Arthur also exercised the veto upon a rivers and harbors bill. It had, of course, long been the custom for the federal government to aid in the improvement of the harbors and internal water-ways of the country. But the modest sums of _ante-bellum_ days grew rapidly after the war, stimulated by immense federal revenues, until the suggested legislation of 1882 appropriated nearly nineteen million dollars. It provided not merely for the dredging of great rivers like the Mississippi and Ohio, but also for the Lamprey River in New Hampshire, the Waccemaw in North Carolina, together with Goose Rapids and Cheesequake Creek. Some of these, the opposition declared, might better be paved than dredged.[7] It might seem that a bill against which such obvious objections could be raised would be doomed to failure. But the argument of Ransom of North Carolina, who had charge of the bill in its later stages in the Senate, seems to have been a decisive one. Somebody had objected that the members of the committee had cared for the interests of their own states, merely. Ransom repelled the charge. He showed that the New England states had been looked out for; "Look next to New York, that great, grand, magnificent State ... that empire in itself ... Go to Delaware, little, glorious Delaware." The committee had retained $20,000 for Delaware. "Go next ... to great, grand old Virginia." Virginia had received something. "Go to Missouri, the young, beautiful, growing, powerful State of my friend over the way." And so on--all had been treated with thoughtful care. Ransom was wise in his day and generation. Although Arthur objected to the bill on the grounds of extravagance and of the official demoralization which accompanied it, nevertheless Republicans and Democrats alike joined in passing over the veto an act which would get money into their home states. The congressional elections in the fall of 1882 indicated that the factional disputes among the Republicans, and their failure to reform conditions in the civil service had presented the opposition with an opportunity. In the House of Representatives, Republican control was replaced by a Democratic majority of sixty-nine; the state legislatures chosen were Democratic in such numbers as to make sure the even division of the Senate when new members were elected; in Pennsylvania, a Democratic reformer, Robert E. Pattison, was elected governor, and in New York another, Grover Cleveland, was successful by the unprecedented majority of 190,000.