Burlington weekly free press. [volume] (Burlington, Vt.) 1866-1928, 1886-08-13

command in any emergency and in the
light of any circumstances the entire vote
of the solid South. All that Is necessary
beyond that is to carry New York"
THE CLEVELAND VEToEs.
The senator was asked what he thought
of the presidents exercise of the veto
power, whether he thought that the presi-
dent had exceeded the authority of the
executive in his free exercise of the veto.
The senator replied: 81 am a pretty sin
cere believer in the vitality of the consti-
tutional division ofthe powers of this gov
eminent. 1t is a distinct provision OF the
constitution that the president shall APP
prove and sign all bills passed by Congress
before they shall become laws. do not
question his right to disapprove, and the
veto means nothing more or less than that
"A disapproval."
THE PENSION vEToEs.
q. What do you think of his vetoes of
the pension bills
A. | think they are fair subjects of
criticism. The president has signed n
great many weaker cases than those he
has disproved. In the very nature of
things he could not personally examine
many if any of these cases. To be con
sistent he either should have refused to
sign all of them, in my judgment, upon
the theory that Congress should not pass
special bills of this class or he should
have vetoed none of them. He might
have held that the general law upon the
subject of pensions should be made to
where the law was defective it should
have been amended This is the
actual state of affairs is regard to these
vetoed pension cases. Most of the
people interested in these pension cases
had previously made application under
ha l,tN~
pensions, and upon his rejection of their
claims they appealed to Congress. Then,
when Congress approved of their claims,
they were sent to the president, and he
has in turn sought the opinion of the
power which had just rejected the same
claims Of course he could not know
anything about these cases. He had to
rely upon the pension office In other
words, the very court which had given an
adverse decision in the case was called
upon to review, as a Court of Appeals, the
action of Congress-"
THE PRESIDENT.
Mr. Edmunds was asked what he
thought of the president. He said 81
never have been very much in the habit
of going to the White House under any
rs do not do much bust.
ness in the office-seeking way | have
never seen the president except 'socially,
anu nave nOt any special opportunity Tor
forming an opinion as to his general
knowledge of public questions or of his
ability as statesman. | have to judge
him by his acts, and in my criticism of
those acts / have indirectly given my
opinion of him" The senator then went
on speak of the foreign appointments
of the state department He said
that notwithstanding Mr.. Bayard's
great experience as a public man he
seemed most unfortunate in his selections.
There has probably been no range of APP
pontments under any of the departments
which afforded such targets for legitimate
criticism as the appointments of Mr.. Bay
ard. T. was asked what he thought of
Mr. Garland. He replied; 81 have pre-.
Vlously given my opinion of him in the
open senate and some of my critics have
severely upon that opinion /
think Garland is an honest man. but do
think that he made a mistake His mis-
take was accepting an interest in specu-
lative enterprise when he was a senator.
1t is mistake that | do not think he
would have made if he had carefully con
sldered all of its bearings, or if he had
consulted with any of his real friends be
fore going INTO it" Il. G. CRAWFORD.