f the subcommittee and agreed to the bill,
permitting certain officers to accept the presents tendered to
them, where there were good reasons therefor; but I am free to say
that I was somewhat disappointed that the subcommittee had not
reported in favor of abolishing the practice entirely, instead of
discriminating between presents and decorations, as they did.

The bill passed the Senate without debate and without objection.
It went to the House, and the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,
through Mr. Denby, of Michigan, submitted a most admirable report,
which was far more in line with my own ideas than was the report
of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. I agree with the
conclusions arrived at by the Committee on Foreign Affairs so
thoroughly that I am going to give most of that report here:

" . . . The subcommittee expresses the hope that this adverse
disposition of these bills, which contains items fairly representative
of the great majority of the requests for Congressional sanction
for the acceptance of foreign orders, decorations, or presents, by
officials of the United States, will be regarded as notice to
officials of the United States that this committee at least, and
it is hoped all future committees dealing with this subject-matter,
will refuse to consider such requests, except as hereinafter noted.

"The Committee of Foreign Affairs has been required to devote much
time to the consideration of bills to grant permission to accept
such gifts. The committee has in the past very generally declined
to recommend favorably any such legislation, except in the case of
decorations offered to American citizens by official or quasi-
official scientific associations for eminent scientific achievements."

Article 1, section 9, paragraph 8, of the Constitution of the United
States is quoted, and the report proceeds:

"The Congress has been frequently importuned since the adoption of
the Constitution to grant its consent for the acceptance of orders,
decorations, and presents offered to officials of our Government,
frequently upon pretexts the most trivial and for services the most
commonplace, when services of any kind were rendered at all. A
glance at the requests now on file, summarized in Calendar No. 378,
which accompanies S. 7096, will show that the offers of foreign
gifts, decorations, etc., have been made in the great majority of
cases to officials for services in the direct line of their duty,
a