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member of Congress be supplied, at the public expense, with one paper, leaving the choice of the same to each member."

Beginning with the first legislative Assembly of the Territory of Iowa and extending down to 1872 it was customary for the members to vote themselves from five to thirty daily newspapers apiece, or their equivalent in weeklies. The papers so received were then mailed to constituents, all at the public expense. Other postage was paid for members, but in 1868 by statute the amount was restricted to three dollars a week. Of late no allowance has been made.

Stationery has furnished the biggest field for petty profit at the public charge. It would be but fruitless repetition to rehearse the sins of all the States in this respect. Let a few figures from one suffice, with the knowledge that the same sort of waste can be found in nearly every Legislature in the land, though not always to such marked degree. Minnesota is taken for illustration, not because there is any reason to suppose its Legislature has been the most careless, but because the figures in detail chance to be available through their publication in the little book of Lynn Haines, on "The Minnesota Legislature of 1911." They show 708 pocketknives to have been bought for that body of 63 Senators and 120 Representatives. The average price was about $1.75, which would indicate that the Minnesota lawmakers needed better knives than most of us can afford to carry and lose. In the matter of fountain pens they were not quite so luxurious, for the price paid averaged only $3.13. One of the Representatives inquired in his capacity as a druggist, the wholesale price of pens corresponding in quality to nearly 400 that had been sold to the State at $3 apiece. The dealer was so rash as to quote him a price of $1.80 if he would buy two dozen at a time, and offered to throw in "a handsome oak, plate-glass display case." The Legislature enjoyed the blessings of just one less than 500 fountain pens, all told. The supplies mostly went home with the lawmakers, or somewhere else. Of 180 ink-wells costing $1.26, 32 survived the session, according to the checking of the custodian. Carpetsweepers held out better, three of the six enduring, but only one of twelve turkey dusters remained to serve another term. Nevada may have been the first State to dignify this matter by constitutional provision. In 1864 it directed that an appropriation might be made for postage, express charges, news

papers, and stationery, not to exceed sixty dollars for each member. Illinois in 1870 set fifty dollars as the allowance for such incidentals. Half a dozen other States have deemed it necessary by constitutional requirement to take the same sort of precaution. Trivial specifications about incidentals are quite foreign to the purpose of a Constitution. Furthermore, any allowance at all often fails of its purpose when the account can be taken in cash. In such case it may become nothing but an enlargement of salary and would be better covered therein. More than this, the presence of such provisions in Constitutions may have unforeseen results that harmfully interfere with the proper performance of public duty. For instance, nobody nowadays would question the propriety of adequate telephone service. Yet in 1915 the Supreme Court of Illinois felt compelled to declare unconstitutional an appropriation of twenty-five hundred dollars for telephone tolls for members of the General Assembly, as a violation of the limit for incidental expenses. 1

Time was when the stationery allowance to Congressmen permitted to many of them a commutation that helped a little toward eking out their salaries, but in these days few pocket much from this source. So great has been the growth of correspondence, other perfectly legitimate use of the mails, and office work, that the allowance now more often proves inadequate than excessive.

A quite different aspect of the matter of stationery and printing is presented by the constitutional provisions looking to the prevention of petty grafting in connection with purchases and contracts. Many a scandalous episode has developed in connection with the State printing. The profit therein is often sought by the publishers of some newspaper that gives important political support to the party or faction in power. To scan over-closely a contract made under such conditions, would be ungrateful. The resultant reciprocity in favors has cost the public much money. For example, in Iowa it was alleged that five hundred dollars each had been paid for two blankbooks that could be reproduced at a profit for fifteen dollars. Somebody wanted the passage of a resolution that should lead to inscribing over one of them, in part: "The Twenty-Eighth General Assembly, believing this to be the most valuable book

1 Fergus v. Russel, 270, 111, 304, 332.

of its kind ever owned or ever to be owned by the State, ordered its deposit in this case in the historical building, that it might ever be preserved as a fitting climax of the printer's art, at the close of the nineteenth century." 1

In view of such episodes it is not surprising that we find various drastic provisions in the Constitutions. It would be of little use to enumerate their variations. A typical illustration of their nature will suffice, and a section from the Louisiana Constitution of 1875 will do as well as any. It reads: "All stationery, printing, paper, and fuel used in the legislative and other departments of governments, shall be furnished, and the printing, binding, and distributing of the laws, journals and department reports, and all other printing and binding, and the repairing and furnishing the halls and rooms used for the meetings of the General Assembly and its committees, shall be done under contract, to be given to the lowest responsible bidder below such maximum price, and under such regulations as shall be prescribed by law; provided, that such contracts shall be awarded only to citizens of the State. No member or officer of any of the departments of the government shall be in any way interested in such contracts, and all such contracts shall be subject to the approval of the Governor, the President of the Senate, and Speaker of the House of Representatives, or any two of them." A third of the States provide to much the same effect in their Constitutions and probably most if not all of the rest provide in the same way by statute.

It was an odd provision that the Know-Nothing Legislature of Massachusetts made about stationery in 1855. That Legislature was the product of the agitation against men and things foreign. So it carried its principles to a logical conclusion by prescribing that the lawmakers should use no stationery save that of American manufacture.

Another kind of undue profit at the cost of the taxpayer has been so frequent that an identifying name has been given to it in the word "junket." From the earliest times, in this country at any rate, it has been found necessary on occasion to send legislative committees on errands of investigation or for other quite legitimate purposes. No question can be raised of the propriety of paying the proper expenses of such committees. Unfortunately, payment has given a chance for weak human 1 Statute Lawmaking in Iowa, 673.

nature to yield to temptation in the way of indulging appetite or gratifying extravagant tastes. For example, in 1915, the New York Assembly Committee on Privileges and Elections spent in two election cases $9,075.98 for hotel expenses alone.1 Despite such instances of dereliction, if all the facts could be gathered, it is probable they would show that higher conceptions of duty are gradually coming to prevail, stimulated by reasonable statutes and rules. In Massachusetts, committee junketing, at least of the old type, has almost disappeared. Wives and friends do not now go along at the public expense. Requests for leave to travel are most carefully scrutinized, and unless such requests are formally granted, legislators travel at their own cost. Monthly reports of committee expenses are published in detail in a public document. A majority of the committee must approve every bill before it is paid. The sooner like standards become common throughout the land, the better.

Occasionally Legislatures have gone on junkets in a body, with their officers and friends. The General Assembly of Iowa, for example, thus was wont to visit various State institutions at public expense. Of little value as such visits were, of even less value and of probable injury were junkets at the expense of corporations. It was charged that an excursion of the Iowa legislators to Chicago in 1892 was contrived by the Pullman Palace Car Company in order to affect the action of the Legislature on several bills adverse to Pullman interests. The General Assembly of Iowa has indulged in no such junket since 1904.

Whether there is real value in having visits of inspection made by groups as large as a whole legislative standing committee, may well be considered. The Louisiana House requires such visits to be made by subcommittees of not more than three. Why is not that enough for all practical purposes?

FRANKING

POSTAGE wastes have been insignificant in the State Legislatures, but the topic has some interest, historical and otherwise, in connection with Congress, by reason of the abuse of the franking privilege. Franking, by which is meant the privilege of 1 H. W. Dodds, Procedure in State Legislatures, 21.

sending and receiving letters post-free, is of English origin. It appears to have been first mentioned at the time of the Commonwealth, in 1658. When a Post Office bill was under consideration in 1660, it was proposed to recognize the privilege. Sir Heneage Finch said it was "a poor mendicant proviso, and below the honour of the House." The question being called for, the Speaker, Sir Harbottle Grimstone, was unwilling to put it, saying he was ashamed of it. Nevertheless the proviso was carried, but it was rejected by the Lords. At a subsequent period, however, both Houses did not feel it below their honor to secure for themselves this exemption from postage. They justified it on the ground of the desirability of frequent communication between members and their constituents. "Supposing it is true," said Sir William Yonge, in opposing in 1745 a motion in the House of Commons for annual Parliaments, "that some members never see their constituents from the time they are chosen until they return to solicit their votes at a new election, which I believe is very rarely the case, is there not, or may there not be, a constant intercourse by letter? Are not all letters from or to members of Parliament made free of postage for this very purpose?" 1

Complaint of abuse of the privilege appears early in the eighteenth century. It was declared that His Majesty's revenue was lessened, that scandalous and seditious libels were transmitted, and that these evils were due to a reckless use of the privilege, which extended even to the franking of enormous numbers of letters, without the slightest examination, and the sending of franks by post to be used by persons not members, and valid for any length of time. It was, therefore, directed that for the future the franks must be in the member's own handwriting. Even then the most remarkable abuses were perpetrated. Hampers of game, baskets of fish, parcels of all sorts-even in some cases girls and able-bodied men were carried at His Majesty's expense by the magic of a member's signature.

In 1760 the privilege was limited to franking parcels not exceeding two ounces in weight. Later, in the course of the American war, Lord North proposed to relieve the strain on the revenue by suppressing the exemption altogether, but his statement was received with such a general howl of disapprobation that the idea was dropped at once for fear of alienating

1 Parl. Hist., XIII, 1077.

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