Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1909-01-15
Cleveland Made Clear the Course
For Roosevelt TO Take

A day or two ago, Senator Culberson
of Texas introduced a resolution which
the Senate adopted. The resolution
directed the Attorney General to in
form the Senate whether any steps had
been taken by his department looking
TO the prosecution of the United States
Steel Corporation toward its absorp-
tion of the Tennessee Coal and Iron
Company during the recent panic, and
if not. why not. On Wednesday, the
President, to whom the Attorney
General had referred the Culberson
resolution, said that no such prosecu-
ton had been undertaken. MI. Roose-
welt went further to give his views on
the right of the Senate to make such a
demand upon the Attorney General.
He declared the Senate had no such
right. He denied the authority of
that body to make such a demand.
He gave the information because he
chose todo so, but he had forbidden the
Attorney General to do SO because his
knowledge or reasons were exclusively
the possession of the President.
His message to the Senate is said
to have made hat body angry, but it
should do more. 1t should make it
reflect. The longer the Senate reflects,
the more it may study the extent of
executive power and discretion and the
r;obf .Nf tho avaontiva 10 raSopf infor-
ference with the prerogative powers of
the President.
Mr.. Roosevelt in the statement he
sent to the Senate, yesterday, followed
the course of Grover Cleveland, when
like demands were made upon him,
and were refused by him. Mr.. Cleve-
land himself, in an address to the stud
ents and faculty of Princeton College
on 1.-THE Independence of the Execu-
tive,n remarked very distinctly con-
corning the rights of the Executive to
freedom from wrongful interrogatory
by the Senate, and declared: "In con-
sidering the request made for the
transmission of the reasons for suspen-
sions and the papers relating thereto,
/ could not avoid the conviction 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 1 held in
trust for the people, and which l was
bound to transmit unimpaired to my
SUCCESSORS"
There was a controversy of several
months standing between President
Cleveland and the Senate, upon qUes-
tions analogous to those to which Mr..
Roosevelt, on Wednesday, made a re-
Spouse. The Senate censured the At
torney General under Mr.. Cleveland
for refusing to give to it information it
had no right to demand. Mr.. Cleve-
Ak4ddsfanded-tbe- ttesaeT General,
and pressed the issue so hard and so
often and over so long a period that
the Senate finally abandoned the con-
tention, and Mr.. Cleveland, in the
language of the present time, "won
out.u
Those who are interested in the his
tory of the subject will discover that
when Mr.. Cleveland war sustained he
was upholding the position which
President Roosevelt took on Wednes-
day on a similar demand. The de-
mand was not the same in terms. 1t
was the same in substance. 1t was
different only IN details.
We are surprised that Senator Gull
berson was the author of that demand.
He was selected to be the leader of the
Democratic minority in the Senate, on
the ground of his conservatism and on
the ground that he vas a great lawyer.
He may be a great lawyer. A great
layman named Theodore Roosevelt has
"laid out" the great lawyer by simply
taking the position which Grover
Cleveland took many years ago. We
trust also that Mr.. Culberson will re-
turn to a conservatism which his offer
of his late resolution seriously impair
d. The Presidents special message to
the Senate gives to Mr.. Culberson's
former conservatism an excellent
chance to become convalescent and
eventually to regain complete health.
And Mr.. Roosevelt's rejoinder had
been stronger, had he recalled Mr..
Cleveland's sturdy stand for the rights
of the executive office.
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