The daily morning journal and courier., 1900-04-11
CLEVELANp AGAIN SPEAKS.
Ills Opinion of Office -Seekers-His Com
 troversy with Senate.

l
 Princeton, N. J., April 1o.-Ex-P Presi- dent Grover Cleveland delivered h.s sec
 ond and last lecture in Alexander hall
 tonight before large number of stu
 dents, members of the faclty, their
 families and many others. When Pres ident Patton and MT. Cleveland appear
 ed on the rostrum they were greeted
 with prolonged applause. MT. Cleve-
 lands subject was the same as that of
 last night, namely, "The Independence
 of the Executive" He began by speak ! ing of the pressure for the removal of ! public officeholders immediately after | the change of administration in 1885, and the substitution of democrats in their places. While I claim,' he said, ito have earned a position which entit-
 ties me to resent the accusation that ! either openly or covertly favor swift Of ficial decapitatlon for partisan purposes, have no sympathy with the intolerant
 people, who, without the least apprecia-
 tion of the meaning of party work and
 service, superciliously affect to 1espise all those who apply for office as they would those guilty of fragrant misde
 meanor. Why should we indiscrimi- nately hate those who seek office? They may not have entirely emancipated
 themselves from the belief that the of- fees should pass with party victory; but even if this is charged against them it can surely be said that in all other respects they are in very many in stances as honest, as capable and as in- telligent as any of us"
 Mir Cleveland then passed to a discus sion of his controversy with the senate over the question of transmitting the reasons for suspensions from office and the papers relating thereto. II could not avoid the conviction" he said, that a compliance with such requests would be to that extent a failure to protect and defend the constitution, as well as a wrong to the great office held in trust for the people, and which was bound to transmit unimpaired to my success sors; nor could I be unniindful of a constant tendency in certain quarters to encroach upon executive functions, or of the eagerness with which executive concession would be seized upon as es- tabllshing precedent" sae
 MT. Cleveland then quoted at length from the report of the senate committee on the judiciary, to which the question had been referred, and also from his own message to the senate. After re- viewing the debate in the senate upon the questions presented by the report he commented upon the passage by the senate of the resolution condemning the attorney general for Withholding the papers and documents which the senate had demanded. He then pointed out that in December, 1885, prior to the first request or demand upon an executive department relating to suspensions and before any controversy upon the subject arose bill was introduced in the senate for the total repeal of the law of 1869. This bill slumbered in the senate com mittee on the judiciary until June, 1886, nearly three months after the close of the controversy. It was then returned to the senate with a favorable report. and passed both the senate and the Ol IcpI iHuS, de- clared MT. Cleveland, in closing, was an unpleasant controversy happily fol- lowed by an expurgation of the last vestige of statutory sanction to an en- croachment upon constitutional execu- tive prerogatives, and thus was a time honored interpretation of the constitu- tion restored to us. The president, freed from the senate's claim of tutelage, be- came again the independents agent of the people-represent coordinate branch of their government-charged with responsibilities which under his oath he ought not to avoid or share"