The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1888-04-05
5UsrLY-EoUAL1zED PENSIONS.

ardently in favor of everything shat can be
reasonably asked of the Government for the
veteran.
A paper which has constantly led the adj
vance guard on all these measures, which
has ever been at the forefront of the battle,
dealing and receiving the weightiest blows
delivered in the fight, while other papers
which now pretend to be the soldiers friends
were skuIzing or fleeing panio-stricken to
the rear, is not required to make professions
needed by those who, in former times, gave
and perhaps still give-aid and comfort
to the enemy.
What we wantnow-what we have wanted
and urged for years with all the earnestness
possible to devote to a cause-is the imme-
date passage of the Disability Bill, the law
which will raise at once the destitute and
disabled veterans from their humiliating po-
sition of dependence upon public charity or
upon their friends and relatives and which
viii provide properly for the widows, de-
pendent relatives and orphans of those who
gave their lives to the Union.
When this is done-when every disabled
veteran is placed above the cruel need of
looking to the poorhouse as his final refuge,
when the widows and orphans and depend
ent parents are given moiety of that sup
port of which they were robbed by the harsh
ezigencies of war-and it ogiU be iaercu8oJy
shameful If the granting Of this IS postponed
another moatb-then we want general
pension law, which will include in its COM
prehensiye provisions every man who wore
the blue honorabIy, and did his share to-
ward saving the Nation from its deadly peril.
None of the general pension measures so
far urged have come up to our ideas of a
justIy-equalized pension law, which will
approach an equitable treatment by the
Nation of ali classes of its notwithstanding
defenders.
The so-caIIed service pension bill would
run a straight-edge over every one, putting
the man who served three months on ex-
actly the same level with the veteran who
fought steadily from the first Bull Run to
Appomattox.
The so-called per diem bill, on the other
hand, discriminates too strongly against
men who may have served but a short term
and yet rendered the country service of the
highest Importance.
For example, under the so-caIled service
pension bill, the man who went through
the perils and Iardships Of the Peninsular
campaign, marched up the deadly slope
against Marye's flights, fought at Chancel-
louisville, repealed Pickett's charge at Get
tysburg, and then, with mistaken courage
and patriotism, encountered the awful car
mage Of the Wilderness campaign and the
siege Of Petersburg, would not get cent
more than the one who went ont under
either of the three-montbs OF 1O0-days
calls.
On the other hand, under the per diem
bill, the men who left everything in April,
1861, to save the endangered Capital, who
fought magnifcently and suffered terribly
at Bull Run, who drove the rebels out OF
West Virginia, who saved Missouri to the
Union, and fought the bloody battle Of Will
sons Greek, would be put off with the mea-
ger stipend of 50 cents a month The men
who enlisted in 1864 and fought in the
Wilderness and before Petersburg; who
were on the Atlanta campaign and the
March to the Sea, who helped crush Hood
before Nashville, would get from 90 cents to
$3.50 a month. The men vino went out in
! 1861, and were broken down in the Peninsu-
/ lar campaign, or at DoneIson and Yicksburg
would be turned off with similar beggarIy
allowance, and we would have perpetuatcd
the scandal growing out of the present laws
Of a pension-rou in which there are dis
examinations Of few cents between on,
veteran and another.
The GAR National Pension Com mite,
has always said to the comrades that as soor
as the Disability Bill was made law i
would have ready another bill ofmuch wideI
scope upon which to rally
! The committee and the comrades hav,
had every reason to expect the passage early
in the session of the Disability Bill. No