elect committee offered by a
senator on this side of the chamber at the present session, and I
have voted against all resolutions of that character.

No senator, in my judgment, will rise in his place in the Senate
and say that it is necessary to appoint a special committee to
consider the matters referred to in the resolution. It is true I
am a member of the committee, and perhaps ought not to refer to
it, but we have a standing committee, of which the distinguished
senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Hoar] is chairman, the Committee
on Privileges and Elections, that, I take occasion to say, is a
very proper committee for this matter to go to; and that
committee has almost nothing on earth to do. There is but one
single subject-matter now before it, and I believe there will be
scarcely another question before that committee at this session.
There is not a contested election; there is not a dispute about
anybody's seat; and yet it is a Committee on Privileges and
Elections. What is the reason for going on continually and
appointing these select committees, when there are standing
committees here, properly organized to consider the very question
specified by the resolution, with nothing to do?

Now, I am going to say one other thing, I do not pretend that the
purpose I am now about to state is the purpose of the senator
from Massachusetts. I have no reflections to make as to what this
resolution is intended for, but we do know that there is an idea
abroad that select committees are generally appointed for the
purpose of giving somebody a chairmanship, that somebody may have
a clerk. That is not the case here, I dare say. I do not mean to
intimate that it is the case here, but it ought to be put a stop
to; it is all wrong. I think, though, that there ought to be a
resolution passed by this body giving every senator who has not a
committee a clerk. Everybody knows that every chairman of a
committee has a clerk in the clerk of that committee. The other
senators, at least in my opinion, ought each to have a clerk. I
would vote for such a resolution. I believe it would be right,
and I believe the country would approve it. Every senator knows
that he has more business to attend to here than he can possibly
perform. Why, sir, if I were to attend to all t