where the King is considered a part of Parliament, and therefore possessing a share of legislative power, the royal negative would only be permitted in cases where encroachments were attempted upon the royal prerogative.

Daniel Webster, in a speech at Worcester, Mass., October 12, 1832, said:

The power of the veto is exercised—

Speaking of Jackson's veto of the bank bill—

not as an extraordinary, but as an ordinary power, as a common mode of defeating acts of Congress not acceptable to the Executive. This practical innovation on the mode of administering the Government so much at variance with its general principles, and so capable of defeating the most useful acts, deserves public consideration. Its tendency is to disturb the harmony which ought always to exist between Congress and the Executive, and to turn that which the Constitution intended only as an extraordinary remedy for extraordinary cases into a common means of making executive discretion paramount to the discretion of Congress in the enactment of laws.

Again, Webster, in his speech in the Senate on the veto of the bank bill, referring to the question of expediency and of policy, says:

This power, if constitutional at all, is only constitutional in the hands of Congress. Anywhere else its exercise would be plain usurpation. If, then, the authority to decide what power ought to be granted to a bank belongs to Congress, and Congress shall have exercised that power, it would seem little better than absurd to say that its acts nevertheless would be unconstitutional and invalid if, in the opinion of a third party, it had misjudged on a question of expediency in the arrangements of details. If Congress decides right its decision may stand; if it decides wrong its decision is nugatory, and whether its decision be right or wrong, another is to judge, although the original power of making the decision must be allowed to be exclusively in Congress. This is the end to which the argument of the message will conduct its followers.

Von Holst, in his Constitutional History of the United States, volume 2, pages 46 and 47, in speaking of the veto of the bank bill by Jackson, says:

Since the President, as already said, is not to be considered as a power coördinate with Congress in the matter of legislation, we may call it running counter to the spirit of the Constitution that the President should think himself, the moment any provision in the details of a bill did not entirely suit him, to exercise his veto power. The President, if he were consistently to carry out this new doctrine, should endeavor to prevent all legislation which did not in every particular entirely correspond with his views, and he might do it in all instances in which he could count on one-third of the members of both Houses of Congress.

cases.

Mr. Clay, in discussing the veto power in 1832, said:

The veto is an extraordinary power which, though tolerated by the Constitution, was not expected by the convention to be used in ordinary It was designed for instances of precipitate legislation in unguarded moments. Thus restricted, and it has been thus restricted by all former Presidents, it might not be mischievous. During Mr. Madison's Administration of eight years there occurred but two or three cases of its exercise. In a period of little upward of three years the present Chief Magistrate has employed the veto four times.

What would have been Clay's thoughts and comments if instead of four times it was four hundred times in the space of three years, as in the case of the present occupant of the White House during his first Administration?

Kent, in his Commentaries, says:

This qualified negative of the President has become a very grave power and applied in a way not anticipated by the generation which adopted the Constitution.

Two Democratic Presidents of the Republic at least have expressed their opinion on this question-Pierce and Polk. These Presidents far surpassed the present Executive in character and ability.

The unusual and unconstitutional exercise of the veto power by Grover Cleveland should receive the attention of Congress; for, during his two administrations up to May 1, 1896, he had vetoed 542 pension bills alone. Washington, in his two full terms, vetoed but two bills, and the veto power was not exercised by Adams and Jefferson at all. It was exercised by Monroe but once. John Quincy Adams, Van Buren, Tay

lor, and Fillmore did not veto any measure passed by Congress; while Lincoln vetoed but one act of Congress during the exciting epoch through which that great statesman conducted this country in safety.

The average number of vetoes since the adoption of the Constitution has been about one a year up to the time Grover Cleveland became President of the United States.

If it were not for this usurpation on the part of the President, regarded with such indifference by our people, the ques tion of finance, which is not and should not be a party question. would not enter into and vex our contests for the election of a President. If the people could feel that the President would execute the laws-would obey the Constitution, so that the majority should rule-the financial questions which now tear asunder and threaten to destroy the great political parties of this country would be determined by the two Houses of Congress untrammeled by Executive interference. The people of this country would embrace with great satisfaction the assurance in the platforms of both political parties that the judg ment of Congress in relation to all questions of finance shall be accepted as conclusive and binding, and that the exercise of the veto by the President to overturn the will of the majority is a violation of the Constitution.

Mr. President, the present occupant of the White House is not content with the violation of the Constitution by the exercise of the veto power alone, but with an utter disregard of his sacred oath of office, as well as the Constitution, he overrides the laws, influences Congressmen with patronage, enriches his favorites at the public expense-in fact, permits no restraint but his imperial will. I think he might fairly be charged with high crimes and misdemeanors. He has exercised the veto power in direct violation of the Constitution. He has appointed men to office without the advice and consent of the Senate. He has defied the Senate and the Constitution alike by appointing men to official positions after the Senate had twice refused its consent, and still retains them in office.

During his first term he openly used his appointing power to intimidate members of Congress, and during his second term he has given appointments to members of Congress for the purpose of securing their votes upon measures pending in the two Houses.

On his own motion he has undertaken to overthrow the Hawaiian Government, doing acts in direct violation of the Constitution. He has borrowed money in violation of law for the ordinary expenses of the Government, and then falsified the facts in relation thereto in a message to Congress. He has refused to remit taxes as required by law, and has collected taxes unlawfully. He has refused to enforce the laws of Congress so often that the list of violations is next only to the list of his vetoes. He has sold bonds at private sale to his favorites and former associates upon terms and at a price many millions of dollars below the market price of the bonds on the day of such private sale. In view of these facts it is time for Congress to give some attention to these usurpations. If this Government is to survive we can no longer look with indifference upon the shameful autocracy of Grover Cleveland.

T'

APPENDIX V

CENSORSHIP IN THE PHILIPPINES

HE following is the letter to the general manager of the Associated Press from the correspondent in the Philippines, called forth by a request for an explanation of his reason for signing the protest of the correspondents against the censorship. It was written for the information of the general manager of the Associated Press:

MELVILLE E. STONE, ESQ.,

MANILA, P. I., July 30, 1899.

General Manager the Associated Press, Chicago, U. S. A.

MY DEAR MR. STONE: Your request for a detailed record of all circumstances leading to the statement cabled to the newspapers by all the correspondents in Manila is just received. In the beginning, it should be explained that the correspondents had the question of taking some united action to secure the right to send the facts about the war, or, failing in that, to explain to our papers and the public why we were not telling the facts two months before the cablegram was released.

The censorship enforced during the war and before the beginning of it was, according to newspaper men who had worked in Japan, Turkey, Greece, Egypt, and Russia in war times, and in Cuba under the Weyler régime and during our war, so much more stringent than any hitherto attempted that we were astonished that the American authorities should countenance it, and were confident that public opinion would be overwhelmingly against it if its methods and purposes became known.

For a long time we submitted to the censorship because of appeal to our patriotism and a feeling that we might be accused of a lack thereof if we made any trouble for the American authorities here.

But when General Otis came down in the frank admission that it was not intended so much to prevent the newspapers from giving information and assistance to the enemy (the legitimate function and, according to our view, the only legitimate one of a censorship), but to keep the knowledge of conditions here from the public at home; and 1. Speech in the Senate, June 4-5, 1900.