Page:Writings and Speeches of Grover Cleveland.djvu/489

 not necessarily result in continued distress if the emergency is fully made known to the people of the country.

It is here suggested that the Commissioner of Agriculture is annually directed to expend a large sum of money for the purchase, propagation, and distribution of seeds and other things of this description, two-thirds of which are, upon the request of senators, representatives, and delegates in Congress, supplied to them for distribution among their constituents.

The appropriation of the current year for this purpose is one hundred thousand dollars, and it will probably be no less in the appropriation for the ensuing year. I understand that a large quantity of grain is furnished for such distribution, and it is supposed that this free apportionment among their neighbors is a privilege which may be waived by our senators and representatives.

If sufficient of them should request the Commissioner of Agriculture to send their shares of the grain thus allowed them, to the suffering farmers of Texas, they might be enabled to sow their crops; the constituents, for whom in theory this grain is intended, could well bear the temporary deprivation, and the donors would experience the satisfaction attending deeds of charity. . 

VII.

Of the Direct Tax Bill.

,, March 2, 1889.

:

I herewith return without approval Senate bill number one hundred and thirty-nine, entitled "An Act to credit and pay to the several States and Territories and the District of Columbia all moneys collected under the direct tax levied by the Act of Congress approved August fifth, eighteen hundred and sixty-one." 