The National tribune., 1883-03-22
An Explanation that Doesn't Explain.

bloom.
An Explanation that Doesn't Explain.
The editorial entitled "a chance for Bar
mum" which appeared in our issue of the
9Th inst, and in which we quoted the fol-
lowing paragraph from the Cape Ann Mass
Advertiser
Barnum has outdone himself Forepaughs ten
thousand-dollar beauty nowhere, He has secured,
at great expense, and will exhibit this season, a
soldier who served through the war and did not
contract any disability discover afterwards.
He is supposed to be the only one living. He viii
be exhibited for few days only-in the House and
Senate and War Office
and suggested that Gagged editor of the
same species as the author of this contempti-
BILE slur ON our ex-soldiers would be a far
greater attraction for Barnum than the one
mentioned by the Advertiser, seems to have
produced a painful impression in certain
very polite letter from the proprietors of
the Advertiser disclaiming any intention to
do injustice to our ex-soIdiers, and referring
us to certain extracts from its editorial col
umns, as explaining just where they stand
on the pension question. One of these ex-
tracts is as follows:
The bill for arrears of pensions was loosely drawn
and was never intended to become a law. Ii was
conceived by the Republicans to entrap the Demo-
Gratis but unfortunately for the country they voted
IrFb
sponsible for this drain upon the Treasury drain
upon the Treasury enormous that the taxpayer
will soon commence to complain.
| Judging from the above expression of
opinion, the position which the Advertiser
occupies on the pension question is one of
intense hostility to the principle involved in
| the arrears of pension bill, and if it really
cherishes high regard for our ex-soldiers,
it seems to US that this is queer way of
| showing it. Indeed, its remarks concerning
the arrears bill need explanation quite as
much as the innuendo to which we originally
called attention. Does the Advertiser mean
| to assert that the right of soldier to PEN
sion does not attach at the time he received
the disability? That is the principle af-
firmed in the arrears bill Does it mean to
| declare that a man who lost his leg at the
battle of fredericksburg, for instance, but
whose application for pension was not
passed upon, through no fault of his own,
but solely by reason of the failure of the
| Government to provide the necessary ma
chinery for the prompt adjustment of pen
sion claims, until many years thereafter,
| ought to be debarred from all compensation
during that period? Such proposition
| would not stand for a moment in any court
| of justice. As Senator Logan said in the
course of his speech on the Forty dollar bill,
"Where you agree to pension man you
pension him on account of a wound or on
account of disease disability; and if the
contract under your law is that if a man is
army he shall be pensioned, that contract
applies and attaches at the time the disa-
bility occurred and at no other time; so that
man is entitled TO pension from the time
the disability was incurred" Does the i'd
rertiser mean to deny the truth of this prop
osition2
As to the drain upon the Treasury result
ing from the operation of the arrears bill,
we put it to the Advertiser whether on the
same ground the payment of the debt to the
bondholders might not be resisted with
equal propriety. If it is a question not of
what the Government owes, but of what it
can afford to pay, why not repudiate all
debts, and thus stop the drain ON the Treas
ury altogether? As a matter of fact, the
drain on the Treasury is trifing considering
the immensely of its resources, and to make
bugbear of it at time when the annual
surplus of receipts over expenditures is
nearly s150,000,0O0 is plainly absurd. Does
the Advertiser pretend to dispute the fact I?
Now, we should like to believe that the
Advertiser is what it pretends to be-the
friend of the soldier--but, as we remarked
at the outset, we do not very well see how
its public utterances can be reeonciled with
its private pretensions. If it is not asking
too much, viii it not kindly explain its
explanations