Mr. SCHENCK. I observe this clause in this bill: “for salaries of asst and subasst commissioners, $147,000.” Now, if the Gentfrom Massachusetts [Mr. ELIOT} is the father of the Freedmens Bureau, think that, as the step father in one sense, I may claim to know something about it. The bill which is now actually the law upon the statute book is a very simple bill in its provisions, and one which was got u in the committee of conference as a sort O compromise between the 2 Houses. Knowing something of the history of this bill. I can state from recollection, without referring to it particularly, that among its provisions is one requiring that the Commissioner and sub commissioners should either be appointed from civil life or might be detailed from the Army; so that officers already employed upon salaries paid by the Government can perform the duties of the bureau. That provision was the more essentially necessar, inasmuch as there was no appropriation made when the bill was passed for carrying out its provisions. In consequence of that provision pretty much all the work of the commissioners and sub commissioners has been done by detailed Officers of the Army and unless it be for the purpose of keeping an account between the Army and the Freedmens Bureau, so that the bureau shall be charged with the salaries of those detailed officers of the Army, I do not quite understand how itcan be that $147, 500 should be needed or expended in paying the salaries of these officers I may remark that I say this as a friend of the bureau, as one who appreciates to the full extent the services of general Howard, its head, as one who wishes to sustain the bureau in every particular. But I think we should understand how it is that an appropriation should be called for so large as this to pay the salaries of commissioners and sub commission ers, when, if Irightly understand the matter, in fact and in law, the business of the commissioners and sub commissioners is performed mainly, if not almost altogether, by detailed officers of the Army. who draw their salaries from another fund.