St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-06-29
Senator Davis Scores the
President for Vetoing
Pension Bills,
Questioning Growers Right to
Exercise the Prerogative
in Such Cases.
Knute Nelson Fails to Hood
wink Congressman Haul
gen, of Wisconsin.
Northwestern Victims of Dick
inson's Ax-Party Plat
forms Disseeted.
Special to the Globe.

Speclal 10 the GLOBE.
WASHINGTON, June 2S.-From the
senate committee On pensions Chairman
Davis to-day reported back to the sem
ate, with recommendation that they be
passed over the vetoes, the presidents
vetOes of senate bills granting pensions
to David A. Seryis, William Sackman.
ST., johanna Loewinger, Hannah r.
Langdon, Anna Mertz, Betsy Mans
field and Mary Sullivan. In his report
Senator Davis says: ''Since the Sth of
May, 1886, 136 special pension acts have
been disapproved by the president.
Legislation of this character has been a
matter of settled and favored policy for
very long period, commencing before
the civil war. These disapprovals,
based in great majority of cases upon
the expressed opinion of the president
that congress had
ERRED IN ITS JUDGMENT
upon mere questions of fact, such as
the incurrence of disability in the
service, or whether death from dis
ease or casualty, asserted to be the sec
ondary result of some disease incurred
in the service, ought to be held, upon
the testimony, to be so referable, or
whether the proof before congress
showed the existence of any disability
whatever. 1t is, of course, impossible
tor the president to examine the mass
OF documentary evidence upon which
each case depends, and which is in
variabiy examined by the committee,
and it follows that when he disagrees
with congress upon the question of fact
in these cases, his Judgment must be
based, not upon the reports of the COM
mlttee, in which the facts are
ness, but upon the report of
some subordinate in the bureau
of pensions. This bureau, whose action
congress has reversed, is thus enable to
review the action of congress by the eX-
press direction of the president. These
reports OF the bureau cannot, in the
nature of things, possibly be made by
any one person within the time during
which the president can hold bills for
consideration when they are received
by him in such numbers. This explains
the
NUMEROUS INCONSISTENCIES
of executive action which are herein
after fully exposed. This method of
consideration is an abridgement by the
executive of the exercise of the right of
congress to waive that strict proof
which is properly required in ordinary
cases in the department, under the
somewhat technical rules that have
grown up out of repeated precedents.
This results plainly from the practice
that executive disapproval follows in
any case where the records of the bu-
reau are deemed by the president not to
sustain the action of congress. This in
yaSlon upon the province of congress
goes further. 1t annulS its undoubted
power in the cases which have been
subjected to executive disapproval to
determine by the will of its majority
that the public money shall be appro-
priated for a legitimate and constitu-
tional purpose. 1t cannot be main
tanned upon any fair construction of the
constitution that the power of executive
diSapproval ought to be exercised upon
acts of this character for the sole reason
that the president differs in opinion
from congress upon a mere question of
the weight of testimony, OF upon the
expediency OF special act which sub
serves a proper general purpose, and
which lmperilS no power of any other
department.
ADAPTATIONS MOVE RAPIDLY
in republics, from small objects to those
of greatest concern. That the power
exists in the executive to disapprove
any legislative measure cannot be de-
MED. But the duty undeniably also ex-
lists that it shall not be used in such a
manner, or upon any occasion or preteXt
as to make its exercise operate as an
encroachment upon the powers of other
departments of the government. 1t is
the theory of our government that the
great body of power shall rest in the
legislative department as the most i'm
! mediate representative of the people.
Of the 1872 bills disapproved by the
present chief executive, 1876 are bills
granting pensions to individuals. All
of his predecessors vetoed but 1873 bills.
None of his predecessors disapproved
any acts of this character, excepting
President Grant, who diSapproved but
five, and meme of these were INSANE
toned on account of any difference of
opinions upon the facts"