Mexico weekly ledger., 1886-06-03
The Last Pension Grab.

The Senate's last pension bill, |
passed ON Wednesday. adds another
sSO, 900 to the fixed charges on Amer
can labor. This bin proposes to 80
extend the broad vans of the pension
swindle as to sweep into the fold a
new multitude, and it caps the climax
Of reckless protligaoy by embracing
within it's benefits soldiers who had
been on the muster rolls only three
or six months. The rates OF pay al
lowed these three months warriors,
who left the service before learning
how to shoulder ride. are 81 to S24
per month for the remainder OF their
lives, with reyersions over to their
wives and children. And this whether
their disability occurred before or af-
ter their discharge.
According to accredited estimates
Of eminent statisticians, the average
earnings of the workers of the United
States is about 45 cents per day. 1t
is - matter of seemingly fair compu
tation that the pension per diem OF
one Of those three months fellows
averages about 80 cents per day. SO
that it will require the labor of an
average citizen and ii half through
their lifetime to pay the pension of
each one of those people.
Honest John Logan says that the
man who served three or six months
is as fully entitled TO the full pension
rate as the veteran. John apparently
draws his theory from certain men,
cradle parable, but he sadly missed
Its application. In ethical and spiri-
tual dialectics it is al accepted axiom
that the will or the intention makes
the quality of the act, but this rule
would hardly apply in practical life,
where mans intentions, be they
ever so iaudable, have never yet
been known either to cut cordwood
or plough corntield, or handle ri
tie in battle. The man and a halt
who are to labor through their lives
to support each pensioner for three
months or three years service alike
are under the necessity of crownine
their enterprising intentions with
steady, practical toll for self-suppor1
as well in order to earn the pension
tax, which must always be made anG
paid over whether the corn be blight
ed or the cotton be parched by the
sun and drouth or not.
1t may be fairly estimated that the
fixed charge upon American labor or
account Of the pensions is now abou
SS5, 100000 per annum, after pre-
viously paying s75O,000,O0O. It ma,
be estimated, with equal fairness
that in taking money from severa
average producers to pay the pension
of every single beneficiary, three
| fourths of the votes cast in Congress
for such protligate conversion of tn
earnings of one class of citizens t,
another class were governed who'll
by the duress of a demagogism of
peculiarly mean sort. The money G
several producers in a word is use
to buy the vote of one pensioner, an
perhaps chance at the votes of hi
friends.
No man with due comprehensive
of the subject could utter an objet
tion to paying fair rates Of pensio
to the class of people who were ir
cluded in the pension lists before th
era of annual vendue or auctions f
the soldier vote, which Congress ha
established; but at the same time
is impossible to see how men, VIII
are competent to understand th
plainest principles of morality an
political economy, could vote #
many of the late pension scheme
without discovering that they al
either arrant towards or artful den
agogues.