Why? During the long months of the extra session that would have followed, with the evils which the country would have felt by having its business disturbed by Congress, and the uncertainties of the result, men would have said all this has come about because we did not have a man at the head of the Committee on Appropriations with nerve enough and force enough to carry his bill through by the end of the session. The next time we have a Congress, we had better see if we can not get a man who will get his bills through. Suppose I had answered there was that salary increase—‘That won’t do. You had shown your hand on the salary question; you had protested against it and you had done your duty.’ Then they would have said, there were six or seven sections in that bill empowering the United States to bring the railroads before the courts, and make them account for their extravagance. They would have said we have lost all that by the loss of this bill, and I would have been charged with acting in the interest of railroad corporations, and fighting to kill the bill for that reason. But be that as it may, fellow-citizens, I considered the two alternatives as well as I could. I believed it would rouse a storm of indignation and ill feeling throughout the country if that increase of salary passed. I believed it would result in greater evils if the whole failed, and an extra session came on. For a little while I was tempted to do what would rather be pleasing than what would be best in the long run. I believe it required more courage to vote as I voted, than it would to have voted the other way, but I resolved to do what seemed to me right in the case, let the consequences be what they would. [Applause.] I may have made a mistake in judgment; I blame no one for thinking so, but I followed what I thought was the less bad of two courses. My subsequent conduct was consistent with my action on the bill. “I did not myself parade the fact, but more than a year ago the New York _World_ published a list, stating in chronological order the Senators and Representatives who covered their back pay into the Treasury. My name was first on the list. [Applause.]