"The Wilson, McKinley, and all tariff bills, the silver bill, on the authority of which the silver dollar in your pocket was coined, the anti-Chinese, and all similar laws of the United States, have, in their early stages, half a dozen different forms, but when engrossed and signed they have one unchangeable form that has obtained ever since the first law was passed by the First Congress.
"I remember having seen in one of your Round Table puzzles a question about the 'Father of the Greenback.' The first draught of the law, which gave Mr. Chase this nickname, was written by Congressman Spalding, of the Buffalo, New York, district, on both sides of four sheets of common legal cap paper. Mr. Chase then made some changes in it, using red ink. President Lincoln suggested some additional changes, making his notes on a slip of paper, which he pinned to one of the sheets.
"But that was before the day of type-writing machines. Nowadays first draughts of most bills are prepared on type-writers. In this form a bill is introduced into Congress, read by the clerk by title, a number is given to it, and it is referred to the committee having in charge the business to which it relates. Once in committee, it is ordered printed, and the first draught, often bearing the compositor's marks, may be returned to the author of the measure as a souvenir. At least the first draught of the legal-tender act, bearing Mr. Chase's and Mr. Lincoln's suggestions about changes, was returned to Mr. Spalding, and by him kindly shown to me.
"Great measures, such as the Wilson, the McKinley, and the seigniorage bills, are changed many times before they are passed by Congress, and each change means new printed copies. Some of these copies are printed on paper about the size of a Harper's Round Table leaf. The type is very large, and the lines are very wide apart and numbered. Other printed copies are in the form of a pamphlet, in order that they may be mailed to friends of the member whose measure it is, and to men whose business is likely to be affected.
"Only a very small fraction of the bills that reach the pamphlet stage are ever finally passed and become laws. But even this small fraction is large enough to fill many shelves in the State Department, where originals of all laws are kept. The originals are engrossed on parchment that is fourteen by nineteen inches in size, and bound into book form. The penmanship is coarse, but very regular, and all of the signatures are originals, not copies, because this form of the law is the one that all copies must conform to—the one that the President of the United States is sworn to execute."
THE "SHERMAN" SILVER LAW—TITLE PAGE.
"But let me tell you just how the Sherman silver-purchase law looks. You remember this law. Or at least you recollect how Congress sat in extra session for several months of 1893 in order to repeal one clause of it. At the top of the large parchment sheet there is a printed heading: