Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1880 — ANOTHER VETO. [ARTICLE]

ANOTHER VETO.

Put to tlie Deficiency Bill by tin President. The President has sent to the House of Representatives the following message, vetoing the Deficiency Appropriation bill: To the House of Representatives: After mature consideration of the bill entitled “An act making appropriations to supply certain deficiencies in the appropriations for the service of the Government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880, and for other purposes,” I return it to the House of Representatives, in which it originated, with my objections to its passage. The bill appropriates about SBOO,OOO, of which over $600,000 is for the payment of the fees of United States Marshals and of general and special Deputy Marshals earned during the current fiscal year, and their incidental expenses. The appropriations made in the bill are needed to carry on the operations of the Government and to fulfill its obligations for the payment of money long since due its officers for services and expenses essential to the execution of their duties under the laws of the United States. The necessity for these appropriations is so urgent and they have already been so long delayed that if the bill before me contained no permanent or legal legislation unconnected with these appropriations it would receive my prompt approval. It contains, however, provisions which materially change, and, by implication, repeal important parts of the laws for the regulation of the United States elections. These laws have for several years been the subject of vehement political controversy, and have been denounced as unnecessary, oppressive, and unconstitutional. On Hie "other hand, it has been maintained with equal zeal and earnestness that the elections laws are indispensable to fair and lawful elections, and are clearly warranted by the constitution. Under these circumstances, to attempt, in an appropriation bill, a modification or repeal of these laws, is to annex a condition to the passage of needed and proper appropriations, which tends to deprive the Executive of that equal and independent exercise of discretion and judgment which the constitution contemplates. The objection to the bill, therefore, to which I respectfully ask your attention is that it gives marked and deliberate sanction, attended by no circumstances of pressing necessity, to a questionable, and, as I am clearly of the opinion, the dangerous practice of tacking upon appropriation bills general and permanent legislation. This practice opens wide the door to hasty, inconsiderate and sinister legislation. It invites attacks upon the independence and constitutional powers of the Executive by providing an easy and effective way of constraining the "Executive discretion. Although of late this practice has been resorted to by all political parties when clothed with power, it did not prevail until forty years after the adoption of the constitution, and it is confidently believed that it is condemned by the enlightened judgment of the country. The States which have adopted new coi'ktitutions during the last quarter of a century have generally provided remedies for the peril. Many of them have enacted that no law shall contain more than one subject, which sha’.ibc plainly exposed in its title. Constitutions of more than half the States .contain substantially this provision, or some other of like intent and meaning. The public welfare will be promoted in many ways by a return to the early practice of the Government and to tlie true interest of legislation, which is that every measure should stand upon its own merits. I am firmly convinced that appropriation bills ought not to contain any legislation not relevant to the application or expenditure of money thereby appropriated, and that, by a strict adherence to this principle, an important and much-needed reform will be accomplished. Placing my objection to the bill on this feature of its frame, 1 forbear any comment ujion the important general and permanent legislation which it contains, as matter for specific and independent consideration. (Signed) Rutherford B. Hayes. Executive Mansion. May 4, 1880.

The Diamond. Although found in every quarter of the globe, the diamond is the rarest, as it is the hardest, known mineral. It occurs exclusively among gold-bearing rocks, or sands derived from gold-bear-ing rocks, and among strata which, though originally soft shaly deposits of sand or mud, have been “metamorphosed,” as it is called, into hard crystalline schists. It was once supposed by geologists that the metamorphic rocks were deposited in their existing crystalline form from a boiling ocean enveloping the still-heated globe; but it is now known that these formations vere originally deposited as mud or sand, and have been transmitted into schists by the influence of subterranean heat acting under great pressure through lengthened periods of time, and aided by thermal water or steam permeating the porous rocks and giving rise to various chemical decompositions and new combinations within them. The diamond probably originates, like coal or mineral oil, from the gradual decomposition of vegetable or animal matter ; and we may, therefore, regard the brilliants which we prize in the drawingroom as having been slowly elaborated from carbonaceous matter furnished by some dead fish or rotting plant, originally buried in the mud of an inconceivably ancient paleozoic shore.— Belgravia.

Two from One. Makers of seemingly absurd assertions do not always get the worst of the deal. Two urchins sitting on a doorstep with their slates in their laps were heard by a passer-by saying: “Two from one and one remains.” He at onee challenged them with, “I’ll give you a sixpence if you can prove that, my boys. ” They took him at his word, and went into a kitchen where their mother sat nursing twins. In a moment each boy had a baby in his arms, and was pointing at the wondering matron as a proof that their novel arithmetical proposition was correct. They had taken two from one, and one remained; and they honestly won the reward.