The CHAIRMAN. You might read one.

Mr. SCATTERGOOD. I will read a list of the objections that have been brought up against these claims:

1. That they are old and stale.

2. That the amount involved was unknown, but variously estimated at enormous amounts-even up to $30,000,000 or $40,000,000.

3. That the financial condition of the country would not admit of their payment.

4. That at the time they arose there was between the United States and France a state of war, and that these claims were, therefore, not recoverable against France.

5. That they were embraced in the Louisiana convention of 1803.

6. That they were embraced in the Convention of 1831 with France.

7. That Congress annulled the French treaties and that thus the claims are affected.

8. That they never were recoverable against France, and hence were desperate.

The CHAIRMAN. Following those objections that have been made, has Congress acted favorably upon this?

Mr. SCATTERGOOD. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And as a result of that action, has money been paid?

Mr. SCATTERGOOD. Yes, sir; nearly $4,000,000 has already been paid. Since the full agitation of these claims there have been more than 150 pages of debate in the Congressional Record covering the years of the late eighties and early nineties, chiefly at the time when the policy of Congress in regard to them was established.

Mr. ADAIR. What is the amount of the claims unpaid?

Mr. SCATTERGOOD. The total amount I will give in detail later, but the amount still unpaid, I will say, is about $2,200,000, the United States having paid about $4,000,000. And the total sum of money involved in this entire subject, instead of being thirty or forty millions of dollars, as has been repeatedly said, will not amount to more than six and one-half millions of dollars when the whole thing is wiped out. The Court of Claims has almost finished with all of the cases, and the vast percentage of the claims that come along now are negative claims.

I want to file with the committee a complete list of the congressional reports which have been made, both from the House and from the Senate, from 1802 up to the present time. There have been 69 different committee reports on this subject.

Mr. HAWLEY. You will submit them so that they may be printed? Mr. SCATTERGOOD. Yes, sir. I think they will be of interest, because they contain not only the matter relating to the reports themselves, but also the actions by Congress. There has been no such table as this prepared within the last fifteen years. I might call especial attention to the fact that the two earliest reports followed each other closely, one of them being written within six months from the time of the first. Memorials by the thousand have been submitted to Congress by the state legislatures begging Congress to pay these claims. The subject has been alive from the very beginning, and it has been continually pressed before Congress, so that they are not stale, as Senator Sumner so eloquently stated in his report.

Now, I want to call the attention of the committee to the synopsis of these reports:

There have been 69 reports in all, of which 38 have been made in the Senate and 31 in the House. Of these reports, 64 are favorable to the claims and 5 are adverse. Of the latter, 3 were before 1826, when, for the first time, Congress had before it all of the evidence in regard to these claims, gathered from the correspondence and documents in the State Department which led up to the treaty of 1800; 1 was a voluntary adverse statement by 9 members of the Fiftieth Congress Appropriations Committee, to which the matter had never been referred except under an order of the House to place the claims on the general deficiency bill; 1 was an adverse report of the Appropriations Committee of the Fifty-first Congress, accompanied by an able minority report by 6 members strongly in favor of the claims. All of the adverse reports were before the policy of Congress to pay these claims was finally established by the act of March 3, 1891, and since that time there have been no adverse, or even minority, reports.

Bills making appropriations to pay these claims have passed the Senate no fewer than 16 times, in the following years: 1835, 1846, 1851, 1855, 1859, 1889, 1890, 1891, 1892, 1893, 1894, 1896, 1898, 1902, 1905, and 1909, and of these 7 have passed the House, in the following years: 1846, 1855, 1891, 1896, 1899, 1902, and 1905. In addition to this, the act referring these claims to the Court of Claims was passed by both Houses and approved by the President in 1885.

The bill of 1835 appropriating $5,000,000 (the first that passed the Senate and which was the occasion of the famous speech of Daniel Webster in favor of the claims) failed to pass the House for lack of time.

The bill of 1846, which passed both Houses, carrying an appropriation of $5,000,000 to be divided pro rata among the claimants and payable in land scrip, was vetoed by President Polk, as he stated, on the ground of expediency.

The bill of 1855, also appropriating $5,000,000, which passed both Houses, was vetoed by President Pierce.

The bill of 1885, referring the whole subject to the Court of Claims for judicial findings as to facts and law, was signed by President Arthur.

The first act making appropriations for French spoliations since the reference of the subject to the Court of Claims, was the general deficiency bill of 1891, which was signed by President Harrison, and which carried an appropriation for French spoliations of $1,304,095.37. In 1896 the general deficiency bill passed both Houses, carrying an appropriation for French spoliations of $1,027,315.29, but was vetoed by President Cleveland.

The first omnibus claims bill was passed in 1899 and was approved by President McKinley, carrying an appropriation for French spoliations amounting to $1,055,473.04.

I am very glad indeed to be able to say that Mr. Henry, who himself is here to-day, had a talk with President Cleveland, together with Mr. Sims, of Baltimore, about the time he made this veto, and I would like to have the committee ask Mr. Henry as to the nature of that conversation. Mr. Cleveland considered it one of the great

mistakes of his administration. I might say, in passing, that his veto had no bearing whatever upon the general discussion, but it was simply passed over to Congress, and there was no change of policy because of the veto.

The second and third omnibus claims bills passed both Houses in 1902 and 1905, respectively, and were both approved by President Roosevelt, carrying appropriations for French spoliations of $798,631.27 and $752,660.93, respectively.

Now, I would like to turn to the action of the Court of Claims with reference to this subject.

The Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Forty-eighth Congress (48th Cong., 1st sess., H. Rept. 1094) reported that, in the opinion of the committee," the gravity of the case and the ends of justice alike demand a settlement of this vexed question where it can be dispassionately heard and impartially considered." Whereupon, by a vote of 181 to 71, in a Congress consisting of 167 Democrats and 153 Republicans, on January 20, 1885, an act was passed referring these claims to the United States Court of Claims for examination as to not only the amount due, but also the "validity of said claims according to the rules of law, municipal and international, and the treaties of the United States applicable to the same, and shall report all such conclusions of fact and law as in their judgment may effect the liability of the United States therefor." The AttorneyGeneral of the United States was also required to appear on behalf of the Government, and resist the claims by all proper legal defense. In March, 1886, the matter was elaborately argued before the court by counsel for claimants and the Government. Nearly three weeks were consumed in the presentation of the case in every possible view which the most laborious investigation could suggest. The court, after careful deliberation, on May 17, 1886, filed a unanimous opinion in favor of the claimants. (Gray v. U. S., schooner Sally, 21 C. Cls., p. 340). In the same year the Solicitor-General of the United States applied for a reargument of the question in all its bearings. Leave was granted. New counsel were retained by the Government, by whom the whole subject was again carefully investigated. Two weeks were again consumed in argument and the court, after careful consideration, a second time filed a unanimous opinion in favor of the claimants. (Cushing v. U. S., schooner Industry, 22 C. Cls., p. 1.) A number of individual cases then came up for trial, to which the Government presented substantially the same defenses. The questions were once more elaborately argued, and again the court, on November 14, 1887, rendered another unanimous opinion in favor of the claimants. (Hooper v. U. S., schooner John, 22 C. Cls., p. 408.)

There never has been a matter which has been submitted to more severe and critical judicial scrutiny, nor has there ever been one in which the contention of the claimants has been more clearly and triumphantly established.

The Court of Claims having just decided the general question on its merits, then entered critically upon the examination of each particular case submitted to it. In every case it has carefully inspected and weighed the documents produced in support of each claim. Many of these documents came from the executors or descendants of the original sufferers, who had preserved them through all the inter

vening years; but these were not the only proof before the court. By a direct requirement of the above-mentioned act, special agents of the Government were sent abroad in search of evidence relating to these claims. This commission consisted of Hon. James O. Broadhead, of Missouri, and Sumerville P. Tuck, esq., of New York. Through the efforts of these gentlemen copies of many of the original documents have been obtained from the archives of France and the West Indies Islands, and have been used in the trial of the individual cases.

No claim has been allowed by the court unless established by ample and conclusive evidence. Numerous cases have been rejected which, although meritorious, were not, in the view of the court, sustained by sufficient documentary proofs, and awards appear to have been made in none but the most clearly proven cases. (See 54th Cong., 1st sess., H. Rept. 1438.)

The letter from the Court of Claims to Hon. B. H. Bunn, of North Carolina, chairman of the House Committee on Claims, dated January 12, 1894, and which is printed as Appendix A to Mr. Bunn's report (53d Cong., 2d sess., H. Rept. 1051) sets forth that the court has decided several cases involving general principles which have very materially reduced the claims which it holds as valid against the United States; for example

(1) It has held that those claims whose validity against France was based on the treaties of 1778 could be good against the United States only if the condemnation was prior to July 7, 1798 (the date of the abrogation of the treaties by Congress), and that after that date claims based only on the less liberal law of nations were valid against France, and hence binding now on the United States. (Hooper v. U. S., schooner John, 22 C. Cls., p. 408.)

(2) Again, the court has thrown out and declared as not valid the very large number of claims arising from seizures which took place between September 30, 1800, and July 31, 1801, the dates of the signing and ratification of the convention. (Adams . U. S., schooner Jane, 23 C. Cls., p. 226.)

A summarized digest of the opinions of the Court of Claims in thirty test cases is herewith submitted. (See Appendix B.)

Altogether, as Mr. Bunn has pointed out (p. 140), the Court of Claims only allowed to claimants about 14 per cent of the total claims which it had disposed of at that time (1894), from which he estimated that the total favorable findings of the court would in the end amount to about $6,000,000. This estimate was made sixteen years ago, but it has proved remarkably accurate, for the total favorable findings from the beginning to the present have amounted to only a little more than $6,000,000, and it is understood that the subject is now almost disposed of, so far as favorable findings by the court are concerned. As was natural, the best cases of the claimants were the first ones tried, so that the percentage of favorable findings was greatest at the beginning, and has recently been growing smaller and smaller, so that at present only an occasional favorable one is reported amidst large numbers that are being reported negatively. When the favorable findings now before Congress are paid the requirement for future appropriation will be comparatively small.

The care that has been devoted to the subject and the immense amount of labor involved can be appreciated when it is recalled that

it has been twenty-five years since the court began the consideration of these cases.

It is also of interest to note that the total amount of these claims is now practically certain not to exceed $6,500,000, if, indeed, it comes to that.

In 1802 Mr. Giles reported on these memorials favorably, but while the Government had used the claims to relieve itself from past obligations and future liabilities as a nation, I might say that he calls attention to the fact that the income of the Government at that time or soon after the year 1800 from all sources was only $10,777,710, and half of that went to pay the interest on the public debt. These claims at that time were supposed to amount to about $20,000,000, so that it would be only natural that they would defer action for the time being. And then after that, of course, a new group of people came into the Congress, who were not familiar with it, and other contingencies arose which postponed action.

This sum, then, viz, $6,500,000 represents the entire and only payment by our Government for the contribution by France to the achievement of our independence-an undertaking which cost France $280,000,000 in money, besides her loss of blood on land and sea. (See Sumner's Report, S. Rep. 10, 49th Cong., 2d sess.) In other words, the release of these claims to France as an offset to those made by her against our Government for our failure to keep the treaty of 1778, will cost this Government only a little more than $6,000,000 when all the claimants, both individuals and companies, have been finally settled with, and toward this nearly $4,000,000 have already been paid. In view of the incalculable gain of the United States in these negotiations with France it seems possible to explain the protracted delay in paying these just claims arising therefrom only on the ground of the fear that the amount involved was vastly greater than it has turned out to be.

There will be found here the appropriation for French spoliations beginning with the act of March 3, 1891, and down to February 24, 1905, being a total amount of $3,910,860.61. There remain to be paid favorable findings reported to Congress up to December 31, 1909, an amount of $2,329,709.46. Of this, the findings in favor of 12 insurance companies which have been omitted from the so-called "omnibus" claims bills, through fear of making them too large, amount to $1,458,738.73, and the findings in favor of individual owners, who carried no insurance, and of unincorporated underwriters amount to $870,970.73.

The present omnibus claims bill now being prepared in the Senate will include $870.970.73 to pay these individual and unincorporated insurers. I also show here the findings in favor of the other 10 insurance companies, amounting in all to $633,413.54. I might say that those gentlemen who were asked to join in this effort to present the matter before the House Claims Committee at this time were represented by the same people who were interested in individual claims working on the Senate end, so that at this time they preferred to take no action along with us.

Under the act referring the French spoliation claims to the Court of Claims, that court is required to report to Congress each year the several cases as they are tried, the evident intent of Congress being