Morning journal and courier., 1884-06-25
edresday, June 2ss 1884.

THE DEFEAT OF A BAD BILL. 1 The Senators Who defeated the arrears of
 pensions plan brought in by Senator Ingalls,
 and endorsed by the Republican senatorial
 caucus, deserve the thanks of the taxpayers
 of this country. Among these Senators stand,
 we are glad to be able to say, the two from l Connecticut. The defeat of the scheme was 1 unexpected and it was dne largely to the 1 courage of Senator John Sherman, who re- fused to be bound by the caucus decree or ! by the pension declaration of the Chicago fIstfognn. Ills speech made strong impress sion On the Senate. While, he said, the Senate should do everything reasonable to | care for the needy and disabled soldiers of the l late war, he argued that it should not be un-
 mindful of the common good of all the peo- pie of the entire country. This was not the time to make such an enormous demand on the treasury. We are now, he said, in times of pinch; our revenues a falling off; the shrinkage of values within the
 past year has been enormous, and is going on day by day. At this time we should not
 be called upon to assume a liability which would involve the enormous sum mentioned
 ln this debate. He would pension every
 Union soldier suffering from disability, and
 would remove some of the irksome proofs
 now needed; he would respond to every rea-
 sonable demand, but when unreasonable de-
 mands were made he hoped that he would
 have sufficient courage to vote against them,
 even at the expense of being misunderstood.
 Senator Sherman's position is the right
 one, and he will not be misunderstood be-
 cause he has taken it. Senator Hawlsy in
 his speech on the pension bill also put the
 matter about right when he said: Nothing
 can be proposed to help disabled. wound ed, suffering soldier, or his widow or his orphan, that will not sustain, and nothing can be proposed to pensien an able-bodied man that will sustain. Every man in this broad land owes his labor, his property, and l his life to his country upon demand at any hour of day OF night through his whole life, 1 and 2,000, 900 of men very cheerfully offered l all this They are not beggars, nor do they | desire to bankrupt the country to which they l otfe red their services and for which they | were ready to die. They did not ask us-it is not | the real voice of the soldiers | of this country-that we shall add | $1sO, 1000, coo to the annual taxation. Those | dollars come ultimately more out of the poor men than they do from the rich men. Dis- guiss it as you please. the burden filters down until it rests upon the labor of the country. The soldiers do not ask us to make pension list which, when added to the existing pen- sion list, will be $2OO, OOO, 900. venture to say that you may assemble O,0o0 soldiers and argue this question fairly be- fore them and they will tell you that they do not ask that able-bodied, well men shall be oensioned simply bsCsuse they entered into he service of the country. They say they vent cheerfully, periodically, thanking God 'or the ability to go, and that they are ready O go again. and they are not beggsrs.
 If Senator Ingalls' plan had succeeded at east $2Oo, GOO, 900 would have bsen taken rom the treasury to meet the new demands which it would have created. And the ex- oenditure of much of this vast amount of money in the way proposed would have been unnecessary and mischievous.