The Emporia news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1859-1881, 1879-05-16
THE SECOND VETO.
The Democratic Bun Taken squar


The Democratic Bull Taken SquareIy
by the Horns.
The Democrats, under advice of the
more prudent of their leaders, last week
decided to separate their proposed polit-
zeal Legislation from appropriation bills
and submit for President Hayes approx
al a bill embodying their political views
only, relative TO governmental super
vision of elections for members of con-
gress. They accordingly passed bill
entitled ian act to prohibit military in
reference at elections" and drawn up so
as TO annul all the present laws giving
the government any right to supervise
congressional elections and prevent fraud
and bulldozing of voters. They argued
that if the President vetoed this he would
at least not be able to do SO on the ground
that it was ''ridcr'' to an appropriation
bill. Meantime they reserved action on
the appropriation bills. so that if he did
veto the purely political bill they could
still, if they thought best, carry out their
programme TO starve the government in
to compliance with the dictates of a
Democratic caucus. They have not had
long to wait for the Presidents decision.
1t came yesterday, in the shape of brief
and pointed veto of the bill "tO prevent
military interference at elections" or, as
it should have been termed, ito permit
They now have to choose between at
taching their political riders to the APP
preparation bills, or passing the latter
without any ifs or butts and abandoning
their attempts to starve the government
into a surrender. President Hayes, by
this veto, gives the Democrats square
chance to go before the people on the
plain issue of whether or not the Repub-
lican party is right in maintaining the
laws which authorize executive super
vision of congressional and presidential
elections. The veto, of course, keeps
those laws in force, and enables the ex-
ecutive to continue its supervision of
such elections, and thus to a great ex-
tent prevents the Democrats, at least in
the north, from achieving the successes
that unbrIdled fraud would be able to
secure for them. What the government
will do to meet its expenses after June
Both, if no appropriations are made, we
do not know, but the revenue will con-
tinue to flow in, and the government will
go on exercising its functions, beyond a
doubt. The usual elections for repre-
sentatives in congress do not take place
this year, and hence it may take until
the next presidential election for the peo-
pie to give full and unmistakable YER
dict on the course of the Democratic
party.
The veto message is necessarily a re-
capitulation of the objections expressed
by the veto of the army appropriation
bill, with the simple exception, of course,
that the present bill is not objected to as
being rider on an appropriation bill
1t is objected to squarely on the ground
that the laws as they are are no more
than necessary to insure a reasonable
chance for fair elections, and that to per-
NIT these laws to be abolished would be
equivalent to permitting any amount of
frand and intimidation which the domi-
nant faction in any locality might choose
to exercise. The President does not
swerve particle in his opposition to the
Democratic method ofcarrying elections,
or his belief that the state governments
have no constitutional right to usurp
the duties and privileges of the national
government. He closes by declaring
that the proposed bill would render state
paramount to national authority in cases
where the latter is clearly given a consti-
tutional superiority, and he positively
declines to assent to this extreme view
of the Estates rights" dogma, that con-
tains the essence of rebellion and the
working principle of the democratic doc
trine of the right of secession.