New Ulm weekly review. [volume] (New Ulm, Minn.) 1878-1892, 1879-05-21
THE VETO AND THE DEMOCRATIC
PROGRAMME.

THE VETO AND THE DEMOCRATIC
PROGRAMME.
Pioneer Press.
The argument of the veto message
is unanswerable. It's main positions,
so far as they relate to the general
principles involved and the basal
constitutional objections to the bill,
have already been anticipated in out
line by the Pioneer Press; but they
are stated with clearness and co.
gency, and sustained by a chain Of
historical and statutory precedent
which must carry conviction with
all the millions who will read it this
morning, 60 far to array public sen.
timent against the revolutionary
course of the Democratic party in
congress, and thus make further
persistence in it too dangerous to be
hazarded. The miscarriage of this
second attempt of the Bourbons to-
coerce the executive approval of mis-.
chievous partisan legislation under
the threat of withholding the appro.
priations for the support Of the army,
has placed them in a very awkward
position. They have left themselves
no possible outlet from the delimma
in which they have contrived to EN-.
tangle their party, except by square
back down from the insolent threats
with which they set out in their re
evolutionary campaign-or by boldly
advancing in the dangerous and dis.
orderly courses marked out by their
preliminary manifestoes, that is to
say by adjourning without passing
the appropriation bill, and thus starv.
ing the government into submission
to the desires of the Democratic par.
ty caucus. Retreat would be tenn.
porarily humiliating, indeed; but it
is the path Of safety, of patriotism
and of craftsmanship. It will, per.
haps, require more courage than the
Democratic leaders are capable of to
face the taunts and sneers of their
opponents, which they would have
to confront in their honorable aban.
donment of position, upon which
they entered with rash inconsidera-
teness in the first flush of the novel
intoxication of power, whose inso.
lence they felt before they realized
its responsibilities. The only other
alternative is to advance, and all the
impulses ofparty pride and passion
naturally tend to push the
party forward with sullen obstinacy
to the at least partial falflment Of
the revolutionary programme to
which it stands committed by the
Incorporate menaces of its leaders.
Our Washington advices yester-
day indicated and they are con-
firmed by the results of yesterdays
proceedings in congressional the
Democratic party had resolved upon
this bad alternative, and that while
they will 80 far recede from the in
temperate threats with which they
entered on their campaign of coer-
cion as to pass the legislative, execu.
tive aud judicial appropriations indie
pendently of the political riders at
tached to them by the preceding
house, they will adjourn without
passing the army appropriation bill.
The action of the Democratic party
in the house yesterday in refusing
by five majority to pass the bill gives
color to this theory of their pur-
poses. We may venture to predict,
however, that in spite of the buster
and bravado with which this threat
is heralded to the world, the Demo-
cratic party will not adhere to this
purpose which has probably not
yet taken deliberate shape that its
leaders will, on further considera-
ton, conclude that it will not be
wise to go into the pending political
campaign with the burden upon.
their shoulders that before ad-
journing they will quietly back their
party out of a position which they
must know is as constitutionally I'm.
tenable as it is politically unpopular
vote the army appropriations with
melancholy resignation if not with
penitential tears, and to go home to
digest the venom of their spleen and
their disgust with themselves in the
genial seclusion of the corner gro.
ceries. they have already backed
down so far from the extreme posi-
tions they first maintained as their
last ditch of concession, that it will
cost them far less to yield the little
that remains than what they have
already surrendered. The more they
think Of it the more they will con.
clude that they will not dare to 90
before the country upon the issues
that would be sharply presented to
their constituents in their refusal to
vote the army or any other of the
regular and ordinary appropriations
for the support of the government.
Least Of all dare they face the indig.
nant public sentiment of the coun.
try upon the revolutionary pro-
gramme Of refusing these appropria.
lions as a means of coercing the ex-
ecutive approval of extreme partisan
legislation, which in principle is
subversive of the constitutional au.
thority Of the general government,
and in it's immediate aims designed
to sweep away all obstacles to the
triumph Of organized fraud at ma.
tional elections. While we are
writing, Indeed, advices come from
Washington that the Democratic