Grover Cleveland the Veto King

Yesterday the current occupant of the White House issued his first veto, over-riding Congress’s vote to reject his claim of a national emergency on the border and to stop presidential overreach and retain their Constutional power of the purse.

Which news, of course, reminds us — well, probably only me, actually — of Grover Cleveland, the Veto King.

In the first of his two terms, Grover Cleveland vetoed 414 bills. That was twice as many vetoes as issued by all of the first 21 presidents, combined. 

In his second term, Cleveland issued another 170 vetoes. Combined, Grover signed-off on 584 vetoes. Only Franklin Roosevelt, who served twice as long with four terms and 16 years, had more vetoes than Grover with 635. 

Fun Fact: Grover had nearly twice as many vetoes per year served as FDR.

Cleveland, of course, was famous for his honesty and his anti-corruption efforts, first as mayor of Buffalo and then as governor of New York. He carried this anti-corruption and prudent fiscal attitude to the White House in 1885.  

Grover believed in small government and careful government spending only on those appropriate items outlined in the constitution. He also believe in the traditional American/New England values of honest hard work and self-reliance. 

As a result, he vetoed hundreds of attempts by Congress to abuse the pension system set up during Lincoln’s term during the Civil War to help Union soldiers who were legitimately injured in the war or to the widows and children of killed Union soldiers. Congress, and presidents after Lincoln, often expanded who could get the Civil War pension to steer Federal money to special interest groups and win votes (and elections).

Once Grover picked up his veto pen, and denied these special interest groups their pork-barrel congressional spending, they turned on principled Grover and ran him out of office in 1888. 

Grover famously vetoed in February 1887 a $10,000 government seed subsidy for Texas farmers suffering from a severe drought. It was Cleveland’s goal to avoid making the American people reliant on the federal government for assistance.

In his veto statement, he wrote one of his more famous quotes that conservatives and right-wingers today are still prone to quote: “Though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.”

Here’s Grover’s statement, which is at least principled if still cold-hearted.

“I can find no warrant for such an appropriation in the Constution, and I do not believe that the power and duty of the general government ought to be extended to the relief of individual suffering which is in matter properly related to the public service or benefits.... the lesson should be constantly enforced that, though the people support the government, the government should not support the people. The friendliness and charity of our countrymen can always be relied upon to relieve their fellow-citizens in misfortune. This has been repeatedly and quite lately demonstrated. Federal aid in such cases encourages the expectation of paternal care on the part of the government and weakens the sturdiness of our national character.”

Spoken like a classic Wealthy White Guy reeking of privilege and power, which, of course, was totally true of Grover Cleveland.

Still, he was right. He may have lost the election partly on this refusal to give money to special agricultural interests, but the kindness of Americans prevailed and they raised some $100,000 for the Texas farmers in need.

I like Grover for keeping balance in the powers of Government. And he can’t have been all wrong: Of the 584 bills he vetoed, only 7 were overridden by Congress.

Here’s hoping today’s Congress, specifically the Senate, can get their act together and override the first veto by the lying golfing president.