Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 August 1873 — President Grant and the Salary Bill. [ARTICLE]

President Grant and the Salary Bill.

The part borne by the President in, relation to thq so-called salary-grab appears to be the subject of persistent misrepresentation, in some cases by those whose personal knowledge of the facts contrauicts'their statements. From an authentic source it is learned that the question of increasing the Executive salary was one that came early and often before President Grant, in various shapes and through different channels, and that his treatment of it was simple and uniform. It was first presented to him in tangible form? during the session of Congress next succeeding liia inauguration by various Senators and Representatives visiting the Executive mansion on the. business of Congress or their constituents. The object of most of the inquiries addressed to him was understood to be whether lie had any personal feeling on the subject, either for or against an increase of salary for the President of the United" States. His invariable reply was, that .the subject was one on which t lie President could not, with propriety, have any opinion of his own as distinct from the popular branch of Congress, except in the improbable contingency that sucli an increase should be named as would he inconsistent -with the revenue of the government or with tlie comparative simplicity intended .by the founders of the Government to surround the person of their chief executive officer. _ . • „ The affixing of wliat was then so large a salary as $25,000 to the office of President, by the men in Congress who had previously been tiic virtual framers of the Constitution, satisfied President Grant that the intent was to measure the compensation by the amount of ceremonious dignity which Congress judged to be -necessary to the usefulness of the office, and that, for his part, while lie should be perfectly willing to serve out his term at the old rate, he could not consent to compromise what he considered a sound principle of non-interference, or to place in a false or embarrassing position those ot his successors who might-have to consider the same question, by opposing either before or after the fact, any measure for the reasonable increase of the Presidential salary. At no time during the pcndency of the question was the amount suggested as the new rate of compensation less than fifty or more than one hundred thousand dollars per annum. Though he did not regard the higher figure as-unreasonable, the President did on several occasions take an informal departure from his own stand-point, to the extent of expressing a preference for the lower-named sum. This, however, did no violence to his leading views, that the President in office should not be forward in the discussion of such a question, and should not so act as to subject any President coming after him to unfair comparisons, but leave him or her as free from embarrassing precedents as President Grant found himself, ft is quite possible that some of the Senators and Representatives who engaged themselves in informal discussions ot the subject at.tlie Executive mansion, without invitation, were actuated by interested motives, but none such were ever treated pith greater consideration in consequence of their course, and the President never, directly or indirectly, attempted to influence the action of any member of either house of Congress upon the quest ion. None of his visits to tlie Capitol during the latter days of the session were for the purpose of helping the passage of the salary bill, and his only attempts at legislation were directed toward such important public measures as the bills to carry into execution, tlie provisions of tlie Treaty of Washington, and effect a satisfactory pacification of Louisiana, in the latter of which he was unfortunately not successful. In reference to tlie back pay and increase of pay voted to themselves by the Houses of Congress, tlie President’s views are alleged to lie that if a veto had been possible without compromising important public interests contained in the same bill, tlie precedent established by sucli a course of procedure would have been a serious blow to the independence of Congress, and more deserving of the censure than a compulsory and passive assent to the principle of"“baek pay ” However commendable tlie President may have deemed Speaker Blaine’s action, no occasion was' offered him for following the in his own ease. The i'resident is represented as holding to the view that, as members of Congress are of necessity to be intrusted with the delicate subject of regulating their own compensation, tlie constituencies who pay tlie salaries ought to bear the fact in mind when nominations for Congress are in order.—lYmliinyton Cor. Bouton Advertiser.