Salt Lake Telegram | 1906-06-21 | Page 10 | In President Buchanan's Time

IN PRESIDENT BUCHANAN'S TIME. ' Speaking of the appropriation for the traveling expenses of the President which is all right, by the way, and should be settled next winter by Congress increasing the salary of the President of the United States to a reasonable figure, (the law to take effect with the beginning of the next President's Pres-ident's term), reminds us of the old story that when James Buchanan was President his Attorney-General took a party on board a dispatch boat of the navy for a couple of days' sail down the Potomac and Chesapeake bay and back. At the next Cabinet meeting the President looking over at the Attorney-General, said: "You took some friends down the river the other day?" "Yes, Mr. President." "In a Government boat?" said the President . "Yes, Mr. President" "Has any accounting been made of the expenses of that Journey?" "None at all, I think," was the answer. "I paid for the coal, I paid for the food. I gave cigars and champagne to the captain and other officers. I gave beer and cigars to the crew and tips to the waiters, enough, as I thought, to cover all expenses, and I do not presume that any accounting account-ing will be made to the department on that score." "Ah," said old Buck, "that Is different'' He was willing to let his Secretary of War and his Secretary Sec-retary of the Navy go to some expense to move arms and soldiers Souty and to make divers other adjustments for the good of the service, but he did not want any small grafting among his Cabinet officers. He was a great 'deal better financier personally than he was executive officer of the great Government of the United States.