The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1886-06-05
Mad Pension Proposals.
From the Baltimore Sun.

From the Baltimore Sun.
The reckless and extravagant legislation
the Senate has for several years been origina-
ting has robbed that body of the character for
wise conservatism and regard for constitu-
tional restrictions it was intended by the
founders of the goveynment to sustain. 1t is
to the House that the country at present looks
for moderation and economy, and happily not
always in vain. The latter body has, during
the present session, had to smother IN the
secrecy of committee rooms number OF
Senate bills that ought never to have received
the votes of responsible legislators, but the
industry of several demagogues of the upper
house in pushing enormous pension jobs prom
ises to make further trials Of the virtue of the
lower house necessary. Something has been
said of the 242 private pension claims that
were rushed through the Senate some weeks
ago at single sitting, imposing permanent
expense upon the taxpayer of $50, 900 year,
but except in the point of reckless disregard
of public right and senatorial duty, that feat
bears no comparison with those now being
attempted with some prospect OF success.
The committee on military affairs, for exam
pie, has reported iavOrably Il bill to egualize
bounties, which, if passed, would take Sl6l,-
543, 1874 from the treasury. IL is the same
bill that was passed by the Forty-third Con-
gress and was vetoed by President Grant.
Another bill which has been favorably re-
ported from the pension committee proposes
to extend the period within which applications
for arrears of pensions may be filed, at an ul-
innate cost to the treasury variously estimated
at from $500, 900, 900 to 81 200, 900, 900. A
third bill, which has been reported favorably
as an amendment to House bill, provides a
''service- pension for soldiers who came out
of the civil war unhurt by wounds or disease,
if at any time since they have become dis
abled from any cause whatever. In other
words, paid-up accident insurance policy is
to be given to every man who was on the army
rolls six months and was honerably discharged.
This last bill introduces the principle in our
legislation of giving pensions to men who
came out of the service as sound as when they
went in, a principle that can be easilysex-
banded to include every ex soldier. Senator
Blair estimates the burden this bill IN its pres
ent form would put upon the taxpayer at
S25, 100000 annually, but Senator Vest was
able to show that such an estimate was pure
conjecture. He reminded the New Hampshire
visionary that when the first arrears .ofpen-
sions act was being discussed in the Senate
its friends asserted that S40,000,000 was the
outside figure for its entire cost, while the re-
port of the commissioner of pensions shows
that the amount already expended under that
act is $3.50, s7S, 1872, and that on the claims
already filed 1922, 900, 900 more may have to
be paid. Such errors, it is held, show the
nebulosity of the moderate estimates made
BY Senators Logan, Blair and other advocates
of these wild pension schemes. At present
there are 345, 125 pensioners, receiving annu-
ally S65, 693, FOG, and since 1861 over $780,
600, 900 has been voted in pensions to Union
soldiers. How any sane statesman. in the
present condition of the country, can propose
within twenty-one years after the close of the
war to vote the proposed service pensions, in
addition to the other proposed pension raids,
it is difficult to conceive. 1t was htty.s
years after the close of the Revolution before
a service pension was granted to the veterans
of that war, and forty-seven years after the
war of 1912 before the veterans of the war OF
that date received service pensions. The
soldiers of the Mexican war, who won an
empire for the country, have not yet received
the service pension; so that, if precedent is to
count for anything, the effort to pension ex-
soldiers of the civil war at this early date is,
to say the least, premature.