The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-03-26
UNION SOLDIERS AND OPF1oE.

UNION SOLDIERS AND OFFICE.
The News Of Tuesday has very unkind
and unjust criticism ON the Grand Army of
the Republic, the Union Veteran Association
and kindred army organizations. It inveighs
against these associations because they ask fair
and proper recognition of the military services
of their members in the matter of official patron
age. A few years ago it was very properly
conceded by all parties in the North that
other things being equal the fact that can
didate for Office had been Union soldier was
to be taken to his advantage over candidate
who had not been a soldier This was right
and proper then, and it is right and proper
now. The man who volunteered in the serv-
ice Of his country as soldier had and has
superior claim to recognition at the hands OF
the people, in the bestowal of benefits, to the
man who remained at home. The man who
s16 a month, leaving behind him the
comforts and quiet of home, en-
countering the perils of the march,
the camp and of battle, has certainly
superior claim to favor over the man who
sat by his Preside and read of these things in
the daily papers. Few, if any, men went into
the army to make money. They entered the
service from patriotic motives, and to them
should be accorded all proper benefits the
people have the power to grant as favors. The
News says
"The generation twenty years ago took
their lives in their hands and went to the front
because it was duty, not because of what there
was to be made out Of it. But this demand of
offices in recognition Of wha re- have done,
and because we did it, is a bla for the judg-
ment that patriotism is beginning to have
market price attached to it."
1t is true the men went into the army as
matter of patriotism, ''or duty but the duty
was alike to all, the man who went as to the
man who did not 60 Therefore the man
who went for the welfare of his coun-
try has a superior claim to the man
who did not go. But it is not true that
they claim price for their patriotism. They
only ask the recognition that every man was
willing to grant them at the time Of their en-
listment 1t very i'll becomes the man who
remained at home in the peace and quiet
of his freside, or who, being too young
to go, or who for any other reason did not 60,
to say that the soldier has no superior claim
for official recognition on the country. The
soldier has a superior claim, and it should be
recognized by all men and by all parties.
These army associations are not partisan as
sociations, but if they were, why might they
not be SO in the North as they are in the
South? No man in the South, or of the
South, can get an Office unless he was a con-
federate soldier. The Southern man who was
not only secessionist, but confederate soldier
as well, could not since the war; have re-
ceived the vote of the lords of the South.
Service in the confederate army has been
prerequisite for all candidates. The truth is,
the soldiers of the Union have been self
denying in their demand for Office There
has not been an election in the North since
the war closed at which federal soldiers have
not voted for men who were not in the army.
/ How times have changed since the close of
the war! Mr. Lamar, the present Secretary of
the interior, who has the final decision Of all
questions relating to the granting of pensions
to Union soldiers was not only confederate
soldier, but he resigned his place in the Con-
gress Of the United States to become confed-
crate officer; and he has, within the past few
weeks, been not only the apologist for Jeffer-
son Davis but his eulogist and champion.
More than fifty confederate brigadier- generals
were members Of the last House of Repre-
sentatives, and every member of the United
States Senate from the States lately in re-
bellion was either in the rebel army or in the
rebel Congress. These are the men who,
with the doughfaces of the North, make the
laws for the loyal soldiers of the Nation, and
who pass upon their pensions and the bills in
which they have an interest. 1t i'll be-
comes any man in the North, or Of the North,
to complain that Union soldiers hold their
camp-fres, have their army organizations and
their reunions. 1t is the most natural thing
in the world that they should have them. Has
the time already come when the Union soldier
must apologize for the part he took in the
warf
IT is now discovered that at one time Mr..
Edward j. Phelps, appointed minister to Eng