St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1888-03-01
IN HIS WAR PAINT.
Vest, Of Missouri, Talks to the
Senate About the Pension
Business.
He Thinks 1t Is Being Carried
Beyond the Limits Of Hon
est Dealing.
The House Turns Loose on
the Tariff--The New
Bill.
Knute Nelson Still Protesting
That Hn Wants tO Come
Knute Nelson Still Protesting
That He Wants to Come
Home.

anee of manual labor and providing for
pensions to dependent relatives of de-
ceased soldiers and sailors.
Mr.. Wilson,o of Iowa, moved an amend
ment to insert the words ''from the in
iirmitieS OF age" so as to pension all ex-
soldiers suffering ''from the nfirmitieS
of age or from mental or physical dis
ability
In the debate which took place on the
amendment Mr.. Plumb delivered an
eloquent eulogy on the army, referring
partly to the fact when the war closed
the army could have placed one of its
leaders at the head of the government
and could have dictated its own terms,
but had asked nothing except to be per-
mitted to disband and return to peace
full avocations. Mr.. Vest said that he
had not had the slightest idea when he
spoke to Mr.. Wilson's amendment, of
producing the burst of patriotic, fervid
eloquenee which the senators had just
listened to. They had heard good
deal about aims houses and veteran sol
uierS. In the state of Missouri there
were no federal soldiers i'll the aims
houses. and he was proud to say that
there were no Confederate soldiers in
aims houses either When Gen. Lee
surrendered at AppOmattoX there was
but 5000 muskets left of that splendid
army which had
FACED THE WORLD IN ARMS,
and which had been battered and
beaten back by overwhelming numbers.
Out of companies which had gone into
that terrible struggle, from 125 to 1870
strong, only ten had gone back to their
kindred and their homes. The South
to-day was covered with MANNED and
crippled soldiers, who had been shot,
and shelled and saber struck for their
honest convictions, and they asked no
pension. and would not take it, God
be blessed. They were not in aims
houses, and none of them had ever been
seen begging for bread. Whence, then,
came the talk of Federal soldiers in
Rlmshouses? They were not there. He
was tired and sick of the insinuationS
of robbery and pretence and hypocrisy,
in the name of the true and gallant
soldiers of the Union. He had personal
friends among them, and he would give
to every disabled or dependent soldier
of the Federal army, and the widows
and orphans of those who had lost their
lives in the service, the last acre of land
and the last dollar. He would have
done the same for the Confederate
soldiers IF God had blessed our cause"
Why the talk that congress had not
done enough for the Union soldiers,
when the country had paid out since
1865 1888 600. 900 for penSionS-a liber-
ality unparalleled in the history of the
world? The senate had been told to-
day that the country owed the soldiers
A DEBT OF ETERNAL. GRATITUDE
because they had not, with mailed
hand seized the government. A great
military and political organization, the
e. A. r., has thrown its lance into the
debates of congress, and has sent bills
to their accredited senators for the pur-
pose of being enacted. When the presi-
dent of the United States had honestly
and bravely discharged his executive
duty and vetoed an enactment which he
considered improper, he had been
threatened by the officers of that
organization with personsl insult if he
dared to make his presence known in
the city where it held it annual meet
ing. There was limit to human en-
durance. He had voted for pension
bills, coerced by his position, because
he had been a Confederate and because
he was honestly anxious for the honor
and glory of the country. He had voted
for them because he wanted to evil
dence to the world that the men with
whom he had acted In the unfortunate
strife respected the fair and gallant
soldiers of the Union, and were willing
to gave them even more than they de-
mended. But (he repeated with
strong cmphasis) ''there is limit, and
I have reached it. | will be driven
no farther by claim agents and plum
dererS in the garb of soldiers. For the
honest and brave and real soldiers of
the Union | am willing to vote any
amount of pensions. In this city is
corps of men engaged i'll
INVENTING LEGISLATION
to take more money out of the federal
treasury. The report of the commits
siOner of pensions shows that when the
arrears of pensions act of 1870 was
passed there were some $4,000 applica-
lions for pensions pending. The very
next year the number of applications
jumped TO 10, 600. The claims agents
invented that law and put limitation
on il, and the number of applications
jumped in one year from $4,000 to
10000: and the amount of diSburse-
mentS from $30,000,000 to $57, ,000."
Mr.. Vest went on to say that of the
2.300,000 men enrolled as soldiers dur
ing the four years of war, there were
applications from 100000 for pensions,
on account of disability. Such military
execution, he said, had never been
known in the history of the whole
world The ConfederateS had thought
that they had poor powder and ord
nance stores, and yet, making due al
lowance for the effect of climate in pro-
ducing disability, it would appear that
the Confederate soldier, half clothed
and half fed, had disabled three of his
adversaries There had been no such
destruction i'll military annals since the
children of Israel marched through the
wilderness, destroying whole nations
in single day. The craftsmanship of
the Persian prince in the Arabian
Nights, whose arrows crossed noun
their fight, had been nothing to that of
the Confederate soldier. His bullet
must have hit two or more at the same
time, ana struck where it was not
aimed. Fifty per cent of all the list of
the Union armies were
APPLICANTS FOR PENSIONS
on account of disability. Who Che
asked believed that they were honest
applicants? Who believed that these
pension bills had not degenerated into
political abuse which cried aloud in
the faces of all honest men for redress?
He had great regard for many of his
friends on the opposite side of the
chamber, and, in the words which he
had spoken, he had wished to give an
opportunity to some of them who had
barlled back in the contest o,er the bill
to throw his shining lance among ''the
Confederate brigadiers" and try to carry
off the Republican nomination for the
presidency. A recent dispatch from
Paris had caused political candidates to
become as thick las leaves in Vallam-
brosal" Before that dispatch had
come under the yeasty waves of
man who, having gone home some
hours before his usual time in the
morning and having boen asked why he
had gone home so soon, replied that
every other place in town was shut up.
- tl,1, LiinaI,