Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1870-04-12
THE BUREAU IN MEMPHIS.
Hon. Fernando Woods Structures Upon the
Black institution Sustained.

We make room for the following com
munication as a document every way
sustaining the structures Of Hon. Mr..
Wood, of New York, upon the Freed
mans Bureau, the most infamous of all
the Radical creation:
Editors Appeal: We would not do any
one an injustice, but there are some
things very strange in the management of
the concern h~ereabouts. At this agency
bounties are paid to from one to three
coiored soldiers per day-some days none
and to accomplish this enormous work
the government keeps a Bureau agent
and his two clerks here, pays the salaries,
office rents, and what other expense we
know not. After waiting three or four
years since filing their claims, these poor
soldiers are compelled to make at least
two, and often three and four, trips to this
city, wen after being notified by their
claim agents tina their claims have been
allowed. To those living $50 or 200 miles
distant, the expenses and loss of time
from the farm almost equal the amoun
Of bounty they receive.
Last week We met a negro, a private of
the Forty-second United States Colored
Infantry, who asked us how he could get
his bounty, stating that his money was at
the Bureau agency here; that the agent
was satisfied without any witnesses, two
weeks ago, when he signed the vouchers
to get the money from Washington to this
agency, hat he was the proper claimant
but that he could not now find witnesses
who could satisfy said agent of his
idsntityi that one of his company
who have their discharge papers
with them can be found about
here, and that the agent refused to pay on
any other kind of proof that he had
taken with him the most credible wit
nesses, both white and colOred, but could
not get his money. This, / believe, is the
regular order Of doing business there.
One OF these clerks administers oaths to
afidavits, etc, and if they were not
strictly honest, il would be a very easy
matter in case of the death of a soldier,
after his money has come, to fix up the
proof so as to show that the mOney had
been paid, and no one outside of that
agency would be the wiser for it. We do
not propose here to impeach the honesty
Of these men, but would suggest that it
is wrong for any government to throw
around its most honest and virtuous citi-
zens any such temptations to specula-
ton and peculation. We haYe for more
thar a year wondered why it was
that neither attorneys nor any q else
but the poor uneducated negro were al
lowed to learn the status of soldiers
claims-iH other words, why we're we an
sWered, 1--WE do business with none but
the claimants themselves" and we have
wondered why the letters these poor fell
lows would write to the Bureau at Wash
asking the cause of the delay,
were not answered. We had almost sus-
pected that the clerks at Washington,
right under General HOward's nose, and
the Bureau agents over the country had
formed a ''ring" or "corner" for bounty
Jumping and for lending money, which
l am credibly informed has been recently
by a Bureau agent at the modest
rate OF fifty per cent. per annUm But
it seems some parties in Washington
that the pious old General IS a @pu-
cillanimous cuss," that he is such a care
fui guardian of the BOOT negroes rights
that be will not intrqst them with their
money. Let Congress look into that
Bureaus sIairs and they will find a sweet
combination OF Raty aud Yillainy, guard
and fraud. Why not abolish the
concern and pay these bounties through
the banks, SO that they may be paid in
his century, y. !. j.