The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1885-12-11
Pension All Soldiers.

The time is fast arriving, it it has
not already arrived, when it is the
duty OF the government to pension
every soldier who served in the war,
and who survives. The laws rs they
now stand make it very hard for the
most deserving survivors to obtain
pensions. The atfidavits of officers
cannot be readily obtained, even if
the officers are alive, and in many
cases all the officers who knew cir
cumstances of a wound or injury arc
dead, or have remove to some remote
place. In many cases an injury that
was so tritling twenty years ago that u
soldier tent-nlate did not know of it,
has become a burden that is almost
~unbenrablc, and the soldier should
have a pension, but unless he can
prove that doctors prescribe for him,
and that company officers were famil-
lar with the circumstances. the soldier
fails to get a pension. Many officers
are today racking their brains 10 try
and remember some incident IN the
career OF a soldier whose name is al
most forgotten, that they may make
an affidavit without lying, that will
benefit the poor man in his application
AAS 1 XII OillCCI Is CONSCIENTIOUS,
and does not wish to swear to
thing hat he cannot recall to save his
lie, Injustice is liable to be done to Il
brave soldier. and tho soldier is liable
to think his old officer is mean, not to
try and help him. This condition of
things places thousand of officers in
very uncnviable positions. They want
to do tho ar thing by old comrades,
but they do not want to swear to q lie.
by claiming to remember things that
they never heard of until they receiv-
cd letters of inquiry from comrades
that had been almost forgotten. Either
soldiers that are deserving Of pensions
must fail TO receive them, or officers
must become star liars. Now, to do
justice all around, and give late officers
a chance to hold up their heads and
look their old soldiers in the face with
out trying to remember something
that occurred twenty years ago. that
they never heard of, the government
should decide to do justice to all the
men who served it in time of need.
There are bills before that
cover the ground, and they must be-
come laws. The u will work as
best it may, in print and by personal
effort of its editor. for the passage of
such bills, until the law is on the stat
ute book, which permits all old sold
lers to go up to the paymasters and re-
ceiVe their regular salary as long as
they live. The government can stand
it without hardship, and it is due the
soldiers. With such a law u soldier
need not feel hat he is a criminal, at
tempting to introduce his hand into
the treasury in the dark. AS it is now,
the first move a soldier makes for n
pens on, he is spotted. and looked
upon by the government officials as a
confidence Il They try to prove
that he is not as bad Off rs he asserts,
%nclghbors who may not like him can
be found to swear that he is the health
lest nan in town, he is laughed at be-
cause he has just discovered. after
twenty years Of active life. that he
was disabled years ago and didn't
know it, and it he finally. succeeds in
getting a few dollars a month he is
liable to be pointed ut as one who has
come it on the government by false
swearing. With such h feeling as some
s-mes exists about q soldiers drawing
a pension, where he lives, many had
almors rather starvc than to receive
it. II a nan is all knocked TO pieces,
and so crippled that all can see, there
is not much kicking about his receiv-
ing a pension, but if he looks as well
as ordinary citizens, though his liver
may be cut in two, his bowels tied up
in a double bow knot, his lungs half
gone, and nothing about h m whole,
except his gall, there will be a feeling
in the community that his drawing Il
pension is a piece of favoritisnl,
brought about by fraud, and that he is
so much ahead of Uncle sam. Give
the boys all u pension. freely; make
them feel as though they deserved
every cent of it. and not try to euchre
them out of it when they get it, and
every citizen with u soul will feel hap
pier, and the boys will feel more like
training up their children to be ready
to jump into n uniform and grab a gun
in case of an alarm in the future.
From this out The Sun will favor
general pension law that will make
the old soldiers feel as though the
Lord was on their side.-Peck's San.