St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1882-01-13


STS. 100000 to S2O,OOO,OOO" He had a
letter from the pension commissioner
which he did not read, leading him to
this conclusion. Christiancy, Dorsey
and other eminent statesman made
some inquiries about the effect of the
bill on certain classes of cases. Sena-
tor Ferry of Michigan made an earnest
effort to amend so did Senator HOar,
who proposed to add that mo pension
for disability shall be granted for any
period before such disability occur
red" That is, if an old wound broke
out ten years after the war and disa-
bled man, the pensioner should not
collect arrears for the period before his
disability. But other senators were
impatient. Senator Dawes thought
his colleagues amendment unnecessa-
ry. Senator Blaine hoped there would
be no amendment it would be better
to pass the law and amend it when it
needed it. The pension commissioner
would discover and report defects, if
there should prove to be any. ~ sub
NIT" said Mr.. Blaine, "that it will be
entirely safe to leave it till then and if
there be any defects in it they will be
developed. Congress is in session ev-
cry year and it will be safe and wise to
take the bill as it is" Senator Ferry
objected to this method of legislation
with great justice, but with no effect
on his colleagues. But even he did
not suspect the extent of the legisla-
tiOu under debate. The only man
who did was that veteran tinancier,
Senator Morrill, of Vermont, who said
that they would have to provide more
clerks to handle these pensions, that
the expenses of the government were
already rising rapidly, and added =
''lf this bill is to pass, in my judg
ment, instead of imposing it upon the
treasury, with a clear apprehension
that there is to be a deficit, we ought
to provide that the treasury may issue
bonds il sufficient amount to cover
this additional burden. | shall not
propose such an amendment as that,
but clearly think it is the duty of the
chairman of the committee on pensions
to consider that matter"
The only man in the Senate who at
tackled the bill on its merits was the
old bourbon Salisbury of Delaware,
all the amendments were voted down,
and the bill passed the Senate A to 4.
The nays were Davis and Hereford of
West Virginia, McCreeTy and Sauls-
bury. Among the Democrats who
voted for the bill were Thurman, VOor-
hees and COckrell; % senators were
absent or did not vote, among them
Anthony and Edmunds.
Thus the bill passed Congress and
went to President Hayes.
But President Hayes signed the bill
on the 25th. Mr.. Schurz has lately
made feeble defense of this act on
the ground that Congress had passed
the bill by such majOrities that the two
houses would pass it over his head.
SuppOsing they had they would at
least have then been obliged to bear
the whole responsibility, and the Pres
ident would not have shared it.
Now that the mischief is done, we
see how nicely works Mr.. Blaine's
back k-action plan of making mistakes
and then trusting to luck to get them
rectitied. Millions upon millions have
been paid out under this bill, hundreds
of millions more are demanded. The
government cannot say, we have paid
as many of these claims as we can and
now will stop. That would be gross
favOritism to those who got first to the
trough. 1t has got to go on. The
blunder is irretrievable, as blunders
are apt to be. The best Congress can
do is to patch up a more perfect system
of checks against fraud in the payment
of these enormous bOunties.
| We submit that the above record is
instructive in illustrating the dangers
which beset legislation at Washington.
1t shows the palpable subserviency in
public men to public demand based on
manifest selfshness, it shows the rea-
diness with which all the checks and
restrictions upon Legislation can be
slipped, as the leash is slipped from
the hound it shows how hasty and
superficial may he the consideration of
bills of the most vital Importance, and
how far experimental recklessness may
be gravely argued upon the floor of the
Senate of the United States as the
proper practice and method of legisla-
ton. 1t shows how partisan distrust
may be aroused and cunningly used by
one party to keep the other from pow
er, and to cloak the abuses of power in
its own hands.