Mr. CONNESS. Mr. President, I do not partake of the apprehensions of the honorable Senfrom Oregon, that the adoption of this amendment will defeat this measure. All that I find in the argument of the Senfrom Illinois on this subject is this: that because Congress has heretofore done partial jostice to a few clerks we shall now do less than justice to them. That is his argument as I see it and understand it. Because a few clerks have received the compensations stated we are to do injustice to a great many clerks and pay them less than they should have. Mr. President, for 2 years I had the honor of a seat in the committee of which the distinguished Senfrom Maine is chairman. It was during 2 years of the war. During that time the most valuable clerks in the Treas. ury and other Depts, but particularly in the Treasury, left the public employ, being offered and constantly receiving as they did higher compensation for their labor from banks, insurance companies, and private business firms in the country. We were told again and again, and notified by the head of the Treasury Dept and by the heads of bureaus in that Dept, that unless an advance was made they could not keep men whose services were a necessity to the Government. It was by reason of those constant fipplications and statements authoritatively made that this system that is now so much condemned, of making an appropriation and placing it within the discretion of the SecyTreasury, was resorted to, because we could not at that time resort to a general advance of the compensation of clerks. The Treasury we thought could not bear it; and therefore it was deemed necessary to make an appropriation which should be divided in a great measure among the most valuable clerks in the Dept, that they might be kept in the public service. Now, 2 years or a year after that measure of justice has been performed it is argued here that we shall do less than justice tonight. I do not understand the logic. I cannot understand why, if we have given something because of the deserts of those men, we shall now play the Indian giver, and, as it were, take it back again by refusing to give them the compensation which we are extending to other clerks. The honorable Senfrom Illinois shows great zeal in this matter. It is well to have zeal in behalf of the Treasury; but it appears to me that it were better exercised otherwise than against those men who perform valuable services for the Government. It was well stated by the honorable Senfrom Maine that the worst feature of this resolution is that it proposes to give the 20%. to a set of clerks in all the Depts who are not wor thy of it. I mean the 1st class clerks, many of whom get as much as they deserve, who have no families to support, nobody depending on them, who can live well, if they live properly, upon $1, 200 per annum; but no distinction can be made, and that to my mind is the evil of this measure of relief to the clerks. But it cannot be avoided; it must be done; for there are among those 1200 dollar clerks many men of superior capacity and of great necessity men called upon to maintain families in this District, to educate, feed, and clothe children. But, sir, as to this proposition whether we shall refuse to give this advance of 20%. to a worthy and superior class of men because we have rendered them already in the past a partial measure of justice, I cannot understand the force of the logic nor the justice of the proposition.