second section of the first class includes bills relieving individuals from contract obligations. Among them is a bill to relieve certain mail contractors from loss suffered in complying with the terms of their contract.1 The loss was caused by curtailing, in accordance with a provision of the contract, the number of trips made by the mail-carriers. Another bill excused a revenue collector from the use of that degree of diligence which the law required him to exercise, or, in other words, absolved him from the results of his own carelessness.2 § 67. Bills relieving deserters from the army. The second class includes four bills relieving deserters from the United States Army from the legal effect of their desertion. One of these bills was passed over the veto on the ground that the man was not a deserter.4 5 § 68. Bills relieving former army officers of disability. - Two bills were vetoed whose object was the restoration of former army officers to the active list, by relieving them of disabilities. The latter of these bills was for the relief of Fitz John Porter, and is of considerable constitutional interest, from the fact that it quite openly attempted to appoint Porter to his old position in the Army. This question has, however, already been considered." Porter had been found guilty by a court-martial duly appointed and composed of officers of distinguished ability, and the sentence had been approved by President Lincoln. President Arthur, in view of these facts, vetoed the bill, not only because it usurped executive authority, but because in relieving Porter it "established a dangerous precedent, calculated to imperil in no small measure the binding force and effect of the judgments of the various tribunals established under our constitution and laws."7 § 69. Bills carelessly drawn. Several relief bills have been vetoed because they were so carelessly drawn that they would not have accomplished their intended objects. The bill for the relief of Daniel H. Kelly may be taken as an example. It was passed 3 Ibid., Nos. 94, 97, 103, 114. These vetoes were all in the administration of General Grant, who may be supposed to have felt a special interest in cases of military discipline. 4 Appendix A, No. 103. 6 Ante, § 29. 5 Ibid., Nos. 106, 132. 7 Senate Miscellaneous Documents, 49 Cong., 2 sess., No. 53, p. 457 b. 8 Appendix A, Nos. 79, 113, 124, 307. to benefit Kelly's heirs, but it was pointed out in the paper accompanying the veto message that the bill as it stood would be of no advantage to them. $ 70. Miscellaneous relief bills. The last class includes vetoes which could not be fairly classified under any of the preceding heads. Two of the bills were for the extension of patents which the needs of the government and the public welfare seemed to demand should not be extended. Several of the bills were to compensate the owners of houses and other property destroyed on the ground of military necessity by the United States armies in the Civil War. These bills came up in President Grant's administration, and he objected to them on the ground that the destruction was necessary, and was for the public good, and that if the bills were approved it would open the way for the presentation of a vast number of similar and equally good claims, calling for the expenditure of very large sums of money. The veto for the relief of Major J. T. Turner gave rise to the very interesting question of parliamentary law as to whether a President could recall a veto message before Congress had voted upon it. The question will be discussed in a later chapter.2 § 71. Pension vetoes. With the exception of five unimportant bills disapproved by President Grant, no bill granting a pension has been vetoed by any President save Cleveland. For this fact there are several reasons. In the first place, the veterans of the previous wars almost invariably received land where now pensions would be granted. Furthermore, the government, before 1861, was never rich enough to enter upon an extensive system of money pensions. After the Civil War the circumstances were altered. Good public land was no longer abundant; the government, owing to the prosperous condition of the country, rapidly and easily accumulated large sums of money. This circumstance naturally gave rise to a system of pensions on a large scale. With the increasing surplus, less and less scrutiny was bestowed on private pension bills. In consequence a very great number of wholly unworthy claims received the assent of Congress, and it was against this rising tide of fraudulent or unnecessary pensions that President Cleveland set himself. 1 Appendix A, Nos. 74, 84, 85, 88, 90, 91, 109, 116 (Grant); 373, 406 (Cleveland). 2 Post, § 108. The pension vetoes comprise two hundred and thirty-three of § 72. Bills conveying no benefit. The first group includes $73. Unnecessary increase of pensions. The third class in- $74. Injuries not received "in the line of duty.". The fourth - § 75. Dependent relatives: dependency not proved. Congress § 76. Miscellaneous pension bills. - There are a few bills which 1 Appendix A, Nos. 81, 82, 83, 95, 104 (Grant), 137, 168, 178, 189, 194, 196, 204, 208, 2 Appendix A, Nos. 138, 160, 165, 203, 242, 268, 269, 270, 323, 432 (Cleveland). 4 Appendix A, Nos. 161, 182, 206, 247, 264, 280 (Cleveland). 5 Ibid., No. 156. widow who proved not to be a widow;1 a third was the claim of a woman who had had a pension as the widow of a soldier killed in the war, but who had lost her pension by remarrying, and who now wished it renewed, although she was still married and was. living with her husband.2 Five granted pensions to men who had deserted from the army.3 § 77. The Dependent Pension Bill. The most important of all the pension bills which encountered the veto was not, however, a private act for the benefit of an individual, but a general and farreaching law. February 11, 1887, President Cleveland vetoed a bill entitled, "An act for the relief of dependent parents and honorably discharged soldiers and sailors who are now disabled and dependent upon their own labor for support." The bill granted service pensions to all honorably discharged soldiers and sailors who were not at the time of the passage of the act, or who should not, at any future time, be capable of supporting themselves by their own labor, and who are dependent on their daily labor for support, regardless of whether they had received any injury in the service or even had been engaged in battle. The President objected to the bill in the first place because in his estimation the wording of the proposed law was so indefinite as to give rise to conflicting constructions, and to be liable to unjust and mischievous application. In support of his statement he quoted the conflicting opinions in regard to the operation of the bill expressed on the floors of Congress.5 The looseness of phraseology, and the fact that the proof necessary for the establishment of claims was largely within the knowledge of the claimants alone, would still further stimulate fraudulent applications for pensions and put a "premium on dishonesty and mendacity." The President argued also that the bill was uncalled for, because the soldiers of the Civil War had been better provided for by pay and bounty than any other soldiery "since mankind first went to war," and because most ample laws had been passed which granted pensions for any injury actually received in the service of the United States. Lastly, the President pointed out that the expense of the proposed law would probably be many times the estimate. In support of this argument, he cited the case of the pension granted 1 Appendix A, No. 330. 8 Ibid., Nos. 343, 357, 361, 397, 416. 2 Ibid., No. 389. in 1853 to the widows of the soldiers of the Revolutionary War, which had cost the government nearly eight times as much as had been expected. The debate in Congress over the veto was very sharp.1 The opponents of the veto were both indignant and outspoken; they called attention to the President's inconsistency in signing the Mexican War service pension bill, and characterized his objections as flimsy; they charged him with favoring the solid South and Wall Street. § 78. President Cleveland's pension policy. In his veto of the Dependent Pension Bill, President Cleveland took a bold stand against a popular measure, in behalf of economical government. The same general principles appear in the vetoes of private pension bills, classified in paragraphs 71 to 76 above. There the President repeatedly and clearly stated what he considered to be the wise policy; and it was in the discussion of these vetoes that the congressional hostility to the policy was manifested. The position of the executive may be briefly defined as a desire to check the indiscriminate and often fraudulent granting of pensions. In the veto of a bill granting a pension to Elizabeth S. De Krafft, the President says: "In reviewing the pension legislation presented to me, many bills have been approved upon the theory that every doubt should be resolved in favor of the proposed beneficiary. I have not, however, been able to entirely divest myself of the idea that the public money . . . should be devoted to the indemnification of those who in the defence of the union have worthily suffered."2 Again he says: "Every relaxation of principle in the granting of pensions invites applications without merit and encourages those who for gain urge honest men to become dishonest. Thus is the demoralizing lesson taught that as against the public treasury the most questionable expedients are allowable."3 The President was, in short, attempting avowedly to defend the public money, the public morals, and the disabled soldier. The President's policy was severely attacked in Congress, on the ground that his conclusions as to the unjustifiable character 1 Congressional Record, 49 Cong., 2 sess., 2200, 2202, 2210, 2222. 2 Appendix A, No. 168; Senate Miscellaneous Documents, 49 Cong., 2 sess., No. 53, p. 489. 8 Ibid. |