The National tribune., 1883-11-08
SErARrnEvr OF THE INTERIOR.


Ordered: That whenever an attorney is charged
with improper practices in prosecuting claims be-
fore the Pension Office, the Commissioner of PEN
sions shall investigate the matter, giving such at
torney due notice, together with copy of the
charges against him, that he may be heard in the
premises When the investigation shall have been
concluded the facts shall be reported to the Secre-
tar the Interior for consideration together with
the testimony upon which it is based and the rec-
ommendation of the Commissioner During the
investigation into the conduct of an attorney for
improper practices. he shall be recognized in
claims before the Bureau in his capacity as attor-
ney, unless for special reasons communicated to
the Secretary of the Interior he shall be suspended
H. NJ TELLER, Secretary.
IF the spirit and intent of this order, the
issue of which does honor to the Secretary's
sense of justice, is strictly observed in its
execution, it viii not only protect honest
claim agents, bnt make the investigation of
the conduct of dishonest attorneys much
easier and surer for the Pension Office, since
it should partake of the character of an ordi-
nary Judicial procedure instead of sensa-
tional and yindictive persecution. THE
TRIBUNE is heartily in favor of an inyesti-
cation of this sort and we believe Commits
sioner Dudley viii find all honest claim
agents ready to cooperate cheerfully with
him in bringing to account the unscrupulous
attorneys who, by fraud or trickery, have
wronged their helpless clients or cheated the
Government and thus brought disgrace upon
themselves and dishonor upon their profess
sion. Let no guilty man escape!
But we should be derelict in our duty to
our ex-soldiers did we permit the inference
to be drawn from what we have said that the
remedywhich Commissioner Dudley proposes
to apply is sufficient for the occasion, and viii
prove entirely efectual in stopping the frauds
committed by dishonest claim agents. To
reach the root of the evil he must go farther
and deeper, and strike at the very occasion
and motive and inducement to fraud
the existing law regulating pension fees
It is the crude, unreasonable, and IN
just requirements of this law which have
led some attorneys, who would doubtless
otherwise have respected the law, to evade
if not wantoply violate it, and, worst oi
all, made thousands OF. meritorious pension
claimants the dupes of their own ignorance
| We present in another column, this week
review of the legislation to which Con
gress has resorted from time to time since
| the war to regulate the relations between
pension attorneys and their clients, and oul
readers will agree with us, we think in say
! ing that it was Congress itself which threw
open the door to fraud when, in 1873, it re-
pealed the law permitting the claimant te
make any agreement he pleased with his
attorney as TO fee, provided it did not exceed
| S25, thus not only arbitrarily reducing the
value of all attorneys services to the same
level and ignoring those differences of char
acter experience and talent which in all Other
branches of the legal profession constitute
the measure of a counselor's fee, but alse
denying all fee to the attorney, unless sue
eeasful 1t was said at the time. by way O
justifying this reduction in the legal fee o
pension attorneys, that there were plenty o
claim agents who were willing to prosecute
| pension claims for this fee, and such was un
doubtedly the case; but they were precisely
L
the same class of attorneys as those who hay.
recently been detected in tho custom O