Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 September 1873 — A Cowardly Trick. [ARTICLE]

A Cowardly Trick.

A Democratic exchange says that Gen. Packard being asked why he voted for the “salary steal” said for the sam« reason that President Grant signed the bill. We are slow to believe that Gen. Packard ever spid any such thing, but if he did, he stated what he knew, and every intelligent man in the country knows to be false. He voted for the bill because he wanted to put money in his pocket that did not belong to him—money for services extending back two years and which by his contract with the people of this District, he had no more right to receive than any of his constituents. lie voted for it in the General Appropriation Bill, by which cowardly act hw helped tie the

hands of the President, knowing that if the President vetoed if-th at’ it would make an extra session of Congress necessary. We say it was a cowardly trick on the part of Congress. They were afraid to place the bill before the President on its own merits for fear he would veto it, and coward like, they hedged it about with a bill which was absolutely necessary to carry on the government. Gen. Packard and ofjier Congressmen had not the shadow of a reason or excuse for voting for the bill, while the President had a reason for signing it. Call it a poor excuse if you will, yet we do not wonder, after the President had witnessed the profligate disposition of Congress, at his signing the bill and thus saving the country from a much greater expense by calling that body together again. There is no telling had they been balked in that swindle, how much greater one they would have perpetrated. And we do not know but tfrat the President deserves the thanks of the country for permitting them to go home, where they will remain after their present terms expire.— Enough true men will have been elected before the meeting of the next Congress, who with those already there who did not defile their garments, to repeal the iniquitous measure, and hold in check the rapacious members who have yet a term to misi epresent their constituents.

We do not excuse the signing of the bill by the President; we think he ought to have vetoed it, and let the blame of the whole transaction rest with Congress. But we protest against Congressmen being ah lowed to hide their crime behind any fault of the President. Let each one bear their own sins.— Winamac Republican.