The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-10-13
TO SOLDIERS AND SAILORS.
The Question OfPensiOns-Call for National
Convention, To Be Held in This City.

The following correspondence, which carries its
own explanation needs no comment to commend
it to careful reading by every man who served
the Union in the late war.
WATERTowN, Me-. Sept. IS, 1884.
Hon. B. F. Jones, Chairman Republican National
Committee, New York city:
Dear Sir Two thousand Grand Army Posts
have petitioned Congress for the enactment of a
law granting service pensions to Union soldiers.
Through that organization, and in other ways
fully $50 900 veterans have asked for the
adoption of that measure. On behalf of these
petitioners, 1 desire to invite the attention of
your committee to this subject
None appreciate more fully or acknowledge
more heartily than do the Union veterans that
the United States government has most literally
treated our comrades who suffer from wounds
or other manifest physical injury, but the fact
remains that very large percentage of low
grade disability pension claims are rejected be-
cause of the impossibility of obtaining the evil
dence required by the stringent rules of the
Pension Office, and this operates very unfairly
to the majority of meritorious claimants whose
claims have been rejected, or which are now
pending
The almost universal penalty paid by the vet
Grams who performed arduous field service,
marched to exhaustion, exposed to extremes OF
heat and cold, subjected to malaria in the
swamps of the South, where they lay at times
for months, was impaired health, broken con-
situations, lowered vitality exhausted energies
and shortened lives. While all this is painfully
apparent to themselves, it may not always be
manifest to medical examination made at the
present day. Such examination cannot deter
mine the physical deterioration of men from
what their condition would now be if they had
not rendered faithful service in the field.
1t is fact that not one man in thousand
came from the war uniniured by his service.
This is the main ground upon which our claims
for service pensions rest
We waive the questions Of claims to the graft
N,la 80 %ta ,f0f, Foil
ure to equalize bounties, the paying of monthly
pay mainly in forty-cent dollars, and ask simple
justice to those who have given to the country
much for which they have notreceived an equiv
alent.
l trust the reasons adduced will warrant your
committee representing the great national par
ty which has stood as our friend in the past in
extending your aid to the Union veterans in their
efforts to secure recognition of their claim to
justice Very respectfully, your obedient ser
want, +. w. HASKELL
REPLY OF THE REPUBLICAN COMMITTEE.
NEW YORK CITY, Sept. q, 1884
Major F. W. Haskell, waterville, Me.
Dear Sir: The Republican national commit
tee have directed us to say in reply to your let
ter of the 18th inst. that the Republican party
favors to-day, in the past full and substantial
justice and liberality to the men, who, by their
sufferings and sacrifice, saved the Union, and we
point with pride to the fact that it was the Re
publican party which sustained you while in the
field, and which has provided literally for the
families of those who fell The national com
mittee is not able to say that the party will favor
the indiscriminate pensioping of all the surviv-
Ors on the same basis, without regard to the
character Of the service rendered time of serv-
ice or its effect upon them. But we do feel
authorized to say that whenever the authorized
representatives of the soldiers shall have ma
tured plan by which pensions may be given to
all who rendered adequate service, now
in need, the past record of the Republican
party is ample assurance that such a measure
will have its unqualified support.
Respectfully, B. F. JONES, Chairman.
SAMUEL FESsENDEN, Secretary.