The National tribune., 1885-05-07
ENDORSE THE AMENDMENTS TO THE
MEXICAN PENSION BILL.

MEXICAN PENSION BILL.
The main work for the coming National
Eneampment at Portland is being mapped
out and considered.
There is nothing likely to come before that
Grand Council of veterans of so much i'm
portance IS an emphatic Endorsement of the
principles embodied in the Amendments to
the Mexican Pension Bill. 1t is hardly
necessary to repeat the arguments in favor
of these Amendments. They represent
much the greatest good to the greatest num-
Der of deserving soldiers and their depend
ent ones that is likely to be secured. They
are the cream-the final winnowings-of
thousand pension schemes which have been
urged upon Congress from all parts of the
country.
After every anxious friend Of the soldier
had presented his framework Of a pension
law, after every organization of old soldiers
had submitted its views; after the National
Pension Committee Of the GAR. had made
its recommendations, after every Senator and
Representative who was interested i'll the
subject had presented the bill which he had
thought out, the whole mass was ground
through the mill of long and earnest dis
cussions in the committee rooms and on the
floor of both Houses, and the Amendments
to the Mexican Pension Bill were the final
result. This measure passed the Senate and
went to the House, where its passage was
only prevented by continual fiibustering.
1t is clear to all those who have thought
at all carefully on this subject that the SOL
disrs of the country cannot afford to lose all
or any part Of the work which has been
done upon this legislation. They cannot
afford TO initiate any new measures, or begin
discussion of other means of obtaining the
end in view. If there were no other consid-
Grafton, that of time is all controlling. 1t is
an awful hardship to the soldiers of the
country that they have been compelled to
wait until the next Congress for the relief
that should have been given them by the
last one. 1t viii be terrible to make them
wait years longer uatil new measures can
be originated and pass through the long
fermentation and digestion which must en-
sue before they can be brought to the same
condition Of forwardness that the Amend
ments now are. Tens of thousands of our
comrades will have passed through the poor
house to the grave before that time
There is only one thing to do, and that is
TO redouble efforts to secure the enactment
Of the Amendments in their present form,
and the National Encampment should take
such action as will unite the whole body of
soldiers in the country in the most energetic
action possible to secure that end. Soldiers
and friends of soldiers everywhere are now
almost unit in indorsing the Amendments,
bat much more than this is necessary. In
stead Of a passive acquiescence in the right
fulness of the principles OF the Amendments,
there should be the most earnest and active
insistence upon these being incorporated
into the laws of the land. Pablic men and
newspapers should find that soldiers in
every City, Town, Village. and Township in
the Natl 5n-without distinction of party,
religion, or race-are one in their determine
ton that these Amendments shall be passed,
and that they will not be satisfied until
they are passed.
They are very near that stage now. Over
half million Of them signed their names to
petitions to the House of Representatives to
pass the amendments, and there was vastly
greater unanimity in the request than had
ever been manifested before in favor of any
measure. The National Encampment can
make this unanimity complete and arouse
lis enthusiastic activity from Maine to Cali
fornia, and it should do co. By so doing it
can secure the passage Of legislation very
early in the coming session of Congress, and
at once bring relief to tens of thousands of
homes of restitution and suffering that can
be got in no other way, and, as we have said,
this grand object should be made the chief
care and concern Of the Encampment