VETO MESSAGES.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, December 24, 1890.
To the Senate:
I return to the Senate, in which it originated, with my objections, the bill (No. 544) "to provide for the purchase of a site and the erection of a public building thereon at Bar Harbor, in the State of Maine." The statement of a few facts will show, I think, that the public needs do not justify the contemplated expenditure of $75,000 for the erection of a public building at Bar Harbor. Only one public office, the post-office, is to be accommodated. It appears from a report of the Postmaster-General that the rent paid by the United States for a room containing 875 square feet of floor space was in 1888 $300 and the expenditure for fuel and lights $60. One clerk was employed in the office and no carriers. The gross postal receipts for that year were $7,000. Bar Harbor is almost wholly a summer resort. The population of the town of Eden, of which Bar Harbor forms a part, as taken by the census enumerators, was less than 2,000. During one quarter of the year this population is largely increased by summer residents and visitors, but for the other three quarters is not much above the census enumeration. The postal receipts for 1890 by quarters show that for more than half the year the gross receipts of the post-office are about $8 per day. The salary of a janitor for the new building would be more than twice the present cost to the Government of rent, fuel, and lights. I can not believe that upon reconsideration the Congress will approve the contemplated expenditure.
BENJ. HARRISON.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, January 26, 1891.
To the House of Representatives:
I return herewith without my approval the bill (H.R. 12365) entitled "An act to authorize Oklahoma City, in Oklahoma Territory, to issue bonds to provide a right of way for the Choctaw Coal and Railway Company through said city." This bill authorizes the corporation of Oklahoma City to issue corporate bonds to the amount of $40,000 for the purpose of providing the right of way for a railroad company through the city, if the proposition shall receive the assent of a majority of the legal voters at an election to be called for that purpose.
It is attempted to distinguish this case from the ordinary case of a municipal grant to a railway company by the fact that this railway company had located its line through the lands afterwards settled upon under the town-site law before such settlement, and that the route thus located cuts the plat of the city diagonally and in a way to be very injurious to property interests.
Upon an examination of the facts it appears to me to be clear that no legal location was made by the railway company prior to the acquisition of the lands by the occupying settlers. Some preliminary surveys had been made, but no map of location had been filed with the Secretary of the Interior. If the rights of this company at this point of its road as to right of way are derived from the general statute of the United States upon that subject (U. S. Revised Statutes, Supplement, p. 87), then section 4 distinctly saves the right of any settler who had located prior to the filing of a profile of the road and the approval by the Secretary of the Interior thereof. And if, on the other hand, the rights of the company at the point indicated are derived from the act of Congress of February 18, 1888, "to authorize the Choctaw Coal and Railway Company to construct and operate a railway through the Indian Territory, and for other purposes," section 6 of that act also plainly protects the right of any occupying claimant. The latter statute, it seems to me, was intended to grant a right of way only through Indian lands, and if these lands were not such the general statute to which I have referred would apply; but in either event the conclusion is the same.
It appears from the report of the committee that its favorable action, and, I must assume, the favorable action of Congress, proceeded upon the theory that there was a real controversy, doubtful as to its issue, as to the right of the railroad company to hold the line of its survey through the city.
Stripped, then, of this claim the proposition is nakedly one to authorize Oklahoma City to donate $40,000 to the Choctaw Coal and Railway Company. The general statute of the United States prohibits such grants, and this must stand until repealed as a continuing expression of legislative opinion. If a departure from this rule is to be allowed at all, certainly it should only be where the circumstances are exceptional. Such circumstances, in my opinion, do not exist in this case. Already I have received from other cities in the Territory protests against special legislation of this sort, accompanied by the suggestion that if this policy is admitted other cities shall also be allowed to encourage the building of roads by donation.
Oklahoma City, according to the report of the Census Office, has a population of about 4,100, and this donation would be equivalent to nearly $10 per capita. Very little real estate, whether town-site or country property, in this Territory is yet subject to assessment for taxation. The people have not yet had time to accumulate, and Congress has received appeals for aid to relieve a prevailing distress which the Territorial authorities have found themselves unable to deal with. It does not seem to me, in view of all these facts, that the wholesome rule prescribed by the general statute should be departed from.
BENJ. HARRISON.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, February 26, 1891.
To the Senate:
I return to the Senate without my approval the bill (S. 4620) "to establish the Record and Pension Office of the War Department, and for other purposes."
This bill proposes to change the designation of one of the divisions of the War Department. It is now the "Record and Pension Division," and it is proposed that it shall hereafter be the "Record and Pension Office" of the War Department. The scope of the work assigned to this division or office is not changed, but the organization now existing under a classification made by the Secretary of War is by the bill made permanent and put beyond the control of the Secretary. The change of designation seems to have been intended to add dignity to the position, and the effect of the bill is probably to require that the chief of this office shall hereafter be appointed only by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, though it is not clear that any provision is made for a chief after the particular person designated in the bill has been separated from the place or in case he is not appointed.
The real object of the bill is disclosed in the following clause:
The President is hereby authorized to nominate and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint the officer now in charge of said Record and Pension Division to be a colonel in the Army and chief of said office.
It is fairly to be implied from the bill that in the opinion of Congress the public interests would be promoted by making the contemplated change in the grade of this office and by giving the rank and pay of a colonel in the Army to the chief. A new and rather anomalous office is therefore created—that of "colonel in the Army and chief of the Record and Pension Office of the War Department"—but upon the condition that the President shall nominate a particular person to fill it. I do not think it is competent for Congress to designate the person who shall fill an office created by law, and practically nothing remains of the bill under consideration if this person is not to be appointed. The office is an important one, connected with the active civil administration of the War Department. I can not agree that the selection of the officer shall be taken out of the discretion of the Executive, where the responsibility for good administration necessarily rests. It is probably true that the officer intended to be benefited is peculiarly deserving and has had remarkable success in the discharge of the duties of the office; but these are considerations for the appointing power, and might safely have been left there.
If this particular appointment was backed by reasons so obvious as to secure the support of both Houses of Congress, it should have been assumed that these reasons could have been made obvious to the Executive by the ordinary methods. In connection with the Army and Navy retired lists, legislation akin to this has become quite frequent, too frequent in my opinion; but these laws have been regarded as grants of pensions rather than of offices.
If it is to be allowed that active places connected with the Executive Departments can be created upon condition that particular persons are or are not to be designated to fill them, the power of appointment might be wholly diverted from the Executive to the Congress.
BENJ. HARRISON.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, March 2, 1891.
To the Senate:
I return herewith without my approval the bill (S. 3270) "for the relief of the administratrix of the estate of George W. Lawrence."
If I rightly construe this bill, it authorizes the Court of Claims to give judgment in favor of the contractor with the United States for the construction of the vessels named (Agawam and Pontoosuc) for the difference between the contract price and the actual cost to the contractor of building the vessels, subject only to the condition that nothing shall be allowed for any advance in the price of labor or material unless such advance occurred during the prolonged term for completing the work rendered necessary by delay resulting from the action of the Government. The bill is somewhat obscure, but I have, I think, correctly stated the legal effect of it.
Undoubtedly in contracts made for army and navy supplies and construction during the early days of the war there was not infrequently loss to the contractor by reason of the advance in the cost of labor resulting from the withdrawal of so large a body of men for service in the field and the indirect result of this upon the cost of material; but I can not believe that it is the purpose of Congress to reopen such contracts at this late day and to pay to the contractors the cost of the work or material which they stipulated to do or deliver at fixed prices. In the matter of another vessel constructed by this same claimant and in the case of one other similar claim I approved bills at the last session, but they carefully limited any finding by the Court of Claims to such losses as necessarily resulted from the interference by the Government with the progress of the work, thus creating delays and enhanced cost.
In those cases the Government only undertook to make good losses resulting directly and unavoidably from its own acts. If the principle which seems to me to be embodied in the bill under consideration is adopted, I do not see how the Congress can refuse in all cases of all sorts of contracts to make good the losses resulting from appreciation in the cost of labor and material. The expenditure that such a policy would entail is incalculable, and the policy itself is, in my judgment, indefensible. The bill at the last session for the relief of this claimant in the case of another vessel constructed by him was, as I have said, carefully put upon the lines I have indicated, and if this claim could have been maintained upon, those lines I assume that the bill would have been similar in its provisions.
BENJ. HARRISON.