Our Economic Past by Burton Folsom, Jr. Ideas On Liberty APRIL 2004 Grover Cleveland: The Veto President he courage to say “no” under pressure men, especially Republicans, were increas- is a hallmark of sturdy character. For a ingly trying to funnel taxpayer dollars to U.S. president, one test of this courage unqualified veterans in hopes of capturing T is the willingness to veto bad bills— “the soldier vote.” During the Civil War, bills that spend too much money or that con- Abraham Lincoln and others created the tradict Article I, Section 8, of the Constitu- Pensions Bureau, which set up strict rules of tion. In that test of character, perhaps no eligibility for two groups only: disabled sol- president passed more convincingly than diers and the widows and dependents of sol- Grover Cleveland (1837–1908), America’s diers killed in the war. 22nd president. Some of Cleveland’s fellow Democrats During Cleveland’s first term (1885–1889), complained that these rules siphoned gov- he vetoed 414 bills, more than twice the ernment funds from the defeated, and largely total vetoed by all previous presidents. The Democratic, South to the more Republican reason for the onslaught of vetoes was that North, where most of the veterans lived. But Congress, in the 1880s and 1890s, decided Cleveland argued that the Union won the to give taxpayer dollars to various special war and that the disabled Union veterans interests in return for votes. Cleveland drew and the widows of war should be compen- a line in the sand and said “no” to subsidy sated for their sacrifice to the Union. What grabs. Cleveland opposed were Republican efforts In his most famous veto he quashed a to expand pension payments to unworthy $10,000 subsidy for drought-stricken farmers applicants. in Texas by pointing out that the Founders The Pensions Bureau, with advice from wanted private citizens, not government, to local physicians, passed judgment on who aid their fellow men and women in distress. qualified for pensions. The problem was that “Though the people support the govern- some claimants who failed to persuade the ment,” Cleveland said, “the government Pensions Bureau turned around and asked should not support the people.” (See Robert their congressmen to include them for full Higgs, “Why Grover Cleveland Vetoed the pensions in special appropriation bills. The Texas Seed Bill,” Ideas on Liberty, July 2003, presidents before Cleveland, fearing the vote www.fee.org/vnews.php?nid=5463.) of the veterans’ lobby, signed all these bills. Over half of Cleveland’s vetoes involved But Cleveland refused to do so. He reviewed pensions to Civil War veterans. Congress- all pension bills, signing some and rejecting others. For Cleveland, maintaining the integrity Burton Folsom ([email protected]) is Charles Kline Professor in History and Manage- of the pension system was a matter of prin- ment at Hillsdale College. His book The Myth of ciple and sound government. He refused to the Robber Barons is in its fourth edition. allow unworthy or phony claimants to 34 extract pensions from hard-pressed taxpay- ing federal pensions lavishly to undeserving ers. One man claimed a pension for an injury veterans.” The Blair bill again passed Con- incurred on horseback before he enlisted in gress, and this time the new President signed the army; a widow, whose husband fell from it and welcomed the votes he thought he a ladder in 1881, claimed a war wound was would gain. the real cause of his accident; another vet- Sure enough, during Harrison’s term the eran wanted a pension for a disease of the number of pensioners roughly doubled to eyes, which he insisted was caused by army almost one million—a fourfold increase in diarrhea; even deserters tried to capture pen- 20 years, or about three pensions per Union sions for their brief stints in the army. casualty almost 30 years after the war had Remarkably, Congress supported these ended. Pension payments approached $150 claims one after another. Cleveland, how- million and easily became the largest item in ever, did not. He piled veto upon veto. He the federal budget. Harrison also tried to called the pension list a “roll of honor” and satisfy the silver industry by signing the wanted to keep it legitimate. Sherman Silver Purchase Act, which required Cleveland’s biggest challenge came not the government to buy 4.5 million ounces of from deceitful claimants, but from deter- silver per month. mined politicians. Senator Henry W. Blair of Cleveland’s response was to challenge New Hampshire introduced a bill to give Harrison to a rematch in 1892, and he vig- pensions to every veteran disabled for any orously attacked the “Billion Dollar Con- reason during or after the war. Even old age gress” that spread federal largess so freely. would qualify as a disability, and local American voters could choose between two physicians and towns would have financial presidents: One held the record for saying incentives to certify the hundreds of thou- “no” and the other broke the record for say- sands of veterans certain to apply if the Blair ing “yes” to so many interest groups. Cleve- bill became law. land won—becoming the only president to Republicans in the House and Senate win two nonconsecutive terms. almost unanimously supported the Blair bill, Cleveland’s second term began with a but Cleveland shuddered at the thought of depression, the Panic of 1893. He argued doubling the pension rolls with the blitz of that it was caused by unsound government applications from allegedly disabled veter- spending. He immediately got the Sherman ans. Others agreed with the President. The Silver Purchase Act repealed and stopped Chicago Tribune concluded that the Blair other groups from raiding the federal trea- bill would “put a serpent of temptation at sury: No more free seeds for farmers; no the ear of every veteran” to feign injuries. more salaried “rainmaker” in the Agricul- General Edward Bragg of Wisconsin tural Department; no more high tariffs for denounced the Blair bill as an effort “to pen- many northern manufacturers. sion the rubbish of the United States, and to Included in Cleveland’s fiscal vigilance was revive the business of claim agent in Wash- another slew of pension vetoes. Cleveland ington.” was astonished that with each passing year the pension list grew rather than shrank. “I Raid Postponed am unable to understand,” Cleveland announced early in his second term, “why When Cleveland eagerly vetoed the Blair frauds in the pension rolls should not be bill, he did not end, but only postponed, the exposed and corrected with thoroughness and raid on the U.S. Treasury. In 1888 Republi- vigor. Thousands of neighborhoods have can Benjamin Harrison took the White their well-known fraudulent pensioners.” House from Cleveland and opened its doors A man of character to the end, Cleveland to the veterans’ lobby. Historian John Gar- spent his last days in office in March 1897 raty of Columbia University observed that in vetoing more specious pension claims. He doing so Harrison “saw no harm in dispens- was America’s last laissez-faire president. Ⅺ 35.