COMMENT

Records of debate in Congress are often searched by lawyers and historical writers. The former are interested to discover what they are pleased to call the "intent" of Congress in enacting a bill that afterward is brought into court. Historians try to run down the evidence respecting past events. They accept the contemporaneous testimony of senators as to the facts concerning social changes and the like. But one wonders what they would make of a passage in a Senate debate last week.

The subject under discussion was the provision of the tax law requiring Americans to show their income tax receipts before being allowed to go abroad. It was denounced by some as a vexatious regulation, often not enforced. For example, the assertion was made that it was not applied in the case of the "thousands" of our citizens who go to Canada for a vacation. But Senator Wadsworth made the point that they did not go "for the purpose of evading taxes." Then ensued the following Orphic collocuy:

Mr. Watson of Indiana. No. of course not in fact, during the Civil War they had other reasons.

Mr. Wadsworth. There have been more urgent reasons.

Mr. Watson of Indiana. I thought they went to Cuba.

Fancy an investigator fifty years from now digging that up and trying to understand it. He might be writing a monumental work on the history of travel, showing how the moderns passed from one country to another, and with what motives. This little interchange might seem to be a precious bit of documentation for him, but what is its real explanation. The solemn senators did not say. They may have winked or smiled at each other, but the stenoraphers could not get that down. So, as far as the record goes, it must remain a mystery why Americans. Consule Volstead, liked to make trips to Canada or Cuba. New York Times.