The Abilene reflector. [volume] (Abilene, Kan.) 1883-1888, 1886-07-15
PRESIDENTIAL VEIOES.

tive Is stopping Before II Eats Into the
L. 5. Treasury.
The President has sent another batch
of vetoes to the Senate. One of them
stopped a biz which was almost a gro
tesque Illustration of the carelessness
with which Congress passes these
measures. 1t directed the name of a
soldiers widow to be placed on the
pension roll, subject to the pension
laws. 1t turns out now that her name
is on the pension roll under the law
already. and has been there since Feb
ruary of this year, her pension dating
from November of last year; so that
the bill seems to have been drafted and
passed in sheer ignorance of the facts
of the widows case. To send up such
a bill for the Presidents signature is,
of course, to say the least, dlsrtspect-
full.
Another of these bills puts on .be
pension roll the widow of a Com,lo-
dOre in the navy who died of heart
disease ten years after the war, and
her application had already been re-
jected by the Pension Bureau because
of her failure to show that the disease
of which her husband died had any
connection with the war. Another
gives a soldier already in receipt OF a
pension, $4,000 of back pension, for a
period of fifteen years, during which
he had made no claim on account OF
incapacity on account of disease, ano
removes the limit of time fixed by the
law of 1879. or in other words repeats
it for the benefit of this one man. An
other gives a widow q pension on ac-
count of the death of her husband from
Inflammation of the stomach ten years
after the war, and disregards the fact
that her application is pending before
the bureau. Another provides for the
erection of United States buildings at &
cost of 100000 at Sioux City, Ia, not
because the business of the Govern
ment at that point calls for them, but
because the population is growing rap
idly, and there is already 4 consider
able number of other buildings in the
town. Another orders a substantial
and cOmmOdious public building, with
tire-proof vaults, at cost of $780,
600, with an open space around it to
protect it from adjacent fires, which
is to provide accommodation for the
post-oflice. and internal revenue Office
and pension Office, at GAINESVILLE, o.,
though the only Federal Office in the
place is the post-office.
What gives these bills Importance Is
not so much the amount of money
they vote away, as the careless. reck~
less spirit in which they are concocted
and passed. On this point the Presi-
dent, in vetoing one of them, Observer
very forcibly:
'In speaking of the promiscrous ana III
advised grants OF pensions which have lately
been presented to me for approval. ] have
spoken of their apparent Congressional sane
ton in recognition OF the fact that largo
proportion of these bills have never been
submitted to q majority of either branch
of Congress. but are the results OF
nominal sessions held fo- the express
purpose of their consideration and attended
by small minority of the members of the re-
spective houses of the legislative branch OF
Government
Thus. in considering these bills have not
felt that was aided by the deliberate judg-
ment of the Congress; and when / have
bills presented, have hardly regarded my
action as a dissent from the conclusions of
the peoples representatives"
In other words. large body of men,
who are paid high salaries for attend
ing to the public business at Washing
ton, but who have not during the past
session furnished the country with
single piece of useful legislation, or one
instructive debate, allow schemers of
all sorts to get their formal sanction
for appropriations of the public money
without their knowing it The most
charitable conclusion one can reach
about these bills is that considerable
of the members of both
houses are too idle and lazy to watch
the business which passes through
their hands under their own raleS OF
procedure.
This, considered as a state of mind,
is bad enough; but there is another as
pect of the case, equally serious, which
the President also touches on when ne
says in vetOing the widow De Kraft's
pension bill:
Every relaxation of principle in the grant.
ing of pensions invites applications without
merit and encourages those who FOR gain
urge honest men to become dishonest. This
is the demoraliZing lesson taught the people,
mat as against unG pubic treasury the most
questionable eXpedients are allowable"
That is to say, not one such pension
can be granted without diffusing
through considerable portion of the
the feeling that there il
plenty of money in the treasury for al
most any purpose, and that almost any
mode of getting it out is allowable |
What Congressman think so lightly of,
their constituents do not long continue |
to regard as very serious, and from
getting money to which you have no
claim, out of the treasury, under the |
forms of law, to downright fraud on |
me treasury is "a very short step. In |
act, the poison of corruption turks in
he whole business, and President |
Cleveland has done the country no
greater service than reprobating it in
lard words.-N- Y Post.