WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1858
155
on the subject. [Cry of "Question! Question!" The question being taken by yeas and nays on the amendment of Mr. Foster, resulted yeas 19, nays 20. Names given.] Mr. Houston. I suppose this is urged as an economical plan because Government is a little straitened for money. I do not know how much it will bring into the Treasury, but certainly it will make some changes. I think it will be the means of creating about fifty situations for clerks in addition to the present number of clerks employed in the Post Office. How it will save ·any money I cannot possibly conceive. I have heard no reason. [Mr. Davis. How will it create a necessity for additional clerks?] · Mr. Houston. I will tell you how it is. It is necessary that many of the official documents shall be distributed. Of course, when they are distributed by the mails they will have to be regis- tered. The Postmaster General has, perhaps, twenty or thirty thousand to go from his office. He must pay for every one of them. Who is to keep the registry of them? Are not other officers in the same state? Then, will it not be necessary to have more cierks? This proposition cannot affect me; it will affect the pub- lic, and will have to be relegislated upon at some future day. I could never see any advantage that could possibly result from the abolition of the franking privilege. I thought the proposition came from a man who was a little crazy or demented, when it was made some year ago, that no advantage could arise from it, and that multiplication of offices would be the consequence; because the public must pay the expense of the necessary correspondence of the officers that are engaged in public business; for they cannot support it. It would take the salaries of the heads of Depart- ments to give distribution to their documents, if they had to pay for them. [Interruption.] Mr. Houston. Members of Congress are to make distribution of documents. How are they to do it? Must they be registered at the post office, or must you pass a special law at every dis- tribution of a document? I trust there will never be fewer than there are to-day. Not a day passes that I do not receive applica- tions for the Patent Office reports. They are the most important matter connected with the civil administration of this Govern- ment, out of the dispensations of this city. Are we not to have the privilege of distributing them? I am going out on the 4th of March next, and no benefits or convenience will result to me, I grant you; but it is a principle, a fixed principle with me, that
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