Mr. HOWE. Well, Mr. President, I am bound to say that the reason is not satisfactory to me. I supposed, as the Senfrom Ver mont has remarked, that this was not a tem porary expedient, but a measure proposed for the government of the country hereafter; and in that view of the bill I do insist for one that these officers should be placed upon the footing of all other employees of the Government. They differ only in grade from other officers who are not included in the exception. They are of more importance to the public service than any other of those officers to whom the bill has reference, and because they are of so much more importance I think the reason is just so much stronger why the tenure of their offices should be regulated by law. The Senator calls them the confidential advisers of the President. Now, I deny to them all right to that designation. I do not concede that they are the confidential advisers of the President, or at least that the law contemplates that they should be; that such is the purpose of their creation. They are the servitors of the country; they are placed there for the benefit of the people; and it is no more necessary that they should be on confidential terms with the President than that they should be on confidential terms with the representatives of the people. It is very true it may happen at some juncture that the head of a dept may be on unfriendly terms with the of the executive dept; it may make their personal intercourse disagreeable to one or the other; but such contingencies happen in the administration of public affairs in other countries. I believe no attention is paid to the question whether a minister of GreatBritain is personally agreeable or disa greeable to the sovereign. He is put in office because he is agreeable to the people, and he holds office no longer than he is agreeable to the representatives of the people; and whatever may be the personal inclinations of the sovereign he leaves office whenever he proves dissatisfactory to the people. I know of no reason why American law should be more careful of the personal feelings of the POTUS or less careful of the wishes of the people of the U.S. than British law should be of the personal feelings of their sovereign or of the wishes of the people of GreatBritain. We supposed our institutions were as dependent upon the pleasure of the people as those of GreatBritain. I hope they are to continue even more so; but it does look to me as if the exception which it is proposed to insert in this bill is to make the executive officers less responsible to the people and the administration of the Government than is the administration of the British government. For these reasons I move to strike out the words included within parentheses in the 1st section of the amendment of the committee. The words which I propose to strike out are “excepting the Secretaries of State, of the Treasury, of War, of the Navy, of the Inte rior, the PostMGenl, and the AttyGen.”