Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-08-25
THE PENSION THIEyEs.
Something That the @. A. r. Might Pro.tabI,
Investigate.

Something That the @. A. r.. Might Pro,itabIy
Investigate.
From the New York sun.
In tho discovery of hundreds of fraudulent
pensions on the rolls of the Chicago Office by
Commissioner Black, the point to note is
that under Commissioner Dudley tho possi-
bility that any considerable number OF frauds
existed was pooh-poohed. In an annual
report the latter argued that there were not
as many pensions as there ought to be by
about 10000. When Congress sought TO
throw light on frauds by the publication Of
pension list, though very little real publicity
was given to it, Mr.. Dudley remarked that
thousands of letters are sure to come in, de-
nouncing persons on our list as frauds, but
these charges in most instances will be dicta-
ted by. ignorance, misapprchension, or
malice"
1t is just to say that Com missioner Dudley's
predecessor, whose opinions and acts cost
him his place, took a different Wow of the
possibilities and actual prevalence of frauds.
alt is my opinion" once said Mr.. Bentley,
/" that not less than ten per cent. of the pen
sion appropriations are paid out upon fraud
nlent and illegal claims" When we reflect
that hundreds of millions have thus been
paid out, it will be seen how prodigious the
frauds must have been. On another occasion
when the annual appropriation was about
$50, 100000, Mr.. Bentley held that ' the
amount Ddiu annually III
cases and in excessive pensions is not less
than S3,0O0,000" 1t should be noted that
| 1t does not require the utter fabrica-
ton of a caso from false personation
| can be perpetrated in the case of the
soldier by falsely pretending that the
ailment from which he suffers was
| acquired in the service, or, again, by pre-
tending that the case is one calling for a
| larger amount of pension than it is entitled
| to. There is reason to suppose that millions
| upon millions of dollars have been paid out
| wrongfully in these two classes of claims.
The vast majority of all the pensions now
subsisting were granted on secret, ex parte
evidence. The government officers have had
no personal knowledge of the claimants or
| any OF their witnesses. The physician whose
certificate was accepted as final has usually
| been the family physician, who got a fee for
| it. Old comrades and good friends stood
| ready to say kind word or to have their
| memory refreshed as witnesses for the claim
| ant The frauds, which have drawn pro.
| digious sums from the treasury, have not
consisted merely in false personations, but
| in the sharp proctice OF people who really
saw service.
Revision of these cases is impossible; the
wrong accomplished was due TO bad system
| OF pensioning-to imperfect laws, unprinci-
| pied lawmakers, and corrupt or incompetent
| administrators of the laws. But among
crimes which may be ferreted out, in some
cases, are false aflidavits, the forgeries of the
names of witnesses or afiiants, the alteration
OF marriage records, perjury, the procuring
OF persons to represent widows OF soldiers
never married, and so on. As fact, the
frauds hitherto unearthed by Commissioner
Black nearly all belong to even a simpler
class OF cases, and the very simplest conceiv-
able, the continued payment of pensions after
they have legally expired.
The great bulk of the pension swindles
never will be made known. But at least the
future may be made secure, and little of
the past rectified, by clean sweep of all
officials through whose collusion or careless
ness enormous plunderings have been going
on for twenty years. After the discoveries
already made, 1t ought not to take long to
draw the deduction that the first duty is to
turn out of their places those whose interest
1t would be TO cover up strongly suspected
and probable corruption or incompetency of
the same sort within their spheres.