The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1884-10-30
BUNGLING OF THE SPECIAL EXAMINER
SYSTEM.


SYSTEM.
The inclosed letter, which is meaty with
meaning in every line, was received last week ::
SIR: In response to your letter of recent date
relative to pension claim No. 900 S9i of George w.
Humphreys, you are advised that the claim IL now
in the hands of Supervising Examiner j. H. carr
at Louisville. KY, for special examination under
the present system.
Supervising Examiners have general instruc-
tions TO complete. at the earliest practicable date,
ali work referred to them prior to July L, 1883
This will include the case mentioned.
There will be no unnecessary delay attending
the examination of this claim Timely notice VIII
be given by the Examiner when he reaches this
claim in its turn.
In studying this matter let the reader keep
in mind that the best that the Pension
Office can offer the anxious applicant is that
the Special Examiners have been instructed to
finish up the work they had in hand on the
does not offer any hope that they will be any
more expeditions in the future than they have
been in the past,-he does not even say that
they have been admonished that life is BRIEF
that there are but few more years for any OF
the veterans of the war, and if anything is to
be done for them it must be done quickly. He
simply says that they will finish up the work
they have already had in hand over year
and a half" at the earliest practicable date"
What chill comfort this must he to the poor
man who has now been for months and years
PROSTATE under the blighting touch of disease {:
who, unable to work. has had to fight poverty
and want, as well as physical pain, and who
for long days that gathered themselves into
weary weeks. aud the weeks into months, and
the months into years, has watched every mail
for the news that the Government has at last
remembered the services done it in its hour of
need, and fulfilled its honorable duty toward
the man who rendered that service.
Think of the poor man whose bodily vigor
succumbed to the awful strains upon it in the
swamps around Vicksburg, in the mud and
seet and snow of the siege of Petersburg or
is daily battle with consumption, rheuma-
tism, heart disease or liver complaint, in
which the dread Destroyer is hourly pushing
his mines and trenches little closer the eta
del of life-think of this man who may not
live week, and who can hardly hope to live
year, being informed that his application for
aminer, who at this time is at least 4 year and
half behind with his work, and how much
more no one can possibly know!
Nor will there be any assurance of relief
when, in the dim future, the Special Examiner
reaches the case and passes upon it. 1t will
only be an accident if his report makes any
Another Examiner may take up the matter
after anOtt er weary lapse of time, in which the
applicant has grown much older and feebler,
and run scores of chances of dying, and go over
the same ground with the same disbeartening
lack of results. Instances are common in which
three, and even more Special Examiners
have gone over precisely the same ground,
summoning the same witnesses-or so many as
survive-asking the same questions, and leav-
ing the matter in the same stupid state of mud
died inconclusiveness.
As organized and directed by Commissioner
Dudley, the Special Examiner system has been
mainly effective in aggravating the cruelties OF
the Pension Office methods of circumlocution.
The Special Examiner has been another be-
widering convolution in the interminabe
labyrinth of red-tape. He is another set Of cogs
and wheels in the multiplication of cogs and
wheels that buzz On forever to apparently no
purpose.
Rightly directed in certain classes of cases
the Special Examiner can be of immense
service to the speedy settlement Of claims
Going into neighborhood he can summon
claimants and their witnesses before him
sift and determine evidence, be in posses
sion of all the facts in the case in very short
time, enable those deserving pension to have
at once the relief they are entitled to, and dis
miss from consideration those who have nc
| Just claims to relief.
This is what will be done under the new
Commissioner of Pensions. That it has not
been done-that it has not even approached
being done-that the cumbersomeness and
clumsy inefiiciency of the system grew worse
each years. the strongest demonstration OF
| Col. Dudley's incompetency.