Saint Mary's beacon., 1888-03-22


ham he Is g,ing no further. H is
going 10 resist the claims OF these or.
gan;zed robbers and plundereEs who
have banded together for the purpose
Of depicting the Treasury, AMI they
shall have 10 single farthing more. |
will tell that Senator aud every other
Democratic Senator, whether ,hey like
it or not, what We intend to do, I
Will tell the Senator from Missouri
and the Test Of his associates Just
where it Is to stop. 1t is going to
stop when the arrears Of pen ions are
paid, when the Limitation is removed
and every soldier upon the rolls. or who
hereafter gets Oh the rolls, is paid for
his disability, or his survivors FROM the
day OF his death, and when every sur
yiving soldier Of the Union armies is
put on the rolls for service only.
That is when it is going to stop; and
if you do not like it, make the most
of it.
When is it going to end? And on
every occasion last week as this week
! the old stale calumnies about the ar
rears-of-pension act are repeated.
Mr.. President, | was chairman of the
Committee on Pensions when that bill
was reported and passed. 1t was an
act of great national justice. | con-
sented to the insertion of the eompro
mise date If July l, 1880, because /
could not get the principle established
in any other way, and | gave notice
then and made pledge, which | have
redeemed at every session of Congress
since, that | would never desist from
my efforts to remove that limitation
and to pay every soldier placed upon
that roll from the date of disability
or discharge, so that this stigma should
be wiped out and the honor Of the
nation redeemed. And yet the Sena-
tor from Kentucky farthest from me
Mr.. Beck !, in his speech upon the in
tirm!ties of the tariff on a pension bill,
said that we were told when that bill
passed in 1879 that it would take
about eighteen or twenty millions, not
over thirty at the outside, 20 make it
operative, and that hundreds of mil
lions had since been spent. Mr..
President, that statement has been
refuted so often that it does not de-
serve another word in reply. No such
statement was made no such state
ment could have been made.
The only statement was that 10 apply
that principle to those who were already
on the roll would not require at the out
side over $30,O00,00O and might not cost
over more than $lS,O0O,000. How could
anyone say what would be the expense
that would be due under the act thereafter !:
1t would depend entirely upon the num-
Der Of applications under it. And yet, with
4 disingcnuouSncss that has no parallel,
upon every occasion that offers the Sena-
tors who oppose this bill affirm that the ma
ton was duped into the adoption of that
measure by false statements as TO the
amount il would cost.
Are we at last, says the Senator from
| Missouri, To have a service-pensi6n bill
Nothing, he said, will content the soldiers
and their allies but scrvicc-pension bill
and are we 10 have that? Yes, Mr.. Pres
ident, we are TO have that? There is not
to-day surviving soldier in any of the an
tecedent wars OF the Republic who is not
on the roll fol service -pension-nut one.
voted for the Mexican service pension
bill, not because believed it vas wholly
| iuStifable, but for the purpose of removing
the last obstacle in the pathway of giving
Il service pension to every surviving sol
der of the Union armies
/ The Mexican war was waGed in the in
| terest Of the Democratic party, for the ex-
/ tension Of the area Of human slavery. 4
very large proportion of those who fought
were from the Southern States, and a very
! large part Of those who had been benefited
! by il, believed then and l know now, had
served in the Confederate army. Who do
you suppose was the first man who recciv-
Cd pension under the Mexican pension
J bill ? Who was the first beneficiary oi this
/ seTviCe-pension bill Was il some dis
/ ahled, multilatcd, INDECENT veteran, who, as
/ the Senator from Alabama has assured us,
/ fought under the American flag in that
\ great war, and acquired that enormous area
of which the State Of Kansas was once 4
part:
/ 1t seems to me that can imagine that
venerable, decrepid, and aged survivor OF
the Mexican war marching up TO General
/ John c, Black, the physical wreck who is
getting Sl00 month rs a totally disabled
Union soldier, 20 ask him that the bene-
iicicnce Of IS o month might bc dolod ont
I to him for the service he rendered in the
Mexican war. Who stands primuS inter
pGrtS on that roll of honor, shining and
I !llUStriouS, IS an illustration of a nations
gratitude: John :. Williams, ex-senator
I from Kentucky, Z man who would resent
/ Is personal imputatiOn any avermuEt of
any description whatever that he WAS not
an absolutely sound, hale, strong. anu COM
/ pctent man. We rcCollect the brown tres
sCs that waved over the brow of that vctc-
( ran, the appearance OF youth and ViEor. Of
! almost bOyish juvenility that was wont to
! accompany him. man who was an aspi-
/ ran: for an appointment on the Interstate
Commission, who wanted TO be reelected
to this body; man who is generally sus-
pccted of being in the enjoyment If an
ample fortune; an applicant for the position
Ot minister 10 Mexico; man who rendered,
IS | am told, distinguished service as a
Kentucky Confederate in the armies that
Were marshaled against the American
Union.
And yet, Mr.. President, because we ask
that - the ten or twelve thousand disabled
soldiers and INDECENT veterans Of the Union
Army who are now the objects Of charity
some relief shall be granted, we are told
that il i an injurious extension Of the
nations lborality. when aS a matter ofiact
every one knows that the beReiactiOas and
donations Of the Mexican service bill were
indefinitely wider and more expansive
than anything that has been proposed by
the hill that Is now pending before Us as
proposed even % X amended by the Seua-
tor from Iowa