Rensselaer Union, Volume 6, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 October 1873 — The President and the “Back Pay." [ARTICLE]

The President and the “Back Pay."

In his Letter of last spring upon . the ‘-‘back -pay,” Garfield very. properly asked why its Republican opponents were not logical 'enough to censure the President, whose salary was doubled by the bill, and without whose signature it would not have become a law. Butihany of them do so, frankly. Many of the best friends of the President regret sincerely that he signed the bill. Yet the circumstances must not be forgotten, nor the extenuations that may be offered. The President’s salary was believed to be wholly inadequate. Mr. Willard, cf Vermont,' however, has recently published a statement by which it appears that the special appropriations tor the White House amount for the year 1873-74 to seventy-

seven thousand dollars, and he says that the President’s family expenses and those of his table are all that are. paid from his salary. We do not know what changes in this respect there may have been since the earlier days; but certainly, if a salary of twenty-five thousand dollars was not extravagant for the President eighty years ago, twice that sum can not be an immoderate salary for him now. If, however, an appropriation of the amount and for the purposes mentioned by Mr. Willard is to be continued, twentyfive thousand dollars is certainly an adequate compensation. If the object be to furnish a retiring competence for the President, let that purpose be frankly stated and discussed in Congress. The only reason for furnishing it indirectly is that the country would not approve it. And if that be true, it is a conelusive reason against it. But beside the fact that the Presidential salary was no larger than it had been at the close of the last century, when a dollar was so much hiore valuable than now, is the other consideration, that the chief offense in the “back grab” is that it is retroactive for Congress.' But it was not made so in the case of the President. Therefore in signing it he did not award himself compensation for services already rendered and receipted for, as the members did, although, of course, he did award it to them. Moreover, if the bill were vetoed, the necessary appropriation would fail, and an extra session of Congress would become indispensable, which would involve a serious draft upon the Treasury. This is true, and this apparently determined General Garfield’s vote, but although this is true, the expense of an extra session would have been no more than that of the backward increase of the members; and if it had been ten times as much, the bill should have been vetoed. The President should have said distinctly that the amendment. the “back grab,” was an offense that he could not sanction; that he would not be coerced to authorize a plain wrong by the alleged necessity of passing the appropriations; and that the responsibility of an extra session must fall upon those who made it necessary. Had the President said this in his usual plain manner, it would not only have been right, but it would have been the most popular act of his administration. —It would have shown the country that he was not confused by plausible sophistries, and that he not only saw clearly what should be done, but that lie had the courage firmly to do it. The fact that his vote would have made an increase of his own salary impossible during his second term would have commended him only the more warmly to public respect and admiration. Such an act also would have stayed the tendency to reckless and doubtfulfinancial legislation.lt would have recalled the simple, sober standards of expense and of public honesty which are not only often forgotten, but ridiculed. It was a great dppbrtunitv - lost. And the most faithful Republicans and friends of the President, however they may regret that it should be said, will notdeny that it is the truth. * * * * And the better course for individual Republicans is to regret, not to defend, the action of the President.— Harpers Weekly.