with the settlement thereof the papers on file in his office relating to such claim, or may loan temporarily to any officer or Bureau of the Executive Departments any papers on file in his office relating to any matter pending before such officer or Bureau, taking proper receipt therefor.-Rule XXXIX.

In the Forty-sixth Congress the following resolution was adopted relative to the right of the Clerk to produce elsewhere papers belonging to the files of the House:

Resolved, 1. That no officer or employé of the House of Representatives has the right, either voluntarily or in obedience to a subpœna duces tecum, to produce any document, paper, or book belonging to the files of the House before any court or officer, nor to furnish any copy of any testimony given or paper filed on any investigation before the House or any of its committees, or of any other paper belonging to the files of the House, except such as may be authorized by statute to be copied and such as the House itself may have made public, to be taken without the consent of the House first obtained.-Journal, 1,46, p. 186.

FIVE MINUTES' DEBATE.

When general debate (in Committee of the Whole) is closed by order of the House, any Member shall be allowed five minutes to explain any amendment he may offer, after which the Member who shall first obtain the floor shall be allowed to speak five minutes in opposition to it, and there shall be no further debate thereon; but the same privilege of debate shall be allowed in favor of and against any amendment that may be offered to an amendment; and neither an amendment nor an amendment to an amendment shall be withdrawn by the mover thereof unless by the unanimous consent of the committee.-Rule XXIII, clause 5.

The House or the Committee (of the Whole) may, by the vote of a majority of the Members present, at any time after the five minutes' debate has begun (in Committee of the Whole) upon proposed amendments to any section or paragraph to a bill, close all debate upon such section or paragraph, or at its election, upon the pending amendments only (which motion shall be decided without debate); but this shall not preclude further amendment, to be decided without debate.-Same Rule, clause 6. (See Debate; Committee of the Whole.)

FIX DAY, MOTION TO.

(See Adjournment.)

FLOOR, ADMISSION TO.

The persons hereinafter named, and none other, shall be admitted to the Hall of the House or rooms leading thereto, viz: The President and Vice-President of the United States and their private secretaries, judges of the Supreme Court, Members of Congress and Members-elect, contestants in election cases during the pendency of their cases in the House, the Secretary and Sergeant-at-Arms of the Senate, heads of Departments, foreign ministers, governors of States, the Architect of the Capitol, the Librarian of Congress and his assistant in charge of the Law Library, the Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, such persons as have, by name, received the thanks of Congress, ex-members of the House of Representatives who are not interested either as party, agent or attorney, in any claim or bill pending before Congress, and clerks of committees, when business from their committee is under consideration; and it shall not be in order for the Speaker to entertain a request for the suspension of this rule or to present from the Chair the request of any Member for unanimous consent.Rule XXXIV.

1. The Doorkeeper shall enforce strictly the rules relating to the privileges of the hall and be responsible to the House for the official conduct of his employés.-Rule V, clause 1.

The rule of the House relative to admission to the floor is applicable in Committee of the Whole.-Journal 2,53, p. 90. A resolution relating to the privileges of the floor presents a question of privilege.-Journal 1, 49, p. 781.

FORD THEATER DISASTER-JOINT COMMISSION TO IN-*

VESTIGATE.

(See Commissions.)

FOREIGN AFFAIRS, COMMITTEE ON.

(See Committees.)

FRANKING PRIVILEGE.

By the act of March 3, 1875, it is provided that the Congressional Record, or any part thereof, or speeches, or reports therein contained, shall, under the frank of a Member of Congress or Delegate, to be written by himself, be carried in the mail free of postage, under such regulations as the Postmaster-General may prescribe.-Laws, 2, 43, p. 343.

By the seventh section of the same act (p. 343) it is provided that seeds transmitted by the Commissioner of Agriculture, or by any Member of Congress or Delegate receiving seeds for distribution from said Department, together with agricultural reports emanating from that Department, and so transmitted, shall, under such regulations as the PostmasterGeneral shall prescribe, pass through the mails free of charge. And the provisions of this section shall apply to ex-Members of Congress and ex-Delegates for the period of nine months after the expiration of their terms as Members and Delegates.

No compensation or allowance shall now or hereafter be made to Senators, Representatives, or Delegates on account of postage.-R. S., sec. 44.

Senators, Representatives, and Delegates in Congress, the Secretary of the Senate, and Clerk of the House of Representatives may send and receive through the mail all public documents printed by order of Congress; and the name of each Senator, Representative, Delegate, Secretary of the Senate, and Clerk of the House shall be written thereon, with the proper designation of the office he holds; and the provisions of this section shall apply to each of the persons named therein until the first day of December following the expiration of their respective terms of office. March 3,1877,19 St. L., p. 336: Provided, That the Vice-President, Senators, Representatives, and Delegates in Congress, the Secretary of the Senate and Clerk of the House of Representatives may send and receive through the mail free all public documents printed by order of Congress, and in the manner provided by section 7 of the "act establishing post roads, and for other purposes," approved March 3, 1877.-Stat. L., vol. 20, p. 10.

The provisions of the fifth and sixth sections of the act entitled "An act establishing post routes, and for other purposes," approved March 3, 1877, for the transmission of official mail matter be, and they are hereby, extended to all officers of the United States Government, and made applicable to all official mail matter transmitted between any of the officers of the United States or between any such officer and either of 'the Executive Departments or officers of the Government, the envelopes of such matter in all cases to bear appropriate in

dorsements containing the proper designation of the office from which the same is transmitted, with a statement of the penalty for their misuse.-Sec. 29, act of March 3, 1879; Stat. L., vol. 20, p. 362. (See also Supplement R. S., vol. 1, p. 458.)

Members and Members elect of Congress shall have the privilege of sending free through the mails; and under their frank, letters to any officer of the Government when addressed officially.-Stats. at L., vol. 26, p. 1081.

FRIDAY.

Friday in every week shall be set apart for the consideration of private business, unless otherwise determined by the House.-Rule XXVI, clause 1.

The House shall on each Friday, at 5 o'clock p. m., take a recess until 8 o'clock, which evening session shall be devoted to the consideration of private bills reported from the Committee on Pensions and the Committee on Invalid Pensions, to bills for the removal of political disabilities, and, bills removing charges of desertion only; said evening session not to extend beyond 10 o'clock and 30 minutes.-Rule XXVI, clause 3.

The House having at an evening session, which was set apar for the consideration of a certain class of business, taken a recess until the following day, it was held that the session after the recess was not a continuation of the evening session, and was not to be devoted to the business for which the evening session was set apart.-Journal, 2, 48, p. 557.

On Friday of each week, after the morning hour, it shall be in order to entertain a motion that the House resolve itself into the Committee of the Whole House to consider business on the Private Calendar; and if this motion fail, then public business shall be in order as on other days.-Rule XXIV, clause 6.

Prior to the Fifty-first Congress, private bills were reported in open House during the morning hour in like manner as reports of a public character are now made; and on Friday only reports on private bills were in order during the morning hour.

As finally adopted, the present rules provide that reports on private business shall be delivered to the Clerk, instead of being presented in the House, and the morning hour is limited to reports of a public character. But a morning hour on Friday is expressly recognized in clause 6, Rule XXIV.

Speaker Crisp has on several occasions held that there is a morning hour on Friday for reports on public business, and inferentially that the rule (XXVI) setting apart Friday for private business is to that extent modified. (See Journal, 1, 52, pp. 107, 118.)

The point has several times been made that the House at the Friday evening session could not by agreement assign a pension bill for consideration to another day assigned for the transaction of public business. But the point of order made even as against that has been overruled.-Speaker Carlisle, Congressional Record, 1, 50, 2514.

The House has all the power on Friday, either during the day or at the evening session, to make any order or transact any business it may see fit, if done by unanimous consent.

A negative vote on the motion to resolve into Committee of the Whole House to consider business on the Private Calendar is, according to the practice, construed as equivalent to dispensing with private business for the day, and a similar motion is not again in order on the same Friday.-Journal, 2, 52, p. 17.

On Fridays the consideration of private business previously reported from the Committee of the Whole House takes prece dence over the motion to resolve into Committee of the Whole House to consider private business.-Congressional Record, 1, 51, p. 2237; Journal, 2, 52, p. 33.

When the Committee of the Whole House rises and reports its recommendation, it is the practice to first consider bills previously reported from that Committee and remaining undisposed of by the House.

According to the practice, reports from the Committee on Rules relative to proposed change in the rules are in order for consideration on Friday as on other days.-Congressional Record, 2, 50, p. 538.

The hour for the consideration of business under clause 4, Rule XXIV, was previously to the Fifty-third Congress confined to public business on the House Calendar or in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union. Under the present, rule business on the Private Calendar may also be considered during this hour, and, as it would appear, on Friday private business exclusively would be in order.