Volume 6 — SAFETY OF PASSENGERS IN STEAMSHIPS FOR CALIFORNIA.

Resolution and Remarks in the Senate, May 21, 1860.

May 21, 1860, Mr. Sumner introduced the following resolution.

“Resolved, That the Committee on Commerce be instructed to consider the expediency of further action, in order to secure proper accommodations and proper safety for passengers on board the steamers between New York and San Francisco, and to increase the efficacy of the existing passenger laws of the United States in their application to California passengers; with liberty to report by bill or otherwise.”

The Senate, by unanimous consent, proceeded to consider the resolution.

MR. PRESIDENT,—I see the Senator from California [Mr. Latham] in his place, and I very gladly take the opportunity of calling his attention particularly to the resolution which I now have the honor to offer. By a communication in the newspapers, from a distinguished source,—a clergyman, who, during the last two months, sailed from Boston to San Francisco,[24]—it appears that the steamers are overloaded with passengers, and without adequate accommodations of other kinds for safety. His statement on the subject is explicit, and has been made in the newspapers, as also in private letters to his friends. I do not know that the evil can be reached by any additional legislation; perhaps no additional legislation is needed; but it is an evil which should be remedied in some way, or else we shall be startled some morning by the news of a great calamity,—the loss of one of these steamers, with, it may be, a thousand passengers.