The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1881-11-25
THE TARIFF AND THE PENSION
BUSINESS.
Mobile Register.l

States were pretty well PAID Tor tnelr
work while they were actually in the
field. Many of them could not speak
the language of the people for whom |
they fought. Most of them were ig- |
norant of the Constitution which they
claimed to protect, and all of them,
while declaring that the war was not
waged for subjugation, but that after it
was over all the States should possess
their rights just as they were at its in
ception, deliberately violated their
plighted faith and treated the South as
Tamerlane refused to treat the Indian
provinces which his troops overran in
the fourteenth century.
We have nothing now to say about
the deeds ofthese warriors. 1t has been
SO much the habit to clasp hands across
the bloody chasm that history is get
ting very much in doubt whether there
was any war at all or whether any body
fought for rights and principles.
After the war was over some ten or
twelve years, shrewd Spectator came
forward and induced Congress to pass
bill granting enormous arrearages of
pensions to the soldiers who served the
Federal Government.
The Republican Congressman advo-
Gated the measure because they thought
the Southern members would question
it or vote against it, and in such case
they would be able once again to rally
the soldier vote to their cause. The
hof
to vote against anything like pen
sion would not be magnanimous and
would be regarded as an unwiliingness
to shake hands across the bloody chasm,
voted for the bill and thus entailed an
expense of tens of millions of dollars
annually upon the Government.
The pension business now looms into
grave Importance. Mr.. Dudley is the
gentleman who has charge of the pen
sions. He is the same gentleman who
united with President Arthur in Civ
ing a dinner to Mr.. Dorsey, the post
Office robber who has just escaped
punishment by the incompetency of
the Attorney Generals department.
Mr.. Dudley was active with Mr..
Dorsey in carrying Indiana for Gar
field, and when that State was carried
and the magnates met together to con-
graduate Mr.. Dorsey on his work, no
one laughed more heartily than Mr..
Dudley at that humorous speech OF
Mr.. Arthur, now President, in which
he congratulated the star route thief
upon carrying Indiana with the aid OF
-. The blank was filled with
s'Ioud laughter"
Now Mr.. Dudley says that he will
need $12O, O00,0 900 to meet the arrears
of pensions for the coming year. This
will about exhaust the Internal Reve-
nue. and leave the imprt duties to
meet the other expenses of govern
ment.
1t is very evident that the high tariff
men are determined to get rid of our
redundant revenue in SON was. AS
small thefts would not meet the case,
it Ebecame necessary to make some
grand hundred millions stroke.
This pension business was the very
thing for the emergency. 1t was
SEouuJ PATRIOTIC unquCStlOnaOlcJ ana
elastic. Nobody ever knew or could
know how many Federal soldiers were
entitled to pension under this act. The
bounty-jumper who enlisted under a
dozen different names, and the colored
non-desscript who was iucapacitated by
frosted feet, were counted as often as
necessary. The pension list has swoI'
len like the. collins of the loyal dead
which were filled indiscriminately
with all the bones in reach. Each coftir
was entitled to its individual reward
no matter whether the bones wer,
those of Confederate or Federal, of mhl
or beef. Col, Lamb upon revisitinj
Fort Fisher found that the bones of al
his Confederate dead had been removes
North by an enterprisiDg contractor
In the day of judgment ono of tn
bravest questions to be solved will be
not so much which husband the seven
time married woman shall have, bu
which bone the rival Confederate ant