Even with a budget system, however, the task of appropriating money for the Government of one hundred million people is a vast enterprise. It is not a matter of routines, but it requires intelligence, iniagination, courage, and a constantly developing sense of the Nation's needs.
This task of appropriating moneys is, moreover, the fundamental task of a legislative body. It is the exercise of the greatest power in Government, the power of the purse. As long as monarchs had iiccess to the treasury of their realms they were—essentially autocrats and their peoples were not free. As they could tax the people and use the money raised by taxation as they pleased they were in control. Free government came when the common people took from the monarch the right to tax and the right to appropriate money for public use. We Americans are inclined to undervalue Congress. Those meu in Washington are not merely symbols of liberty, they.are actual preservers of free government: and at 10 time are the Representatives and Senators in Congress assembled doing more strictly the people's business than when they are at} work on the appropriation bills. "The Outlook."
Wasuineton, Feb. 98.—The Senate has approved the Fordney Emergency Tariff Bill—Reuter.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.