, 1888-02-29
The Dependent Pension Bill

WASHINGTON, Fe5. 2S.-The senate
to-day again resumed consideration of the
bill granting pensions TO ex soldiers and
sailors who arc lncapacltated from the
performance OF manual labor and provid-
ing for pensions to dependent relatives of
deceased soldiers, the question being on
the adoption of Mr.. Calls amendment
making the bill apply also to those who
served in the war with Mexico or (tor 80
days in any Of the Indian wars. The
amendment was agreed to.
A long political debate followed, which
was participated in by Senators Cullom,
Henderson and others. Senator Plum
held that the bill did not have the en-
dorsement of the G. A. r.
Senator Plumb asked Senator Faulkner
if he believed the president would veto
the bill, whereupon the presiding officer,
ingalls,, lntertered, saying that it had
been always held to be a breach of order
to refer in debate to the action OF the ex,
ecutive. Mr.. Plumb expressed his regret
that the chair had not thought so when
the senator from West Virginia was
speaking.
Presiding oficer-The chair had in
tended before this to say, and do and
takes occasion now to say, that it has
never been held to be in order in debate
in the senate to refer to the opinion OF the
executive or to the action of the execu-
tive as argument for or against pending
legislation.
Mr.. Henderson suggested that if the
senator from Kentucky proposed to take
away the right of petition from the q. A.
R., he would meet with no support ever
on his own side of the chamber. He de-
MED that the G. A. r. as an organization
was to be benefited by the bill.
Senator Beck denied having ever sug-
gested that the G. A. r. should not ex-
ercise the right of petition, and said that
the president had not the right to veto an
obnoxious measure. The senator from
Nebraska had told the senate the ac-
tionot the commissioner of pensions
nobody had suggested that in report
ing the bill had grown out of the action
Of the G.. y. r., which was to be itself a
beneficiary under the bill. That senator's
speech, he said, was more degrading to the
senate than any illusion to the presidents
action on the bill could be.
MIR. Teller protested against the senate
of the United States being threatened with
the executive veto. He had never heard
such a thing before in the senate and he
nOpCu hC mOulu uGNCE uGtI IL dRdll. IL
seemed to him to be a great degration to
the senate for a senator to stand up and
say that he proposed to be governed in
his vote by what the executive thought or
felt or wanted. The president was a CO
ordinate branch of the government, but
was not the legislative department of the
government. If a great high body which
had maintained for a hundred years a de-
cent dignitied position among the people
was to be threatened with exective disap-
probation, there would be an end, and
there ought to be an end, to the Amcri-
can senate.
Mr.. Beck hoped that the senator from
Colorado would tell the senate what he
thought of the speech efthe senator from
Nebraska (Mr. Manderson) as to the ac.
ton of the Grand Army Of the Republic,
the beneticiaries of the bill, as to what
their posts had determined that a senator
should do.
Henderson said he was at a loss to con.
ccivc how the executive was so immacu-
late and unapproachable that his action
was not to be criticized. He claimed the
right not only in his capacity as a senator,
but as a citizen, to criticize even the acts
of the president. lie had not discussed
the probable action of the president on
the bill, except to suggest the desire to
have a bill passed that would probably be.
come a law. 1t was that which he felt to
be a degradation to the senate, and he
thought that every senator ought to feel
that it was a degradation. He did not
mean to say that the president was re.
sponsible for that. If he was, he ought