The National tribune., 1888-11-08


should be the strongest bonds of interest.
Let us do all we can to help our sons, and
the sons of our comrades. It will be effort
well-bestowed, if for no other than purely
selfish reasons, for we shall soon need-we
need even now-au the help that the Sons
of Veterans can give MS.
B0NDHOLDER VERSUS VETERAN.
The following figures have been compiled
from the finance reports and from the
monthly public-debt statements issued by
the Secretary of the Treasury, and are Off
ciaIly correct, except the two items that are
estimated. The Secretary has not published
figures for these since the fiscal year of 1887.
Since the close of the war, June 80, 1865,
the United States Treasurer has paid to
holders of Government Understanding
bonds bonds, 7-30 interest notes, etc. on
account of dividends of interest as they be-
came due, and for purchase and redemption
Of bonds, amounts as follows, viz:
For principal from June 80, 1865, to
Aug 81, 437 O65, 9S9 70
For premiums from June 30 1865, to
June 30 1887 6l,5I6,S3o 81
For interest from June so, 1865, to
June 3d. l6sz....,...... 2l53O9O96i 81
Total.................... So, O8S, 79l Is
To this should be added the amount
of interest paid since the COM
mencemeat of the last fiscal year,
which of the amount paid, bears
the same relation to the total in
terest charge for the period, az
was held in previous years, cam
not be less than (estimated) ....... 100000 90
Also amount Of premiums paid
the bonds of ~ per cent funded
loan of 1891 and of per cent.
consols of 1907, purchased since
June so, l8S7,-estimated upon the
average rate per cent paid, which
for AZ per cent. bonds ranged
from 10 to 1917, and on the 4 per
cent, consols of 1907 from lbs to
I23, cannot be less than ............. 100000 90
Grand total of................ 50, 652 O33,79I %
Think of the immensely of this amount
three thousand sac hundred and .ffgy-ttCo mil
hons
During the same years there has been paid
out for pensions $946, 387860, or but little
over one-fourth as much as has been paid
the bondholders.
The contributions to the National defense
by these two classes of creditors-the money
lenders and the veterans-bear no sort of
comparison. The soldiers who went to the
field to save the country gave up in the
wages and business opportunities they sac
rifced an inconceivably greater sum than
the money lenders lent the country. This
is without taking into account the wrecking
of their health and the destruction of their
wage-earning ability by the incidents of
war
Every one of the 2,839,132 men who en-
listed in the army made a pecuniary sacri-
fee Of some kind to enter the service. An
ordinary farmer who enlisted in 1861 and
served till the close of the war would have
| been several times richer if he had staid at
home and worked his land. An ordinary
mechanic was getting at his trade three or
four times as much as the Government paid
him at the outset, and as the war progressed
the wages of mechanic became six or seven
times the pay of a private soldier. The diff
ference between what the men would have
| got at home and what the Government paid
them was an absolute gift-not loan as in
the case of the money lenders-and the Gov
eminent makes no pretense of paying it
back.
| five estimate the average donation by
each man in the army at so low figure as
| 81 ,000 the amount swells as far above the
aggregate loans of the money lenders as a
mountain swells above plain. Reduced to
a three years standard there were 1880, 272
men in the army. Multiplying this by
81, 600 we have the immense sum of s., $780,
272, 600, or more than two-and-a-half times
as much as the Government has so far paid
out for pensions.
1t must be remembered, too, that pensions
are not gift, as the donations of the soldiers
to the Government were. They are not the
repayment four and fvefold of money lent
as is the case of the bondholders Pension.
are merely the grudging and stinted fulfill
ment of the contract the Government enter
ed into to make good, as far as money could
the physical disabilities incurred by thost
who risked life and limb in lis service.
The Government has hardly paid the grea
army of veterans one-quarter as much as i
has the little army of money lenders, Will
its Indebtedness to the veterans is sever
times and seventy times seven times what i
owed to the money lenders.
IT Is said that the plan of tattooin
criminals as a means of Identification i
being tried in the Illinois penitentiary a
Joliet, and that other penitentiaries will b
solicited to do likewise, each one using