The legislation for the erection of public buildings has not proceeded, so far as I can trace it, upon any general rules.  Neither population nor the extent of the public business transacted has always indicated the points where public buildings should first be built or the cost of the structures.  It can not be expected that, in the absence of some general law, the committees of Congress having charge of such matters will proceed in their recommendations upon strict or equal lines.  The bills are individual, and if comparisons are attempted the necessary element of probable future growth is made to cover all apparent inequalities.  It will be admitted, I am sure, that only a public need should suggest the expenditure of the public money, and that if all such needs can not be at once supplied the most general and urgent should have the preference.

I am not unfriendly to a liberal annual expenditure for the erection of public buildings where the safe and convenient transaction of the public business demands it and the state of the revenues will permit.  It would be wiser, in my opinion, to build more and less costly houses and to fix by general law the amount of the annual expenditure for this purpose and some order of preference between the cities asking for public buildings.

But in view of the pending legislation looking to a very large reduction of our revenues and of the urgency and necessity of a large increase in our expenditures in certain directions, I am of the opinion that appropriations for the erection of public buildings and all kindred expenditures should be kept at the minimum until the effect of other probable legislation can be accurately measured.

The erection of a public building is largely a matter of local interest and convenience, while expenditures for enlarged relief and recognition to the soldiers and sailors of the war for the preservation of the Union, for necessary coast defenses, and for the extension of our commerce with other American States are of universal interest and involve considerations, not of convenience, but of justice, honor, safety, and general prosperity.

BENJ.  HARRISON.

EXECUTIVE MANSION, June 4, 1890.

To the Senate of the United States: 

I return without my approval the bill (S. 1306) “for the erection of a public building at Hudson, N.Y.”  Hudson, from the best information attainable, is a city of only a little more than 10,000 population.  If the postal receipts are a fair indication of the growth of the city, it has not been rapid, as they only increased about $4,000 in ten years.  The gross postal receipts for the year 1888 were but $14,809, and the office force consists of three clerks and five carriers.  There are no other Government officers at Hudson entitled under the law to offices or to an allowance for rent, unless it be a deputy collector of internal revenue.