Rensselaer Republican, Volume 18, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 March 1886 — CLEVELAND TAKEN DOWN. [ARTICLE]

CLEVELAND TAKEN DOWN.

.r— 1 Senator Spooners ot Wisconsin, Shows tke Fallacy of the- iPreai* dent’s Position. ' t rlegnam. | After Mr. A’ah Wyck bad offered naan amendmejuL.t > the renolutiona concerning the Buskin case the following : “And in all.such cases of re- ’ movaithe rnatwr us confirmation shall be considered ill open hession <>(, the Senate," which wui ordered. printeiL the autediluilhu Joe , Brown, of prospd along an hour or morp and hod emptied the Senate Chamber and galleries in expressing his yiewg on the controversy with the President. sWjten the new Wisconsin Senator took the ftJir the cloak-rooms were promptly vacated and a great many House members flocked over to hdar him. 'The opening speech cf Edmuids and the saucy reply < f Kenna fill dot attract more attention nor make .a dee]>er impression than did the argument <>f Senator Spoensr. In siipport of the majority jjenort. he said he would" make no ateuipt to disguise the fact, or apologi 'e for it, that the fortunes of the Republican party were very dear to him. He would not attempt to deny that he Wished t iat party might here and elsewhere reap every fair party advantage which might be taken from the blunders and shortcomings, ts tthy such , there were, of this administration. He continued : “But I trust t int I do not f .rget und shall not forget that I am a Senator of the Vnited States as well as u Republican, and that as a Senator my first duty is always to the people, and that I -hav'eae-right to talo- aeffitn here tj subserve a party interest which Wtinld be harmful to the interests of the p deny that the Republican niaioritv of the Senate desires to hamper tho President.” j Feeling his way carefully, he was soon on familiar legal ground in dissecting the constitutional ]M>ints which Democratic Senators had sought to raise, Takin jup thb Tenure-of-Office act, section by section, ie showed pretty clearly that the muddy argum®itation which had been going on jfltoceedod front very incomplete ideas -atolibilt.tlMcaetitgclf .wLi, and that the power of removal ns well as of appointment was in the Preside..t and Senate acting t igether, and that what was in his sole discretion, absolute, was the power of suspension durlhg a recess ot the Senate. There was a broad hipt that some of Bourbon orators did not know what they were talking about He said : “One source of much confusion in this debate was a confounding by the Democratic Senators Of suspensions with removals. A suspension did not mean, a removal. It was a very different thing. To suspend an officer caused a temporary ■s-■nt ion ; >f■ ills h ■ 11- ■t: ■ >ll - t o rei h«i ve eaused apermanent cessation. ,Jo suspend the writ of habeas corpus was ;~tb obliterate it was another and quite a different thing A suspended officer was iiot a removed officer; for if the Senate refused to confirm his successor the suspended man returned to the office. The Supreme Court had so decided. |Mr. Spooner read from the decisions of the courts to show this.] The President had declined tofuruish the papers called for because, forsooth, thev would enable the Senate to see the reasons fomthe suspension; they would enable us to see tlitft he cised the power of suspension wantonly. No power could be so dangerous to oie repub I is as the power thus asserted by the President that, papers relating to the public business on the files of the . Government were his private papers, to be removed from the files, buried in the cellars of the White House, or carted oft to Buffalo if he chose, merely because he had used them in exercising his power of suspension/ If this was 80, then it rested with any Chief {Executive to lock the door upon ths House anji Senate and defeat all investigation. r , “Senator Spooner’s treatment of the- President’s message was ' especially happy. ’AJh his hands the “innocuous desuetude" phrase was very skillfully tailed ou its author. The terms always provoked a smile, "Mr. Spooner said, but there was nothing to smile at. This was a Government of law ; and he was sorry the Chief Executive of the llepublic should have used stfch words of any-law that stood on the statute-books. It was a dangerous time when the President of the United States, with an oath registered in heaven t0../take care that the laws should fie faithfully executed,” should send a message to the Senate saying that a statute had fallen into harmless* disuse, though the statute remained on the Books. If there ever was a time when there was need of respect for law it was now, when in many States thoughtful, men were turning blanched faces to the future. How could the people be expected to yield cheerful obedience to the statutes when the first citizen of the Weeublic—ftiiinself charged with their execution—was heard asserting that a statute could harmlessly fall into disuse? But Mr. SpoOner said the President did not believe his own statement—his acts had been better than his words, for he had sent in a large number of nominations of men to take the p'a es of officers 'suspended by him under the authority of the very act to which reference had been made. SUSPENDED , COLLECTORS. Important Action Regarding Them. [Washington special.] The President admits that he has been mak•o ing Changes for purely political reasons. When the controversy with the Senate began, the mugwump organs supporting Mr. Cleveland de- • dared the whole object of the Senate fight was. to force an admission that there had been one single removal or suspension for political xeacL sons. They were positive he would never do this, even indirectly, but - , after a aeal of palavering between Secretary Manning and Chairman Morrill of the Finance Committee, a step has been taken which Will relieve suspended Internal Revenue Collectors from any cloud under which they mav have rested. The President, through the Secretary of the Treasury, gives a certificate that the suspended officials have not been removed because of any charges affecting their moral or official characters. If this is not an admission t aat they were removed because their places were wanted for Democrats. the Republican members of the Finance Comm ttee don't know what such an admission would really be. In most cases tho suspended officials accepted the suspension as the natural outcome of a change in parties.— Fcr instance, one ot the removed lowa Collectors had gone to Chicago to practice law, and assuredly had no idea of ever resuming his office. But he thought "his old neighbors had a right to )mow whether he was displaced because not ty proper person to hold a public office or simply because his position was wanted for a Deinggrgt. The Republican Senators were of tEe same way of thinking, and, after' numerous interviews between Secretary fanning and Chairman Morrill, the Democratic administration finds itself of this mind also. Of course, there is a labored -effort toehow that it hasn't come down a peg, but this will be judged from the actual proceeding rather than from its own assertions. The plan adopted has been for the Finance Committee to address a letter to Secretary Manning in the case of ev ry individual Internal Revenue Collector. The Secretary writes a diplomatic reply, protesting that he cannot give reasons, etc., because the President has direc ed him, etc. But he takes pleasure in stating that there is nothing cn file in his department reflecting in any way on the moral ,or official character of John Smith, late Internal Revenue Collector of blank district. On this_ "showing the Finance' Committee ”6as“recdmmendedtwoor three batches of Collectors for confirmation. There are still about forty cases, concerning which the Secretary of the Treaaury has not replied. If there .are any charges against the suspended officials under the forms of thC 1 otter it is <1 ifficiilt to" see how they could be withheld, since a certificate of moral and official character could not be granted. The policy followed in the internal revenue case# has been discussed with respect to its influence on the other suspended officials. Though the revenue officers do not have any fixed tenure/ the dissimilarity is not so great that the same policy could net be followed-in the great maioritv of suspensions or removals. There is the case of Collector Seeberger, which is a type of probably 300 or 401 Others. No objection exists to his confirmation, but Philetus Sawyer wants to know whether his friend Jesse Spaulding was removed for anv cause, or simply to make room for Mr. Seeberger. It is said that the latter information has been given privately and unofficially, but this is not KlMnujly " —2—