The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1886-07-09
The Pension Frauds,


The Pension Frauds.
The Senate Committee ON Pensions is
welcome to all the political capital it can
make for the Republican party by its crti-
cisms of President Cleveand's vetoes of pen
sion bills. The Committee will find that the
President has not only strengthened his hold
on the confidence of the people of the coun-
try, by his efforts to prevent the robbery of
the treasury, but he has provided an issue on
which the Democratic party need not hest
tate to go before the country at the next
election.
No one will dispute the justice of granting
pensions to those who were wounded or to
the widows of soldiers and sailors who died
in the service of their country, but it is alb
surd to suppose that it has taken twenty-five
years for persons TO find out that they had a
claim upon the government for pension
The number of pensions already granted
has been enormous. 1t is estimated that
alone sum equal to 81, 900 for every man
enlisted in the army from the beginning of
the war to its close.
The fear of losing the soldier vote caused
great looseness in scrutinizing pension claims
by Congress, and the facility with which
pensions could be obtained as a matter of
course led to the most glazing frauds. Only
one pension bill was vetoed previous to the
Inauguration of President Cleveland, and the
country is glad to see that he has the moral
courage to fight this enormous abuse and
wholesale plumber of the treasury.
The Senate Committee complains that
President Cleveland assumes the right to re-
view its action and set it aside. If their IA
vorable reports were always based upon JUS
tice they might have reason to complain, but
review of some of the cases in which the
President interposed vetoes will satisfy any
impartial person that President Cleveland is
right and the Committee wrong. In some
cases pensions have been voted to those al
ready receiving them to men across whose
record the ignominious word "deserter" had
been written; to others whose alleged disa-
WClc ICCclftu dlteT buc wal ClOSeu
to others who did not know they had been
injured until long years after the war was
over.
For instance, there was the case of a man
who lost his right leg in battle in 1862 and
died in 1883 from an overdose of morphia
taken while under the influence of liquor.
Another, while in camp in the suburbs of
Cincinnati, before he had ever been to the
front, was killed in brawl while off duty
Another, who was dishonorably discharged
with loss of pay and allowances, wanted
pension on account of deafness caused by
being wounded in the head Outside of the
record of his dishonorabe discharge it was
shown that he was deaf before he entered the
army.
more shameless case, perhaps, was that
of fellow who entered the army as a substi-
tute, for high bounty, March 95th, 1865 !;
was sent to hospital with the measles on
the Sd of April following; was returned to
duty May Sth, and mustered out May 11th
In vetoing this claim President Cleveland
says:
"Fifteen years after this brilliant service
and this terrific encounter with the measles,
the claimant discovered that his attack of
the measles had some relation to his army
enrolment and that this disease had settled
in his eyes, also affecting his spinal column"
One man, in 1879, fourteen years after his
discharge, filed his claim for pension,
alleging that in May, 1864, he received a gun
shot wound in the right leg while in Skin
mish. The month of May, 1864, is included in
the time during which, by the record, he APP
pears to have been absent sick and undergo
ing treatment for fever and rheumatism
VIM. Boone, who was paroled and injured
at Fourth of July celebration, by the burst
ing of a cannon, wanted a pension, but
President Cleveland thought this case of
charity but not of pension.
Another soldier, who was mustered into
service in October, 1861, and deserted in No
vember of the same year, was drowned in a
canal some time afterwards. His widow
wanted pension.