The Cleveland Era [9]
of legend and ballad somewhat after the fashion of the medieval hero Robin Hood.
The legislative blundering which tied the President's hands and made the Government impotent to protect American citizens from desperadoes of the type of the "cowboys" and Jesse James, is characteristic of Congress during this period. Another example of congressional muddling is found in an act which was passed for the better protection of ocean travel and which the President felt constrained to veto. In his veto message of July 1, 1882, the President said that he was entirely in accord with the purpose of the bill which related to matters urgently demanding legislative attention. But the bill was so drawn that in practice it would have caused great confusion in the clearing of vessels and would have led to an impossible situation. It was not the intention of the bill to do what the President found its language to require, and the defects were due simply to maladroit phrasing, which frequently occurs in congressional enactments, thereby giving support to the theory of John Stuart Mill that a representative assembly is by its very nature unfit to prepare legislative measures.
The clumsy machinery of legislation kept bungling on, irresponsive to the principal needs and interests of the times. An ineffectual start was made on two subjects presenting simple issues on which there was an energetic pressure of popular sentiment--Chinese immigration and polygamy among the Mormons. Anti-Chinese legislation had to contend with a traditional sentiment in favor of maintaining the United States as an asylum for all peoples. But the demand from the workers of the Pacific slope for protection against Asiatic competition in the home labor market was so fierce and so determined that Congress yielded. President Arthur vetoed a bill prohibiting Chinese immigration as "a breach of our national faith," but he admitted the need of legislation on the subject and finally approved a bill suspending immigration from China for a term of years. This was a beginning of legislation which eventually arrived at a policy of complete exclusion. The Mormon question was dealt with by the Act of March 22, 1882, imposing penalties upon the practice of polygamy and placing the conduct of elections in the Territory of Utah under the supervision of a board of five persons appointed by the President. Though there were many prosecutions under this act, it proved so ineffectual in suppressing polygamy that it was eventually supplemented by giving the Government power to seize and administer the property of the Mormon Church. This action, resulting from the Act of March 3, 1887, created a momentous precedent. The escheated property was held by the Government until 1896 and meanwhile, the Mormon Church submitted to the law and made a formal declaration that it had abandoned polygamy.
Another instance in which a lack of agreement between the executive and the legislative branches of the Government manifested itself, arose out of a scheme which President Arthur recommended to Congress for the improvement of the waterways of the Mississippi and its tributaries. The response of Congress was a bill in which there was an appropriation of about $4,000,000 for the general improvements recommended, but about $14,000,000 were added for other special river and harbor schemes which had obtained congressional favor. President Arthur's veto message of August 1, 1882, condemned the bill because it contained provisions designed "entirely for the benefit of the particular localities in which it is proposed to make the improvements." He thus described a type of legislation of which the nation had and is still having bitter experience: "As the citizens of one State find that money, to raise which they in common with the whole country are taxed, is to be expended for local improvements in another State, they demand similar benefits for themselves, and it is not unnatural that they should seek to indemnify themselves for such use of the public funds by securing appropriations for similar improvements
The legislative blundering which tied the President's hands and made the Government impotent to protect American citizens from desperadoes of the type of the "cowboys" and Jesse James, is characteristic of Congress during this period. Another example of congressional muddling is found in an act which was passed for the better protection of ocean travel and which the President felt constrained to veto. In his veto message of July 1, 1882, the President said that he was entirely in accord with the purpose of the bill which related to matters urgently demanding legislative attention. But the bill was so drawn that in practice it would have caused great confusion in the clearing of vessels and would have led to an impossible situation. It was not the intention of the bill to do what the President found its language to require, and the defects were due simply to maladroit phrasing, which frequently occurs in congressional enactments, thereby giving support to the theory of John Stuart Mill that a representative assembly is by its very nature unfit to prepare legislative measures.
The clumsy machinery of legislation kept bungling on, irresponsive to the principal needs and interests of the times. An ineffectual start was made on two subjects presenting simple issues on which there was an energetic pressure of popular sentiment--Chinese immigration and polygamy among the Mormons. Anti-Chinese legislation had to contend with a traditional sentiment in favor of maintaining the United States as an asylum for all peoples. But the demand from the workers of the Pacific slope for protection against Asiatic competition in the home labor market was so fierce and so determined that Congress yielded. President Arthur vetoed a bill prohibiting Chinese immigration as "a breach of our national faith," but he admitted the need of legislation on the subject and finally approved a bill suspending immigration from China for a term of years. This was a beginning of legislation which eventually arrived at a policy of complete exclusion. The Mormon question was dealt with by the Act of March 22, 1882, imposing penalties upon the practice of polygamy and placing the conduct of elections in the Territory of Utah under the supervision of a board of five persons appointed by the President. Though there were many prosecutions under this act, it proved so ineffectual in suppressing polygamy that it was eventually supplemented by giving the Government power to seize and administer the property of the Mormon Church. This action, resulting from the Act of March 3, 1887, created a momentous precedent. The escheated property was held by the Government until 1896 and meanwhile, the Mormon Church submitted to the law and made a formal declaration that it had abandoned polygamy.
Another instance in which a lack of agreement between the executive and the legislative branches of the Government manifested itself, arose out of a scheme which President Arthur recommended to Congress for the improvement of the waterways of the Mississippi and its tributaries. The response of Congress was a bill in which there was an appropriation of about $4,000,000 for the general improvements recommended, but about $14,000,000 were added for other special river and harbor schemes which had obtained congressional favor. President Arthur's veto message of August 1, 1882, condemned the bill because it contained provisions designed "entirely for the benefit of the particular localities in which it is proposed to make the improvements." He thus described a type of legislation of which the nation had and is still having bitter experience: "As the citizens of one State find that money, to raise which they in common with the whole country are taxed, is to be expended for local improvements in another State, they demand similar benefits for themselves, and it is not unnatural that they should seek to indemnify themselves for such use of the public funds by securing appropriations for similar improvements