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

HAYES’ LAST VETO.

The appointment of Deputy Marshals by United States Marshals, to secure an honest administration of Federal election laws, has not hitherto worked well. A most infamous gang of scoundrels of high and low degree were appointed, and the most flagrant outrages upon the lights of citizens were perpetrated. To icmedy such a state of things became tin imperative duty of Congress. It lias sought to accomplish the work. The right to appointment of Deputy Marshals was taken from the United States Maishals ami conferred upon United State- Judges; and, that no wrongs should be committed, the law vetoed by Hayes required that these Deputy Marshals should be taken in equal numbers from each of the two political parties, and that they sho’d be men of good moral character, and be able to read and write. This mea sure, so fair and just in itself, is tne proposition of Congressman Garfield, of Ohio; but it did not suit such men as Edmunds and other Republicans who realize the fact that honest elec lion means the defeat of the Republican party; and Hayes, knowing that he owes his position to fraud, forgery and perjury, desires that Louisiana liars shall have another chance to reverse the will of the American people. “We undertake to say,” says a contemporary, “that there is no Republican alive who will risk his standing among his fellow men, by saying, over his own signature, that the provision vetoed is not just and right in the object it attempts of departisanizing the Federal election laws and making them so that neither party can use them as an instrument of oppression against the other. The author of the provision vetoed is General Garfield, a leading Republican of Mr. Hayes’ official family The statement of the provision gives to the veto of it a condemnation that speaks for itself. It will be noticed that Hayes bases his veto on the fact that the provision came to hint as a rider on an appropriation bill, and does not consider the provision itself at all. On that he reserves his opinion; he merely lectures Congress on the way in which he thinks it ought to pass bills. The impudence of this is plain enough; but the tender-footed manner in which both Houses have stepped round this pulpy and fraudulent interloper justly entitles the Senators and Representatives to tke indignity of being lectured by him. It is not pretended that the rider did not at ford Mr. Hayes as good a caance to examine and declare on the subject as any other method. He merely says to Congress, ‘lf you do not pass your bills in a manner satisfactory to me, I will veto them irrespective of my views about their merits.’ This is assurance in official life akin to the insolence wich in private life is cured and characterized by a kick. That Congress should be reduce/! to the oosition of exposing itself to a lesson on forms of procedure by a fraud should impress on it the effect of its own criminal consideration for and toward that fraud. And to show what an arrant hypocrite Hayes himself is, the reader ought to bear in mind that with this very veto against a rider, because it is a rider, went into Congress Mr. Hayes’approval of the rider on the army bill forbidding the use of troops at the polls! Riders have been used by both parties for ove sixty years in Congress, Republican Congresses passed over 1,200 riders in four years for President Johnson’s consideration, and over 800 in the same time for President Lincoln’s. There were over 300 riders a year passed by Republican Congresses for President Grant’s consideration for eight years. These Presidents signed them all and objected to none of them. It is reserved for the fraud, never elected President, to be the first one to criticise a method that is uni versal in all Nationfil Parliaments, and that has not been habitual with the Commons since magna charta.” It is easy enough seen that Hayes hopes to maintain the Deputy Marshal iniquity as at present constituted, and to this fact Congress will be required to direct its attention. The Philadelphia Times (Ind.) remarks that ”if the Democrats could have directed the action of the Executive to serve their partisan purposes, they could not have made him better promote their interests, and that the Democrats have a plain path before them. ‘The rider to which Hayes pretended to object should at once be sent to him as a separate bill. If he shall veto it, the responsibility will be upon himself and his party.’ ” In that event, the Times says “the Marshal’s deficiency bill should then bs re enacted with the vetoed rider retained. and if he shall again veto it, Con gress will have done its duty and all

appropriations for that department of the Government should be resold tuly refused.” The bill forbidding the assessment of money on Government employes, although it has only been introduced in the Senate, is already bearing abundant fruit. The withdrawal of Kernan, the editor of that great Republican organ, rhe Okalon.i States, demonstrates that the compaign fund has run short. Kernan kntw-his business, and made it business, and when Republican contributions failed he doubtless thought it high time-to retire from business. When he stepped down and out, the Republican party lost the most faithful journalistic friend ir has had for many years. There will be universal grief in that parly now that he has departed from the profession.