Sacramento daily record-union., 1888-10-04
ROASTED ALIVE.
BLAINE'S STINGING REBUKE TO
CLEVELAND.
The Man of Many Vetoes-How the
Nations Funds Are Used to
Enrich His Friends.
lsrEcrAL DISPATCHES TO THE REconD-uNIoH.l

DETROIT (Mich.), October 3d-The peo-
pie of Detroit turned out by thousands to-
day to listen to Blaine's opening speech in
Michigan. The rink was crowded an hour
before the time set for the opening proceed
ings. From the moment the Maine states
man appeared at the entrance unIil he
stepped upon the platform the great au-
dience maintained continuous cheer, and
| when he reached the platform a great yell
of welcome assured him that he was among
friends.
Governor Alger introduced Blaine, who
spoke as follows:
Mr.. Chairman and FSllow-citizeas: Despite Hon.
Don Dickinson, the men of New England will
still continue to call the men of Michigan their
| fellow-citizens Applause 1t was said at the
beginning of our Government that the veto
power was an anomaly in a republic. In assur-
ing the preservation of constitutional liberty in
| that great document, our ancestors largely cop
| led from British precedent, which their an
cestors had brought with them when they came
| TO America. In England there had not been a
veto by the Crown of any Act of Parliament
since the revolution of 16SS-two hundred
years ago this year-so it struck the mass of
people in the colonies, accustomed as they were
to British law, that to give the President the
right to veto any Act of Congress- and require
| the votes of two-thirds of the Senate and two
thirds of the House to override that veto was
to confer upon the President most extraordi
nary power. 1t gave him power in the Senate
and House equivalent to one-sixth ofethe whole
legislative power of the Government, SO that one
President to-day wields legislative power of
thirteen Senators and fitty-four Representatives
when, in his executive capacity, he vetoes q
bill.
A POWER so EXTRAORDINARY
Was naturally used with great caution by our
earlier Presidents: General Washington in
| eight years used it twice. The first Adams
never used it at ALL Jefferson, considered (very
enormously, but still considered) by the modern
Democracy as their great prototype, in eight
| years used it three times, Monroe used it once,
| and John Quincy Adams never; SO that in the
| first forty years of the National Government,
measuring from Washington to Jackson, from
| 1889 to 1929, the veto power had been used only
| six times. Then came in the great leader ofthe
present Democratic party-as il has been or
ganized tor the last sixty years
GENERAL ANDREW JACKSON
| Upon the mention of Jacksons name num-
Der of vociferous democrats in corner OF the
hall set up yell of applause, to which Blaine
| replied
cheers, because however his contemporaries or
| those who succeeded him differed from him on
certain great questions, they remembered that
the first efforts of the disunionists were stran-
| gled in the cradle by that grand old hero"
This quick and happy retort upon the
would-be disturbers of the meeting was re-
ceived by the great audience with an outburst
of hearty cheers. After these had sunk into
quiet, Blaine continued as follows:
In the next forty years the veto was used
sixty times and of those sixty over fifty of them
were by Democratic Presidents Tappiause1, so
| democratic has been uniformly the one which
resorted to One-man power to thwart the popu-
lar will Up TO March 4, 1885, when the present
President of the United States was inaugurated,
| the veto power OF the Government had been
| used in all about seventy five times
| CLEVELAND BREAKS THE RECORD
! That was from 1889 to 1885. one hundred
| years, lacking four. And now Cleveland
| At this point the discordant element in the
| gale Y. as if by concerted arrangement, broke
| out with applause for Cleveland, which was i'm
mediately and energetically drowned by de-
| luge of Kisses from the body of the audience.
| Resuming. Blaine said: Cleveland, in three
and one half years, has used the veto over three
| hunored times cheer and cries of % Hear
| Hear Tor had when l left New York day be-
fore yesterday: How many times he has used it
| And these vetoeS by President Cleveland have
| been used 206 times
TO PREVENT A PTTIFUL PENSION
! OF four dollars q month or eight dollars month
"a few, bsiiers' of twelve dollars a poplthl to
States [cheers and cries of Hear Heart ~ and
| he is the first President of the United States
that ever vetoed bill for the relief OF soldier
| that had offered his body to the canuon-shot
and shell of the enemy of his country. [Cheers.
l wish had those vetoes here, and had time to
dwell upon them. They have all been issued
in pamphlet form, and they furnish a succinct
exposition of the difference between
| the Republican and Democratic parties
of to-day as to the manner of treating the SOL
| diers of the Republic. l commend it as one of
| the best political documents in print. Mark
| Mr.. Chairman, there was not III any one of these
vetoes, believe, charge that the men to
whom the pensions were to be given had not
been soldiers of the United States. There was
| not a single question that the men who were to
be relieved by the pensions sought were in sore
| and pressing need of bread. There was not in
any single case the slightest question involved
/ in the constitutional power of Congress to grant
| the pensions. Everyone of President Cleve-
| lands yetoes of pension bills read precisely as
| though they were decisions of the Commissioner
| of Pensions on applications for pensions under
! the existing laws. We all know that from the
| foundation of the Government the general PEN
| sion law provides for a general class of cases
We do our hest, by general law, to reach all
| cases, but in generalizing there will always be
| found exceptions, and every one of these 206
that met veto from the President came outside
| OF the personal merit of the men who applied
! for relief Applause
HAD ALL PASSED INSPECTION.
| Every case had been been before COM
mittee of the Republican Senate. livery case
| had been before a committee of the Democratic
House, and every case had been passed through
| the Republican Senate and the Democratic
| House 1t would be hard 10 imagine more i'm
| partial legislation that that should produce,
| and yet they met every time with the veto of
the President Some OF them even out of their
grimness and out of their cruelty had think, a
| spice of humor in them. recall one q wish 1
had it here to read now in which the. man
| had fallen victim to neuralgia of the
| most acute type, and to allay his psin
he was in the habit of taking
| opates. He was found dead in his bed and the
| question was whether he incurred his disability
| in the line of duty, or whether he died of pain
| or of an overdose of opiate; and if of an over
| dose of the opiate, whether it was taken inno-
Gently or with suicidal intent daughter Mr.
1 Cleveland said
| be very bad precedent to grant the widows
| and children of that man pension, because of
course, you know, Mr. Chairman. case of that
| kind might be so often repeated. Laughter.
With all due respect to the President, it carried
| my mind back to more youthful days,
when used to attend the theater
oftener than have OF late years. and l saw in
an old play II think it was Paul Prv,' but 1 am
not suic) he part Of 4 professional philan-
thropist who refused TO contribute anything to a
| subscription for the relief of the widow of q
| bricklayer y no had fallen from the top of q
| house where he was working because, as this
philanthrophist said, IF YOU relieve the widow
all sorts of men falling from all sorts of houses
and leaving all sorts of widowns and orphans
behind them. ILaughter.l I don't intend,
| Mr.. Chairman, to dwell the subject
| of pensions, and have introduced it now in or
der that it might be placed Wis avis with an
other subject, viz
| THE GREAT SURPLUS
| In the Treasury of the United States part OF
4 WlliCH might nave gone 10 JnAL poor SOL
dier without endangering the stability of the
i Government. [Applause and laughter But
| that su plus which the President has been ac-
cumulating for more than a year and half
| refusing to appy it to the re-
| duction OF the public debt has
| at last found its useful fate. The
| President and Secretary of the Treasury have
| ameliorated the danger by giving s60000,c0O OF
| it as loan, without interest, to some national
banks scattered all over the country, and this
day your money and mine, to the amount OF
more than sec, ,00000, is loaned without cent OF
interest to certain national banks and, contend
without a shadow of substantial right. Under
| the law that sixty milliens is secured to the
Government by the men who borrow it, deposit
ing bohds of the United States, and they are
allowed TO collect interest from the coupons on
these bonds, and to retain for all time the inter
est they earn, and allowing that interest to be al
| the rate of 5 per cent. There is
SEQ, 600 GRATuITousLY GIVEN AWAY
By the President and Secretary of the Treasury
in single year. / read this morning that the
Chairman of the Democratic National Commit
tee iMr. Bryce has sl,t00,o00 of the surplus
| in his bank. When there was danger last yeal
| and the year before of a stringency in
the money market, there was a move
ment made in Congress to allow
| the National banks to circulate on the bonds
they have deposited up to par, instead of being
confined to 90 per cent. The Democrats defeated
the proposition, and yet in this gratuitous
distribution of sixty-odd millions President