tween twenty-seven and twenty-eight
feet of water, had safely passed through them to New Orleans.

The Commission appointed by the Government insisted upon having
the jetties constructed at the south pass of the Mississippi
River. This Captain Eads strenuously resisted and urged the
superiority of the southwest pass for the purpose. The House
when it passed the jetty bill adopted Mr. Eads's plan. But
the Senate insisted on taking the opinion of the Commission,
much to his distress. The Senate was firm, and the House
was obliged to yield. I think everybody now agrees that Eads
was right, and that the scheme would have been perfectly successful,
and would have continued to perform all that was desired of
it, if his counsel had been taken. As it is, the jetties
have been of great value and well worth their cost. But it
will probably be necessary some time to construct a similar
work in the southwest pass.

During my first term in the House on the Committee on Education
and Labor I had the important duty of investigating the conduct
of the Freedman's Bureau and other charges made against General
Oliver O. Howard. I wrote nearly the whole of the report,
all of it containing the arguments of the Committee, and the
summing up of the evidence. A few passages are by the Chairman,
Mr. Arnell. The Freedman's Bureau was established to aid
the colored people who had been suddenly emancipated by President
Lincoln's Proclamation, to attain a condition where they
could get their living in comfort, and their children could
be educated. General Howard, a very eminent officer in the
Civil War, afterward at the head of the Army, was a man singularly
fitted for this duty. He was profoundly religious, absolutely
incorruptible, a man of very kind heart, not afraid to break
out new paths, apt to succeed in all his undertakings, a lover
of Liberty and thoroughly devoted to his work. The resources
at his command were the unclaimed pay of the negro soldiers
and some other sums specially granted from the Treasury. But
the work was one entirely different from anything which had
been accomplished by government agency in the country before.
He purchased tracts of land, which were divided into building
lots, which were sold to the colored people. Money was advanced
to them to build houses, the Freedman's Bureau taking a mortgage
as security. The Bureau endowed Howard University, of which
General Howard was made President. A large