Morning journal and courier., 1888-03-07
Fiftieth Congress--First Session
WASHINGTON, March {

maoe py nlua some Time ago from inc CON-
mittee on rules to amend the rules. The rul
as to executive sessions was modified w1thou
discussion so to read: "When treaty
shall be laid before the Senate for ratification
1t shall be read first time and no motion IL
respect to it shall be in order exceptsto refel
1t to committee to print it in confidence fol
the use of the Senate, to remove the injunc
| ton of secrecy or to consider it in open exec
| utive session"
| The Senate then at pm. resumed consld
| Grafton as the unfinished business of the bill
granting pensions to ex-soldiers and sailors
who are incapaeitated from the performance
of manual labor and providing for pensions
to dependent relatives of deceased soldiers
and sailors, the question being on the amend
ment offered by Mr.. Wilson of Iowa to insert
the words from infrmities of age" Mr..
Berry argued against the amendment on the
ground that the effect of it was really to make
the bill service pension bill. There were
now SUI, 900 pensioners on the rolls, costing
the government $50, 900, 600 year. The adj
mission of 700, 900 more under this bill would
increase the pension appropriation to over
$500, SOC, 600. 1t practically opened the door
| to every man who had served in the army.
Mr.. Henderson said he did not propose to
| vote for the amendment and yet he eeincided
IN the principle of it. To reach that result Z,
| however, it was not necessary to change the
verbiage of the bill. It was immaterial
whether the 'incapacity'' for the perform
| ance of manual labor came from wounds
from injuries or FROM age The amendment,
| therefore, seemed to him entirely unneces-
| sary.
M@Wilson, Of Iowa, said there was dis
t1netlon between incapacity resulting from
/ inhrnities of age and that resulting from
physical disability. He had consulted mem
bers of the medical profession on that point
and from all of them had learned there was
/ distinction. lie hoped, therefore, that his
amendment would be adopted. 1t would not
| enlarge the scope of the bill, but would en-
| sure pensions for those classes.
Mr.. ingalls, (the presiding officer having
| called Mr.. Platt to the chair proceeded to ad-
| dress the Senate, the galleries being crowded
4 to their full capacity. He said that consid-
erations of decorum and propriety (perhaps
excessive and over strained) had deferred
him from participation in the debates of the
Senate. He had therefore been surprised
one day last week on returning to the cham
Der after brief absence to learn that the
Senator from Missouri (Mr. VesD had re-
ferred to him in terms not complimentary in
debate in which he had taken no part, in
tlmating that the people OF the District of
Columbia were incapable of disinterested
patriotism and that the veterans of the re-
public were mob of sordid plunderers. As
to himself he would say that the nomination
and election of Grover Cleveland had
made the nomination of any American
citizen to the presidency respectable. There
was no man so ignorant or mean that he
might not aspire to a nomination to the
presidency-by the Democratic party
daughter and applause.) He regretted that
the.Senator from Missouri was not in his seat
to-day. The Senator from Kentucky (Mr.
Blackburn) had also referred sneeringly to
the super-loyalty of the soldiers of the
Union. He did not challenge the honor or
courage of these senators in their devotion to
the South and to the southern Confederacy,
hoy o01711 mob he NJ IF
They had gone into the Confederacy because
they wanted to go; because they believed
that slavery was better than freedom and
secession better than union. 1t was curious
that Confederates from Union States
were a little more pronounced and
little more aggressive and little more VIC
lent in their denunciations OF the North than
Confederates from States that had seeded.
He did not know where the Senator from
Missouri had got the figures in which he had
stated that but sight thousand of Lees army
had surrendered at Appomattox. If that
Senator had plucked few of the plumes
from the dazzling tail of his imagination and
had stuck them into the wingsof his judg-
ment he would have hewn a more accurate
flight. Instead of 5000 men with muskets
who were in the final crash and collision of
the there had been 1871 men.
The Senator's mathematics were certainly
very giddy. But one parallel was
inaecuracy of that statement and that was
the same Senator's statement that of the
1890, 900 soldiers of the Union army more
than one-half had applied for pensions. Such
speeches as those of the Senators from Mis-
souri, and Kentucky were intended to catch
the Confederate vote and they would catch
If. They were "center Shots striking the
bulls eye every time and ringing. the bell. F."
He wanted the Senators on the Democratic
side of the chamber to understand that their
disguise for opposing pension bills was SO ex-
ceedingly thin that nobody was deceived by
it. It was not question of cost The
South did not love the Union army. Neither
did the Democratic party.
Mr. Morgan reminded Mr.. Ingalls, that the
Democratic party had nominated and sus-
tanned federal officer, General Hancock, for
the presidency.
Yes, said Mr. ingalls,, it did support Gen
eral Hancock and it also supported Horace
Greeley, attempting to fool the North. 1t
also nominated and supported that other ally
of coHfederacy, George B. Mcclellan. Such
pretensions are altogether too diaphanous.
They require to have the drapery removed
for inspection. In 1886 there was in Atlanta
a great historical occasion when a statue to
the memory of an honored Senator was to be
unveiled, man whom he (Ingalls) honored
and respected, and on that occasion the ex-
president of the Confederacy was invited to
be present. Men hocked to that city as
the city was decorated with Confederate en-
blems to make Confederate holiday. Mr..
Ingalls, quoted from Mr.. Grady's speech at the
unwilling of the statue, in which Jefferson
Davis was spoken of as one whose gray hairs
were crowded with deathless love" and as one
who though an outcast from the privileges of
this kreat government is the unerowned
king of our people. He did not propose to
rehearse the reply of Mr.. Davis except to
quote one sentence in which he referred to
Senator Hall as having mashed the injuri-
GUS Yankee" (meaning, he supposed, their
friend now in Florence). He spoke of the
orator, Mr.. Grady, having gone to New York
and New England soon afterwards and made
speeches there pouring out his "treaole, cold
cream and honey and maple syrup all over
the North" When he asked was that orator
sincere2 When did he speak the sentiments,
the feelings and the conscience of the south
ern people? Was it when he delivered that
Grafton in Atlanta on May /, 1886, or was it
when he spilled oil and wine over the Amer
lean people in the North? Coming back to
the opposition as southern senators to
pension bills he did not blame them.
He often wondered how he would have acted
if the relations had been reversed and if the
federal government had been overtbrown.
He did not believe he would have felt com
forted in voting pensions to Confederate sol
diers. He believed he should have been
conspirator against the confederacy to the
end. But he should have regarded as the
climax of effrontery. as the apex and summit
of hardihood and sudacity Che would not say
of pusillanimity and dishonor) if, after he
had accepted pardon and had his disabili-
ties removed and had taken the oath of allegi-
ance to the successful southern confederacy,
he had denounced day after day the efforts
which those Confederates made to reward
their own soldiers, and if he hagg1ed about
the price which the conquering country
should have seen fit to bsstow on the men
by whose arms it had conquered. He did not
think the North was at all deluded by the
pretensions of senators on the other side. It
was little singular that in all the years
which had elapsed since the war there never
has come from one of the States that had
been in rebellion, SO far as he knew, Union
soldier as representative in either branch
of Congress elected by Democratic votes.
The Democratic party in those States never
had blundered at sending to Congress or
electing as governor man who had not
served in the Confederate army in some
capacity. That had been the supreme text
When he looked over the rolls of the Senate
and of the House and reflected how few of
those who have served in the Union army
were found in the councils Of the nation he
was not surprised at witnessing such demon