218 



CONGRESS. (APPROPRIATIONS.) 



ment may properly rest upon the hope and expee- 

 tation of direct and especial favors, and that the 

 extent to which they are realized may furnish an 

 estimate of the value of governmental care. 



I believe no greater danger confronts us as a na- 

 tion than the unhappy decadence among our people 

 of genuine and trustworthy love and affection for 

 our Government as the embodiment of the highest 

 and best aspirations of humanity, and not as the 

 giver of gifts, and because its mission is the en- 

 forcement of exact justice and equality and not the 

 allowance of unfair favoritism. 



I hope I may be permitted to suggest at a time 

 when the issue of Government bonds to maintain 

 the credit and financial standing of the country is 

 a subject of criticism that the contracts provided 

 for in this bill would create obligations of the 

 United States amounting to $62,000,000 no less 

 binding than its bonds for that sum. 



G ROVER CLEVELAND. 



EXECUTIVE MANSION, May 29, 1896. 



The House Committee on Rivers and Harbors re- 

 ported the bill back, recommending that it should 

 pass notwithstanding the disapproval of the Execu- 

 tive. The report took up and answered each objec- 

 tion to the bill which the message presented as fol- 

 lows: 



" Your committee feel that they would be remiss 

 in their duty to the House of Representatives if they 

 should fail to make some statement regarding the 

 merits of said bill, and especially as the same may 

 be affected by the criticism thereof contained in the 

 message of the President. It may be well to state 

 at the outset that of the 417 items of appropriations 

 contained in the bill, all of them except 27 are for 

 projects contained in river and harbor bills hereto- 

 fore enacted into law, and which projects now and 

 for some years have been in process of construction 

 and completion by the Government. No new projects 

 were added to the river and harbor bill of 1894. It 

 will thus be seen that the principal work of the 

 Committee on Rivers and Harbors has been the in- 

 vestigation and examination of works of improve- 

 ment to which Congress has by repeated acts com- 

 mitted itself. The river and harbor bill of 1892 also 

 contained a very limited number of new projects. 

 The river and harbor bill of 1890 appropriated $25,- 

 136,295, and placed certain works under the contract 

 system, which involved the additional expenditure 

 of $15,282,980. It appears, therefore, from this 

 statement that by far the greater number of projects 

 appropriated for in this bill were also appropriated 

 for in the bill of 1890 and which are not yet com- 

 pleted. That bill was referred by President Har- 

 rison to Gen. Thomas L. Casey, then chief of en- 

 gineers, who was noted for his rugged honesty, his 

 great executive capacity, and his superb mastery of 

 all matters coming under his supervision, for' his 

 opinion as to the merits of the several projects 

 therein contained. After an examination of the bill 

 he reported to President Harrison that only 8 items 

 in the bill, in his judgment, seemed to be of limited 

 or local benefit. The gross amount appropriated 

 for these items was $72,500. All other items in that 

 bill were considered by him to be in the interest of 

 commerce. From this it will be seen that by far 

 the larger part of the projects contained in the pres- 

 ent bill passed the scrutiny and received the ap- 

 proval of Gen. Casey and have gone unchallenged 

 until now. The bills of 1890 and 1892 were ap- 

 proved by President Harrison, and the bill of 1894 

 was permitted by the present Executive to become 

 a law by limitation. 



" The President in his message states: 



'Many of the objects for which it appropriates 

 public money are not related to the public welfare, 



and many of them are palpably for the benefit of 

 limited localities or in aid of individual interests.' 



" Your committee is not advised as to the objects 

 against which this criticism is directed. They can 

 only state that this bill was prepared after a most 

 careful examination of the reports of the engineers 

 and after giving hearings to delegations and others 

 'interested in the various projects named in the bill, 

 and they respectfully submit that they were careful 

 to avoid making provision for any objects which 

 were not directly related to the public welfare and 

 in the interests of commerce. 



" The President also states that 



" ' On the face of the bill it appears that not a few 

 of these alleged improvements have been so improvi- 

 dently planned and prosecuted that after an unwise 

 expenditure of millions of dollars new experiments 

 for their accomplishment have been entered upon.' 



" Your committee, in the absence of any direct in- 

 formation upon this point, have concluded that this 

 criticism is based upon a misconception of the lan- 

 guage used with regard to quite a number of the 

 projects named in the bill. It has often o:eurml 

 that after a project had been adopted in accordance 

 with certain defined plans submitted by the en- 

 gineers the interests of commerce required that a 

 greater and more effective improvement than that, 

 first contemplated should be made. In such cases 

 it has long been the custom of Congress, amply jus- 

 tified by results, to order from time to time new 

 surveys and estimates to be made with a view to en- 

 larging the scope of these projects. In making ap- 

 propriations for these enlarged projects the bill 

 often directs that the money appropriated shall be 

 expended in accordance with the modified or en- 

 larged projects submitted by the engineers. It may 

 be that the President inferred from the language so 

 used that the original plans had been improvident 

 and ill-advised, and the money expended upon them 

 had been wasted, whereas the truth is that the 

 money expended upon the original plans was judi- 

 ciously expended and would have been expended 

 even if the modified or enlarged plans had been 

 originally adopted, the work under the original 

 plans being in all cases included in that embraced 

 in the modified plans. Instances of these so-called 

 modified or enlarged projects may be found in the 

 cases of Baltimore harbor; Portland harbor, Maine ; 

 Newtown creek, which is a part of New York har- 

 bor; Wilmington, Del.; St. John's river, Florida; 

 Savannah harbor, and many others. 



" The President also states : 



" ' I learn from official sources that there are ap- 

 propriations contained in the bill to pay for work 

 which private parties have actually agreed with this 

 Government to do in consideration of their occu- 

 pancy of public property.' 



" When this bill was originally reported your 

 committee were not aware that it contained such 

 appropriations as those described by the President. 

 Since the reception of his message they have re- 

 examined the bill and made diligent inquiry to as- 

 certain if in fact it does contain such appropriations, 

 and they feel justified in asserting and do assert 

 that the information upon which the President 

 bases this charge is wholly without foundation. 

 There is nothing in the reports of the engineers or 

 in any information laid before your committee from 

 any source whatsoever calculated to suggest even a 

 suspicion that any such appropriations as indicated 

 by the President are contained in the bill. 



" The President states that this bill 



" ' Directly appropriates or provides for the imme- 

 diate expenditure of nearly $14,000,000 for river 

 and harbor work.' 



" In so far as this statement is calculated to pro- 

 duce the impression that it is contemplated that the 



