WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1858
137
custom in most countries in which I have been acquainted, that individuals pay for the work that is done; and it is for their account that it is done, subject to the revision of the county sur- veyor. [Several other Senators have spoken.] Indeed, gentlemen, this is a subject in which I have no special interest, other than a Senator on this floor, but it does seem to me to bear a very singular aspect. I have every disposition to defer to the heads of Departments, and to the head of the Interior Department, of whom I have a very high opinion. I know noth- ing of the surveyor general of California. I respect the feelings of the Senators from California on this floor, and I desire that their constituents shall have every possible advantage which legislation can fairly give to them; but I am not prepared to vote for this appropriation. I believe that it is only the trifling sum of $100,000, and it is premised that it will close_ up one avenue to corruption and to bribery that would otherwise exist with the subordinate surveyors. I have no idea of making men honest by legislation, or by bonuses given to them for the purpose of keeping them honest; you simply cannot do it. If you undertake to feed cupidity, and to minister to avarice, you will not make a man honest, for the more he gets the more he wants ; and I am clearly of the opinion that the sum now given to these surveyors is amply sufficient to defray the expenses and render them a recompense for their service. If it is announced that the sur- veyors in California receive fifteen dollars a mile, you w_ill find the surveyors in this country who are receiving two or three, and some less than two dollars per mile, going to California, and there will be a demand for work there that will reduce their · wages, and they will be very glad to obtain employment at a ·more reasonable price than fifteen dollars. If individuals choose to contribute, by way of inducement to the execution of work in which they are interested, a doiweur to those gentlemen, I am sure that no legal prohibition you can make will be sufficient to prevent them from receiving it. There is another feature in this matter that I condemn; and it is placing at the discretion of the officer a sum of money which he is to appropriate and disburse according to his mere will and choice. He will necessarily, in the multitude of deputy surveyors that he will have around him, have some favorites. They will have assigned to them the most pleasing and agreeable portions of the country, and they will be enabled thereby to accomplish a
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