The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1886-02-27
THE PENSION ROLL.
The Costly Memento of the Great Democrat
ic Rebellion of 1861.

The Costly Memento of the Great Democrat
ic Rebellion of 1861.
"Gatn's'' Washington Letter.
The American Pension Office since it has been
housed in the new building is one of the monu-
ments of war unexampled in modern times
Here are LOO clerks attending to nothing but
the pension rolls of this government which the
absurd Rebellion created. At the close Of last
year there were nearly $4,000 pensioners upon
this government on account of that war. Of
these, over 240,0 900 were invalids. asked Gen.
Bartlett at what time in the future he thought
the last pensioner of this war would expire.
"Ah!" said he, I'VE do not even know how
many more pensions we shall have to grant
The applications some weeks equal to the
number of certificates issued from the office" !"
AS he spoke glanced at the last report and
saw that there still remained, as pensioners OF
the war of 1872 twenty thousand Survivors and
widows. AS the war of 1872 was rather the con-
test of infants, we may reflect that seventy
eight years in the future, which is the interval
between 1912 and the present, will carry this
pension roll to the year 1864, and the proper
ton of widows and survivors, based
upon those who survived from 1872, will
probably leave very respectable army, perhaps
OF forty thousand OF more. Such are the conse'
quences Of civil war. The cost of the war was
to discharge some of this debt; but here are
these pension rolls, which are as sacred as the
restoration of the Union itself, and when Abra-
ham Lincoln delivered his second inaugural ad-
dress, only six or seven weeks before he died, ne
named it as the chief duty of people to take
care of the manned soldier and his widow and
orphans. The increase of the pension roll is in
evitable from the increasing poverty of the fam
lilies of veterans. Last year they took over flf-
teen thousand names off the rolls, and yet the
nat tpnpa vvao v.tw
showing disparity on our debit side of some
thirty-nine thousand. The aggregate sum we
have to pay for these pensions is nearly $40 O00,-
000 And when we think that set of disap-
pointed politicians brought this upon the coun-
try rather than submit to a conference or a COM
promise we wonder at their blandness. The
best thing about the whole business is
that nothing whatever is kept from
the public sight The reports are made openly, and
we face the war after it is over with the idea
of avoiding another one like it. We have paid
in pensions since 1861 nearly $3.50, 600, 900. This
sum would erect free library in nearly every
town in the country. At the same time there is
no building in Washington which one enters
with more reverence than this mighty sarcopha-
gus and pyramid of soldier and sailor mortality.
1t is the shrine of sacrifices, as we'll as OF the
claims of citizens who took this risk and did this
suffering to keep the fabric together which had
been formed in a period following war of even
greater length. We were rich enough in the Re-
bellion to clothe and equip our men thoroughly.
In the Revolution we could hardly give them
shoes, and the money we paid them in was repu-
dated Consequently, considerable of the evil
morals of the United States was sown after the
American Revolution in the families of ruined
officers and soldiers, many of whom had to keep
roadside taverns, and others became gamblers
and desperadoes. 1t is true thas the Southern.
States pay the penalty of rebellion in no pension
list Yet as the North is the richer, the main
expenses Of this great pension roll lie upon it.