ing, and to meet payments on these
more than $4,000,000 must be appropriated in the immediate future.

If, therefore, this bill becomes a law, the obligations which will be
imposed on the Government, together with the appropriations made for
immediate expenditure on account of rivers and harbors, will amount to
about $80,000,000. Nor is this all. The bill directs numerous surveys
and examinations which contemplate new work and further contracts and
which portend largely increased expenditures and obligations.

There is no ground to hope that in the face of persistent and growing
demands the aggregate of appropriations for the smaller schemes, not
covered by contracts, will be reduced or even remain stationary. For the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1898, such appropriations, together with the
installments on contracts which will fall due in that year, can hardly
be less than $30,000,000; and it may reasonably be apprehended that the
prevalent tendency toward increased expenditures of this sort and the
concealment which postponed payments afford for extravagance will
increase the burdens chargeable to this account in succeeding years.

In view of the obligation imposed upon me by the Constitution, it
seems to me quite clear that I only discharge a duty to our people when
I interpose my disapproval of the legislation proposed.

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.

On the face of the bill it appears that not a few of these alleged
improvements have been so improvidently planned and prosecuted that
after an unwise expenditure of millions of dollars new experiments for
their accomplishment have been entered upon.

While those intrusted with the management of public funds in the
interest of all the people can hardly justify questionable expenditures
for public work by pleading the opinions of engineers or others as to
the practicability of such work, it appears that some of the projects
for which appropriations are proposed in this bill have been entered
upon without the approval or against the objections of the examining
engineers.

I learn from official sources that there are appropriations contained in
the bill to pay for work which private parties have actually agreed with
the Government to do in consideration of their occupancy of public
property.

What