The Thibodaux sentinel. (Thibodaux, La.) 1905-1912, 1912-06-22
President May Do the Same With
Measure Providing for Abolish
ment of Commerce Court.

hington.-President Taft Mon
day vetoed the army appropriation
bill carrying a provision to legislate
Major General Wood out of office as
chief of staff The president returned
the bill to the house with sharp
message on the propriety of attacking
special legislation to an appropriation
bill.
Chairman Hay of the house military
affairs committee, one of the leading
sponsors for the special feature, re-
torted with a public statement in
which he charged the president with
. misstating facts concerning the bill
In his veto message and alleged the
president had vetoed it to pave the
way for veto of the legislative, exc
cutive and judicial appropriation bill
which provided for abolishing the
commerce court. President Taft has
told friends he will veto that bill also.
Now the army bill rests in commit
tee and the army appropriation for
the coming year will be unprovided
for unless it is passed without the
feature to which President Taft OBJ
jected or until a resolution extending
the present appropriation to next year
is put through. While the president
did not mention Major General Wood
| by name, he pointed out that the limi-
| tations imposed upon the incumbent
Of that office by the terms of the bill
would have disqualified many of the
army's most brilliant officers. He
also objected to the provisions which
have removed officers of the Philip
pines constabulary, the Panama canal
work and the bureau of insular af-
fairs.
1.-THE fact that single provision OF
the bill can cause such serious conse-
ouences," said the president, offers
| further evidence of the unwisdom OF
method which deprives legislation OF
its useful safeguards of scrutiny and
discussion"
The president condemned the bills
provisions changing the enlistm ent
term three to four years, calling them
contrary to enlightened military pol
icy and declaring they would make
impossible the establishment Of a
proper reserve. The proposed commits
sion to report on the policy of army
fposts was criticised by Mr.. Taft as
obstructing rather than furtherlng so
luton of difficult problem. There
would be a deficiency under the bill
in the pay of the army alone of more
than $4,000. The economy claimed for
the bill, the president said, was ar
rived at merely by failure to appro-
pirate more than s5,O00,O00 which
would be needed before the end OF
the coming year.
The president declared the practice
of attaching legislation to approprla-
ton bill with the intent of deprlvlng
the president of his constitutional
power of veto could not be defended.
"Taken as a WHOLE" he said, 1t
would be hard to conceive a clearer
institution to force upon the executive
the legislation we'll known to be dis
approved by him, and by attaching
such legislation to one of the great
supply bills of the government to de-
Drive the president of his constitu-
tional power as to legislation. There
can not be no constitutional defense
to such practice; on the contrary,
such attempts have been firmly re-
sisted by my predecessors. In 1879
President Hayes vetoed an army ap-
oropriation bill because there had
been added to it by congress similar
provisions of substantive law