in a cuckoo clock. He said that whenever
the clock at the White House strikes the bird issues out of
the door in the Senate Chamber, and says: "Cuckoo, Cuckoo,"
and that when the striking is over, he goes in again and shuts
the door after him. He was speaking of Democratic Senators.
But I am afraid my excellent Republican brethren can furnish
quite as many instances of this servility as their opponents.

The President has repeatedly, within the last six years,
appointed members of the Senate and the House to be Commissioners
to negotiate and conclude, as far as can be done by diplomatic
agencies, treaties and other arrangements with foreign Governments,
of the gravest importance. These include the arrangement
of a standard of value by International agreement; making
a Treaty of Peace, at the end of the War with Spain; arranging
a Treaty of Commerce between the United States and Great Britain;
making a Treaty to settle the Behring Sea controversy; and
now more lately to establish the boundary line between Canada
and Alaska.

President McKinley also appointed a Commission, including
Senators and Representatives, to visit Hawaii, and to report
upon the needs of legislation there. This last was as clearly
the proper duty and function of a committee, to be appointed
by one or the other branch of Congress, as anything that could
be conceived.

The question has been raised whether these functions were
offices, within the Constitutional sense. It was stoutly
contended, and I believe held by nearly all the Republican
Senators at the time when President Cleveland appointed Mr.
Blount to visit Hawaii, and required that the diplomatic
action of our Minister there should be subject to his approval,
that he was appointing a diplomatic officer, and that he had
no right so to commission Mr. Blount, without the advice and
consent of the Senate. President McKinley seemed to accept
this view when he sent in for confirmation the names of two
Senators, who were appointed on the Commission to visit Hawaii.
The Senate declined to take action upon these nominations.
The very pertinent question was put by an eminent member of
the Senate: If these gentlemen are to be officers, how can
the President appoint them under the Constitution, the office
being created during their term? Or, how can they hold office
and still keep their seats in this body? If, on the other
hand, they are not officers, under what Constitutional provision
do