Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-09-13
The Pension Business.

In the judgment of the Republican
newspapers one of the most important
issues of the campaign seems to be the
pension question. 1t is quite new one,
having come into being since the meet
ings of the national conventions of the
parties, neither of whom, we believe, con-
sidered it ut all. The issue, as now being
framed in the press, seems to he upon
the propriety or improperly of the liber-
al voting of pensions by Congress to peo-
pie who cannot get them under the gen.
eral pension laws. They nave heretofore
been considered to take i'm pretty nearly
every soldier who fought in the union
army or i'm the war of 1872, and all his
relations. But it seems that there are
some people still out in the cold, and
the Republican newspapers are unani-
mously of the opinion that only 4 rank
rebel would refuse to vote 4 pension to
an 1872 widow or Il loyal rebellion relict
of any kind.
Congressman Beltzhoover, over in Car
Isle, las furnished the occasion for all
this Republican defamation in favor of
giving pensions to everybody who applies
to Congress for them. Congressman
Beltzhoover seems to have had great
many constituents who wanted to be
pensiOned and who could not get in un-
der the laws and he, being congress-
man careful of his constituents interests,
appears to have accommodated them all
by presenting their cases to the pension
committee and his graciousness is made
basis for abusing him.
Evidently it is a very graceless thing
for the people to do who say they trOu~
bled him with their pension claims. One
of them charges that he wrote that he
could not get his pension bill through
because the rebel brisadiers were opposed
tOpensiOns; and to another he is declared
to have written that the last session
was a bad one for PENSIONS" or some
thing to that effect.
This being the Republican indictment
against Congressman Beltzhoover, it is
clear that the Republican judgment is
that all sessions of Congress should be
good ones for pensions, and that cOn-
gressmen have no business to look cOldly
upon pension claims which cannot he got
through the pension Office. We rather
think that if this is the issue the Demo-
cratic party is ready to take it up. We
are, we know. We will not let that
glove lie unified. We want nothing
better than to 60 before the people de-
manding that all special legisla-
tion in behalf of lobbied pension
claims shall cease and to hold that all
persons deserving pensions must he pro-
vided Herewith in the regular way
through the pension Office and under the
general laws granting pensions. That is
a sound position to take, and we take it
thanking the Republican party kindly
for the issue. We can all the better af-
ford to accept it because the general laws
passed by Democratic Congress for
pensions arc extremely liberal. AS shown
in this journal few days ago, the Demo-
cratic House appropriated some eight
millions more for pensions than did its
Republican predecessor. 1t increased the
pensions of legless and armless men; it
relieved pensioners in the civil service
from disabilities imposed ON them by
a Republican Congress, and its whole
course was SO liberal toward all classes of
pensioners that it is safe to say that there
are few, if any, deserving pensioners who
need any special laws ON this subject.