Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 263, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1912 — THE PRESIDENT SIGNED MOST WILLINGLY [ARTICLE]

THE PRESIDENT SIGNED MOST WILLINGLY

The Industrious circulation of the falsehood that President Taft threatened a veto of the Sulloway bill was one of the chief plays of his opponents and worked some Injury to his popularity, as his adversaries had planned. That there was no truth in this every senator, and other public man could have known if he cared to inquire. "Yet it was a good enough Morgan till after the nomination." ” " Now these same men are with equal Industry and untruth circulating the report that President Taft signed the act of May 11 most unwillingly and was only coerced Into It at the last moment Nothing could be more untrue. There had been an overwhelming popular demand for additional pension legislation. The people were most earnest In their wish that the veterans who had Baved the nation should be properly cared for during the years that remained to them. The national encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic had asked for sq,ch legislation. The remarkable fact of the indorsement of the Sulloway bill by the legislatures of twenty-seven stales was an astonishing development of depth and wide extended feeling on the subject. Could any president be expected to disregard such a manifestation? Certainly not William H. Taft, whose great heart has always appreciated the service of the veterans and who has ever been quickly responsive to the popular will. No one doubted at the beginning of congress that he Intended to approve s pension bill. This knowledge had to be used with the utmost discretion, however. The presidential campaign was opening. There was a general expectation that the Democrats would make a strong effort to “put the president and the senate In a hole” on the pension question. The fear was not allayed until witmn a rew qays of the passage of the act of May 11. This required ths greatest circumspection on the part of the president and his friends. But as soon as the act of May 11 began to take shapes In the senate and months before it actually passed there was no real doubt that would sign the bill which would be finally formulated. At the invitation of senators I was a constant visitor to the capitol while the bill was going through its various stages. I was also made a means of communication with the members of the invalid pensions committee of the house. With me went most frequently Past Commander In Chief John R. King, IeBS frequently Past Commander Slaybaugh of Potomac, Commander E. S. Godfrey, Arizona; Commander Granville C. Fiske, Massachusetts; Commander N. H. Kingman, South Gommafrfqr) N. P. Kingsley, Pennsylvania, and other prominent comrades who hapWnSa to be in the city- and whom the senators wanted to see and counsel with. We met Senators Crane, McCumber, Curtis, Smoot, Burnham and others of the president’s closest friends and advisers. They were confident in their assurances that the president would sign the bill. The comrades named felt ho doubt ot the result at least two months before the bill was signed. As we all khow, President Taft put himself to great personal inconvenience in order to sign the bill and let it begin at once its beneficence to the veterans. The bill was not ready for his signature when he left for Princeton, N. J. He made the journey back to Washington expressly to sign the bill. He reached the White House a little before 11 p. m., Saturday, May 11, affixed his signature seven minutes before midnight and had to leave Washington again the next day. Of these facts I was personally cpgnlzant, as I was present when the bill wap signed. JOHN M’ELROY, Editor National Tribune. I fully concur in the foregoing. There is absolutely no truth in the statement that the president was opposed to any pension bill. On the contrary, we were assured, as stated above, that he would give his approval to the bill when finally passed, which was evidenced by his hasty return to Washington for the purpose.

JOHN R. KING.

From the National Tribune. \