Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1880-09-10
Aancaster fntelllgeneer.
FRIDAY EVENING. SEPT. 10. 1880.


FRIDAY EVENING. SEPT. 10, 1880.
Democrats and the soldiers.
The Republicans can hardly afford to
raise any question that will lead to an
examination into the willingness of the
Democratic Congress to measure out the
fullest justice and liberality to the Union
soldiers. A glance at the record will
show that the House of the Forty fourth
Congress, by q vote of III to 46, passed
the bill equalizing bounties-Garfield
dodging-and that the Republican Sem
ate killed it by indefinite postponement.
1t was the same Democratic House
which extended the time for filing claims
for additional bounty from Jan. 20, 1875,
to July 1, 1880. 1t was the same Demo-
cratic House which put that gallant
Union soldier from Ohio, Gen. A. V.
Rice, into the direction of the general
billproviding pay for arrears of pensions,
which was strenuously opposed by Gar
field and other Republican leaders on the
floor. When the bill finally passed the
Democratic House by Democratic votes,
it was given its quietus in the Republi-
can Senate. On June 10, 1873, another
Democratic House passed another arrears
OF pensions bill, and though it was refused
to restore to its privileges old
soldiers of the war of 1872, who had
served in the rebel army, it was passed
by Democratic votes and only passed the
the Senate after a desperate Republican
effort to defeat or postpone it. The
Democratic House with rare promptncss,
appropriated the money required to carry
it out, and declared the meaning of the
statute to be the grant also of "pensions
on account of soldiers who were enlisted
or drafted for the service in the war of the
rebellion, but died or incurred disability
from a cause originating after the cessa-
tion of hOstilities and before being mus
tered out.''
When the war broke out there were in
the South some old soldiers of the war of
1872, who were on the pension rolls, and
they were at once struck off. From the
nature of the case, forty eight years after
their service, they could not have been
very active in the rebellion. Be that rs
it may, in 1876, sixty-four years after
their original service in the war against
England, it was proposed to restore their
pension; not to them, nor to pay them
for the time during the continuance of
N 1,,sf 70, f,os, ,.,:ln .,,l
orphans. That humane and patriotic
proposition was opposed by the Republi-
cans, Garfield's name leading all the
rest. The Democratic House passed it,
the Republican Senate killed it. 1t was
finally passed in the next Congress, only
twenty Republicans daring to vote
against it, Garfield dodging again.
1t was 4 Democratic House which
upon the petition of many soldiers passed
a bill to protect them from sharks and
sharpers by making their land warrants
real instead of personal property. A Re-
publican Senate smOthered the bill.
1t was 4 Democratic House, with the
" Confederate brigadiers' in it, which
gave MANNED soldiers the right to an a.
tificial limb every five years at the pub
lie expense, passing the bill against the
efforts of Republican senators to emas-
culate it of its most vital provisions.
1t was Democratic House which
originated the bill increasing the pen
siOns of soldiers who had lost both arms,
both feet and both eyes from $50 to $72
per month, and increasing the pensions
OF soldiers who had lost their leg at the
hip joint.
The Democratic House passed and the
Republican Senate killed the bill to give
soldiers who had lost the use of the knee
or elbow joint S2i a month, and the bill to
increase the pensions of those who had
lost an arm or 4 foot from $24 to $50 per
month.
1t was a Democratic House which
originated the bill to protect pensioners
by limiting the charges of claim agents to
ten dollars. 1t was Republican Congress
which passed statute No. 1854. direct
ing that wounded soldiers should be pre-
ferred in civil appointments, but it was
50 shamefully disregarded that only when
4 Democratic House came in was a bill
passed directing fine and imprisonment
for those who failed to obey it. The Re-
publican Senate killed the bill. 1t was
the Democratic House, under the leader
of Democratic Union soldier, who
lost a leg in the war, which repealed the
law made by Republican Congress that
had stricken from the pension roll every
wounded, armless or legless soldier who
had obtained civil employment under the
government.
1t was Democratic House that want
ed to direct that wounded soldiers should
be selected rs pension agents. The Re
publican Senate hemmed and hawed un-
til the matter failed. 1t was on this oc-
casion that Senator Ingalls,, Republican
of Kansas, was moved to say:
At the other end of the capitolisa House
which is frequently alluded to as the House
of the Confederate Tragedies. They have
no unconstitutional scruples about declar- |
ing that Union soldiers shall administer
the pension agencies of this country. The |
men who have served i'm the rebel army,
and have had their disabilities removed |
and have come to Congress, pass section |
to bill expressly declaring that the pow
ers and duties of those offices shall be ex-
crcised by disabled, wounded and honor
ably discharged Union soldiers. But when |
the bill came to the Sonata q nortion of |