The National tribune., 1879-12-01

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age of cases.
And all these witnesses are to be produced,
transported long distances, and maintained for
unknown periods at the expense and cost of the
claimant
Neighbors and friends, who would be entirely
willing and ready to give their testimony at their
own houses before their neghborhood officers,
would naturally and properly decline to undergo
the travel and lose the time to attend at some dis
tant point, even If they paid for it, And the
United States which is to establish this pretended
court, does not give the claimant compulsory pro-
cess to force the attendance of witnesses.
Was there any court beard of before which
required man to make proof by witnesses in per-
son before it. and yet gave him no compulsory pro-
cess by which, in the name of the law, he could
summon witnesses and compel attendance.
But as matter of fact every one knows that
these claimants as rule are utterly unable to paw
Tor the travel, fees and attendance of the witnesses
they would be required to produce, and as no law
ever yet did, or ever will, compel witnesses for
private citizen to travel and attend their own ex-
pense even compulsory process on the condition of
payment by the party for whom they are SUBJ
penaed, would not help the claimants in their
utter poverty to make out the case required by the
bill.
Once more. 1t is fact perfectly we'll known
that owing to the rowing habits of our people, the
witnesses necessary to be produced are scattered
into every State and Territory of this broad Repub
lie; and although this bill makes provision for tax
ng their testimony in any district yet the same
difficulties before noticed in regard to witnesses
PRESIDENT in the same district the claimant recur in
each and every of the other districts in which the
witness may reside enhanced by the fact that they
are out of the reach and Influence of the claimant
and if examined at ALL must be examined in his alb
sence and without opportunity for him her to
suggest matters which might recall material facts
or to reply to the skillful cross-examnation Of the
detailed clerks" whose sole ambition it would be
to defeat claim
These are some of the solid and serious obiec-
ons to this whimsical and barbarous scheme of the
Commissioner, that must at once strike every re-
fecting mind, and that ought to be very seriously
considered by every Member of Congress
Mr.. Bentley's experience in pension matters is, or
ought to be such, that he knows that every one of
these positions is strictly true He is assumed to
be responsible for the inevitable results Of tho plan
he advocates He claims special knowledge of the
subject matter. He cannot plead ignorance And
if he knows as do that this pet measure of his
will assuredly render the obtaining OF justice
practical mpossibility--will postpone to an nde6-
mite and hopeless future the great mass of claims
now pending, no matter how meritolious and, like
all injustice, will work the hardest on the poorest
and most needy--if he knows, as zoe do, that it will
east fearful burden each existing pensoner,
liable to be increased prolonged at the will of the
petty tribunals which he wants erected-that it will
unsettle all mems confidence in their own position
and standing, and put the oldest aud best of our
surviving pensioners on the rack of suspense and
doubt-we say, if he knows all this, he must have
a heart of flint and brow of brass to venture to
recommend such policy to the Representatives of
the people.
! And if he does not know that the fearful mass of
delay hndrance, vexation, and denial of justice is