Press and daily Dakotaian. (Yankton, Dakota Territory [S.D.]) 1880-1889, 1888-10-05
Blaine Talks on Vetoes
re ArraEssEs A MIXED Audi
LNoE AT DETROIT.
HIS LINE OF ARGUMENT.
The Rise. and Fall OF tho Veto from the
Earliest Days of the Republic to
the Present yima-rresident
Cleveland ArraiGned.

DETROIT, Oct. mir. Blaine spoke for
twenty three minutes in the Detroit rink
to s 900 people. All the railroads ran
special trains for the occasion, the cheap
rates md the fame of the orator con-
tributing to augment the crowd. Many
ladies were present. There was the
usual campaign hmrrah, but the meeting
was not an exclusively partisan one, as
was evidenced by the quite general ap-
plause which followed Mr.. Bla,ne's
reference to Andrew jackson as a great
leader of Democracy, and which occa-
s~iontlly greeted The name of Mr.. Cleve-
land. On being introduced by the chair
man, Gen. Alger, Mr.. Blaine said:
MIR. CHAIRMAN n FELLOW CITIZENS
(for, despite the Hon. Don Dickinson, a
New Highlander nay still venture to call
II citizen of Michigan his fellow citizensl.
1t was said at the beginning of our gov
eminent that the veto power was an
anomaly in it. In their effort for the
preservation of constitutional liberty,
when framing the great document which
they transmitted TO their posterity, our
ancestors were compelled to copy largely
from England, whence they or their an
cestors had come. In England there had
not been a veto by the crown of any act
=oi PutllbIlGAU SlhCC DHS UiGSOluplJu Oi
1883. 1t occurred to the mass of the peo-
pie in the colonies that to give the presi-
dentlthe unqualified power of vetoing
any act of congress, and to require the
votes of two'thirds Of the senate and
house to override that veto, was
TO confer upon the president a most ex-
t~raoruinary power. 1t gave him in the
senate and house that which was equiva-
lent to one sixth of the whole Legislative
voting power, because the difference be-
tween n majority of one and a veto of
two-thirds. amounts to one-siXth of the
whole, so that the president of to-day,
when he yetoes a bill, yields the power
of thirteen senators and ffty-seven rep
resentatives, in addition to his ordinary
executive functions. A power so extra
ordinary was naturally used with great
caution by our earlier presidents. Gen.
Washington in eight years made use Of
OF it twice. Jefferson, consid-
ered--very enormously. but still
considerably the .aodern Democ-
racy as their great prototype,
in eight years never used IL at all. Madi-
son, in eight years, used 1t three times,
Monroe made use Of it once, and John
Quincy Adams never. In the first forty
years of the national government, from
Washington to Adams, the veto power
was used six times. Then came into Of
flee the great leader of the present DEM
ocratic part, rs it has been organized for
the last sixty years--Gen. Andrew Jack
son. [Applause.l He is worthy Of your
cheers because, however his contempo-
raries or those who have followed them
have differed from him Oh certain ques-
tons, it has been remembered that the
first effort of the southern disunionists
was strangled in the cradle by that
soldier president. Applause. In
the succeeding forty years the veto
was used sixty times and
OF those sixty yetoes oyer fifty were by
Democrats, SO that the party which pro-
fesses to be SO intensely Democratic has
been uniformity the one which resorted to
this one power to defeat popular will. Up
to March q, 1885, when the present presi-
dent of The United States was inaugur-
ated, the veto power of the government
had been used in all about seventy-fiv
times, that is, from 1889 to 1895-one
hundred years back, lacking four. Now,
Mr.. Cleveland, [applausel in three years
and a hall, has used the veto oyer 800
times, [sHear, hear, and applausel or
had when ! left New York, day before
yesterday-how many times since then i
do not know LDerisiye laughter and
applause.l
OF those vetoes 206 have been to prevent
pitifu pensions OF 81 a month, of So and a
few, 1 believe, OF sl2 a month to worn
down and starving soldiers of the United
States. loud %applause.] He is the first
president OF the United States who ever
vetoed a bill for the relief of a soldier
who had exposed his body On the field of
battle to the bullets and shells of the
enemy in defense of his country
Mr.. Blaine reviewed the action of the
president in connection with vetoes at
some length and concluded his speech
with m agraignment of the Democratic
policy of loaning sixty millions of the
governments money TO national banks
without interest.