hts. Even if the
president is, as McKinley was, in close and frequent touch with
the Senate and the House of Representatives, the relation is
temporary and unequal, and not what it ought to be, automatic.

Happily we have started a budget system; but the Cabinet should
have seats on the floor of the Houses, and authority to answer
questions and participate in debates. Unless our system was
radically changed, we could not adopt the English plan of selecting
the members of the Cabinet entirely from the Senate and the House.
But we could have an administration always in close touch with
the Congress if the Cabinet members were in attendance when matters
affecting their several departments were under discussion and action.

I heard Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, who was one of the shrewdest and
ablest legislators of our generation, say that if business methods
were applied to the business of the government in a way in which
he could do it, there would be a saving of three hundred millions
of dollars a year. We are, since the Great War, facing
appropriations of five or six billions of dollars a year. I think
the saving of three hundred millions suggested by Senator Aldrich
could be increased in proportion to the vast increase in appropriations.

There has been much discussion about restricting unlimited debates
in the Senate and adopting a rigid closure rule. My own recollection
is that during my twelve years unlimited discussion defeated no
good measure, but talked many bad ones to death. There is a curious
feature in legislative discussion, and that is the way in which
senators who have accustomed themselves to speak every day on
each question apparently increase their vocabulary as their ideas
evaporate. Two senators in my time, who could be relied upon
to talk smoothly as the placid waters of a running brook for an
hour or more every day, had the singular faculty of apparently
saying much of importance while really developing no ideas.
In order to understand them, while the Senate would become empty
by its members going to their committee rooms, I would be a patient
listener. I finally gave that up because, though endowed with
reasonable intelligence and an intense desire for knowledge,
I never could grasp what they were driving at.

XVI. AMBASSADORS AND MINISTERS

The United States has always been admirably represented at the
Court of St. James. I consider it as a rare privilege and a
delightful memory