accept full responsibility, not only for everything that is done, but for that which is not done in the way of legislation and administration. [Applause on the Republican side.] We recognize the fact, sir, that this Government to-day is Republican in all its branches. We recognize the fact that we have a Republican President, brave, wise, and courageous, We recognize that we have a Republican majority in the Senate, that we have a Republican majority in this House that is ready to resort to every legal, every proper constitutional right to enact such legislation as it deems for the best interest for the greatest number of our people, and which is willing and ready to accept full responsibility for all those measures which are introduced here and which are not enacted into law. [Applause on the Republican side.]

We are not anxious, Mr. Speaker, to avoid responsibility. The Republican party has always been ready to accept full responsibility when it has been in power, and in that respect I must say to my honored friend from Missouri, that it is in direct contrast to the Democratic party, which, even when it has had

the power, has lacked the courage to carry out its declared policies. [Applause on the Republican side.]

The rule which has been proposed here, Mr. Speaker, is nothing extraordinary; it is a method laid down by the House procedure by which the majority can enact such legislation as it deems wise. It is practically and substantially the same procedure that was carried out in the Fifty-second and Fifty-third Congresses, when our Democratic friends were in a majority and when they were responsible for legislation. They invoked the action of the Committee on Rules, properly so, and that is what the Republican party in this House do to-day, Mr. Speaker; they resort, not to unusual methods, but to methods laid down by the rules, laid down by the law, to enact legislation, and not waste the time in useless and senseless foll calls,

The Democratic party, Mr. Speaker, under its present leadership in the House, I assume, believes that they are making great political capital by the filibuster of the past two weeks; but, Mr. Speaker, in my judgment they are not deceiving the country. The country knows that the way to progress is not to put on the brakes. The country knows, even if the Democratic party does not know, Mr. Speaker, that the way to move forward is to move forward and not attempt to block the wheels of progress.

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But it is a, Democratic policy; it has been heretofore, and I assume it will be long afterwards for many years yet to come. to attempt to move forward as the crab does--by moving backward. [Applause and laughter on the Republican side.] That is not Republican policy. The country is not deceived. The country is looking to the Republican party to enact certain legislation. It is looking to the Republican party to enact the great appropriation bills for carrying on this Government, and it is looking to this House to enact those laws at the speediest possible time, and to adjourn this House, and that is what the Republican party proposes to do. Our Democratic friends will discover, I expect, one of these days that they have not made the political capital out of the maneuvers of last week that they supposed they would. Democratic hindsight is always superior to Democratic foresight, Mr. Speaker. In that respect I think their situation can be described in the little verselet about the bug, with which we are all familiar, and which runs:

The lightning bug is brilliant; but it has not any mind; It stumbles through existence, with its headlight on behind. [Laughter and applause on the Republican side.]

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That is just what the Democratic party is doing now. headlight is on behind. It seems to see nothing in the future; it seems to be attempting to deceive the country with the idea that it is accomplishing undesirable legislation, forcing the Republican party to do that which that party does not deem to be wise, forcing it in its forward progress by hanging on to the wheels of progress, attempting to prevent that vehicle from moving forward. But, Mr. Speaker, the Republican party, mindful of its obligations to the country, will, as the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. DE ARMOND] admits, adopt this rule and proceed, accepting full responsibility for its every act, and enact such legislation as it deems wise, pass the great appropriation bills, and then go to the country upon the record that it has made here, confident that the country understands the whole situation and will approve what has been done. [Applause on the Republican side.]

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