Billion-dollar Congress

Dwing; the last eiht years the appropriintions of eadh congress have p-ome within the neighborhood of a bUltern dollars - someiimes a llttle less, sometimos a little moro. Tht is to say. the approprlatlone for each year have amounted about $300,000.000. The magnitude of the exprnditures. as coimparort wlth those of enrlier years. has natuvally exciterl atteniiOiii and study on the part of public mèn. A popular and easy way of dlapoelog of the problems involved i.n a discussion of this matt-er is ;o say tlat bülion-dollar con.cresses are the result of having a blliicm-dollar country ; th-at a lioy's clothea can wot be expected to fit a man ; h-at ■vith locreased wealth, the opening (o set Wem ent of large areas of new teiTitory. the deveíopment oí' our rairoiads and our mines, the srowih of our country and the grea-t crease in population, new otject o: cxpeniditure are continually arising. Our expenses are grwwiug but o is country ; the one must keep pace witïx the other. This is plausible. It flntters our na.tlo.nal pride. But iis it true ? Have our expemdltures simply kept pace with our enlarged requirements and the increase of populación, or have they exceeded both ? Twenty years aso the running expenses ivere about ouethird of a billio.n dollars ; now they are more than half a bidliom. Yet in the seventies ve were paying $90,000,000 to $100,000,000 annually far imlrest on the puiblic debt, as against only one-thdrd of that amouut at tlie presejit time. Our running expenses have, therefore, increased even more rapidly than is indicated by a mere comparúsom oí grand total?. The ratio af increase in appropriations bas been nearly three times as great as the ratio o; increase in populatkra.- Hon. Mahlon Pitney in The Illustrated American.