60TH CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. J REPORT 2d Session. TO DIVIDE THE JUDICIAL DISTRICT OF INDIANA. FEBRUARY 13, 1909.-Referred to the House Calendar and ordered to be printed. Mr. FOSTER, of Indiana, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany H. R. 27360.] The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 27360) to divide the judicial district of Indiana into divisions and for other purposes connected therewith, have had the same under consideration and report the same with the following amendments: On page 1, line 4, strike out the comma after the word "Daviess" and insert in lieu thereof the word "and;" and on page 1, line 5, strike out the words "and Orange" and the comma after those words. As amended your committee recommend that the bill do pass. The bill creates a judicial division in the district of Indiana consisting of 12 counties in the southwestern section of the State. Indiana now constitutes a single district without divisions. It has five places of holding court-Indianapolis, Evansville, New Albany, Fort Wayne, and Hammond-but there are no statutory provisions requiring actions to be brought or tried at any particular place. Actions may be filed at any of these places and process runs throughout the State. Indianapolis is located in the central portion of the State, and it is and has been for a long period of time the practice of the courts to hold their sessions in the city of Indianapolis, seldom devoting more than a day or two in the year at any other point, and frequently holding no sessions at some of these places. The division created by this bill consists of counties in the vicinity of the city of Evansville. Evansville is the second city in the State in population, and of the places designated for holding court is the farthest removed from Indianapolis. It requires 364 miles to make the trip to and from Indianapolis. The counties comprising the proposed division had a population of 319,405, according to the census of 1900. There has been great development since then and a conservative estimate must place the present population in excess of 400,000. They have large mining and manufacturing industries and are counties of large material wealth and industrial activity rapidly adding to their development. The city of Evansville, the place of holding court for the proposed division, had according to the census of 1900 a population of 59,007. A conservative estimate of its present population would be in excess of 80,000. It has large manufacturing industries and an extensive commerce, both by rail and water. It is easy of access to all the counties in the proposed division. The bill creates no additional expense and necessitates no additional officers. There already exists large and commodious quarters for the court and its officers in the federal building at Evansville. The average distance from points within the prosposed division to Indianapolis will vary but little from the distance from Evansville. The mileage of witnesses and jurors summoned from within this division to Indianapolis would therefore equal the cost of a week's attendThere is evident inconvenience and expense of litigating causes arising within the proposed division at Indianapolis, and it is believed to be in the interest of justice to require that causes arising within the proposed division should be litigated therein. ance. SALARY OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE. FEBRUARY 13, 1909.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed. Mr. GAINES, of West Virginia, from the Committee on Election of President, Vice-President, and Representatives in Congress, submitted the following REPORT. [To accompany H. R. 28058.] The Committee on Election of President, Vice-President, and Representatives in Congress, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 28058) in relation to the salary of the Secretary of State, having had the same under consideration, respectfully report the bill back to the House with the recommendation that it do pass. VIEWS OF THE MINORITY. We, the undersigned members of the Committee on Election of President, Vice-President, and Representatives in Congress, beg leave to submit the following views against the passage by the House of H. R. 28058, to wit: While upon its face this bill only seeks to repeal the act approved February 26, 1907, fixing the annual compensation of heads of executive departments, so far as said act relates to the compensation of the Secretary of State, and to fix the annual compensation of the Secretary of State at $8,000, and by section 2 of said act to fix the salary of the Secretary of State at $8,000 for all time to come, in our opinion the real question which your committee is called upon to decide is Whether a member of the United States Senate, during whose term of office the salary of the Secretary of State was increased from $8,000 to $12,000 a year, can hold the office of Secretary of State any portion of the term for which the said Senator was elected, provided that the salary of the Secretary of State be reduced to what it was before it was so raised. We believe it the duty of your committee to pass upon this the real question involved in the consideration of the above bill. Paragraph 2, section 6, Article I, of the Constitution of the United States is as follows: No Senator or Representative shall, during the Time for which he was elected, be appointed to any Civil Office under the Authority of the United States, which shall have been created, or the Emoluments whereof shall have been encreased during such time; and no Person holding any Office under the United States, shall be a Member of either House during his continuance in Office. By act of Congress, approved February 26, 1907, the salary of the Secretary of State was increased from $8,000 to $12,000. From the moment of the passage of said act, the provision of the Constitution above set out, emphatically said to every member of the United States Senate, "You shall not for the time for which you were elected to the United States Senate hold the office of Secretary of State." The Congress by which said act was passed expired on the 4th day of March, 1907. It is our opinion that the passage of the above act and the expiration of the Congress by which it was passed forever put it out of the power of any subsequent Congress to remove the constitutional prohibition referred to. It is our belief also that this being a question of constitutional interpretation, that instead of this House passing this bill the whole matter should be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary of the House for its opinion. We do not believe that a provision of the Constitution that is so clear and emphatic should be sought to be annulled or suspended in the manner attempted by the passage of this bill. The emoluments of the Secretary of State were increased by the Fifty-ninth Congress. The occupant of that office has been regularly receiving these emoluments. We believe that the mischief undertaken to be provided against by this provision of the Constitution clearly embraces the act of appointing one of the said United States Senators to the office of the Secretary of State. It might be said, and truly, that this mischief is remote in any event; however this may be, it contained sufficient danger for the framers of the Constitution to provide against it. If the Constitution prohibits it, surely it can not be argued that if this prohibition can be so easily overcome by the device of reducing the salary below what in the judgment of the Congress it should be, with the hope which in this case is almost a certainty, of the salary being restored to its present amount, that that would not be clear evasion of the plain provision of the Constitution. The office of the Secretary of State will be probably held for eight years by its next incumbent, and a designing Senator, which the Constitution seeks to provide against, could reasonably anticipate, that although his salary would be temporarily reduced in the closing years of his senatorial term, at the expiration of that term it would, through his influence, be restored to the amount to which it was placed by the Congress of which he was a member, and thus he would receive the higher salary from at least two to probably eight years. As herein stated we believe this question ought to be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary for its opinion. O THOS. W. HARDWICK. |