The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1869-01-01
THE PRESIDENTS SALARY.

pro and con, in relation to this subject.
OF course it is an important one, not
only to the President, for the time being,
but to the nation at large.
The present question is, LIST, Shall
the salary of the President be
increased /; I'd, and if so to what ex-
tent?
Is the present salary of the Presi-
dent of the United States of America,
adequate to the discharge of the duties
pertaining to his high office?
We have seen in some of the leading
journals, and as coming from members
of the National Legislature, that the
proposition would be submitted to in
crease the salary of the President, at
this session of Congress.
Even so great an authority as the
New Y ork Independent, takes up the
cudgels, and pours its Theological
thunder down and upon the proposed
increase. The Now York Tribune
damns it with faint praise; some other
journals are good lord and good devil
about it many are in favor of it, and
few of the leading journals have pro-
nounced decidedly against the proposed
increase of salary.
In determining the question whether
the proposed increase should or should
not be made, it may not be idle to see
under what circumstances and con-
ditions the salary of the President, as
at present allowed by law, was estab-
lished.
Every one knows that the salary is
Twenty-Five Thousand Dollars a year.
This amount was fixed about the time
of the Inauguration of Washington as
first President in 1889. Then the col
onies-or States, if you will-had but
just emerged from a long, cruel, and
desolating war, which had utterly des-
troyed or paralyzed every branch of
industry. Staggering under burden
of debt such as no nation of equal re-
sources had been able to incur since we
y
Private credit almost unknown. Pub
| lie credit dead and buried with no one
to roll the stone from the mouth of the
sepulcher, and hardly hope of resur-
rection. No commerce; no manufact-
ures no agriculture save enough to
produce the food necessary to sustain
life.
Then, and under these circumstances,
when the young nation had hardly yet
taken her stand among the nations of
the earth, without commerce, manu-
features, or agriculture, the ordinary
sources of revenue to a nation, the
amount of $4,000 was agreed upon as
the minimum for which the President
then could pay the actual expenses of
his position.
The next thing to inquire is, if that
amount was the minimum then for which
the President could pay his actual ex-
penscs, what should be the amount of
his salary nolo?
| Within the last ten-we almost
might say within the last five-years
the cost of every thing in all portions
of the country has at least doubled, and
a dollar to-day is worth less than one
half what it was ten years ago in buy.
ing the necessaries of life. The de
crease in the value of money Or in,
crease in the cost of living, which is
prae tically the same thing, was not, OF
course, so rapid prior to 1860, as in our
great civil commotion, but still there
has been a marked change since 1889.
We cannot, of course, precisely est.
mate what this change was, but we
may safely assume that it wasSnot less
than one-fourth.
Assuming, then, that from the time
of fixing the salary of the President
and up to 1860, the price of everything
had increased one-fourth, and thai
since then it has Increased one-half, il
would leave the President, practically
about one third of the sum allowed il
1880, with which to maintain the dig
nifty of his high office.
The New York Independent insists
that it is nowhere contained in the
Constitution as one of the constitution
al duties of the President that he should
entertain at dinner, or otherwise, the
; representatives of foreign powers, OIL
other distinguished persons who may
come to the National Capital That i.
perhaps true, but there are many thing
which are eminently fit and proper that
are not nominated in the bond. Per
haps many of the vagaries advocated
by the Independent would find as littl,
; warrant in that often-quoted and bn
little adhered to instrument, ycleped th'
Constitution Freedman Bureau, re
construction, coupled with negro suf
frage, ct i'd, not that we negativ,
these issues, but cite them to show tina
there are and were many things 'twix
heaven and earth not dreamed o.
thought of by the trainers of the Con
, stitutition.
: 1t is true for aught contained in TIT
: Constitution that the President MAY
have an Office 7x9 in which to transac
the business of the Nation, and not b
subject to impeachment therefor; bu
we submit it would hardly be meet anS