Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1888-03-08
PENSIONS.
Spirited Debate in the United States
Senate on the Grand Army
Pension Bill.
Senator Vest Opposes, While Messrs.
Plumb and Teller Advocate
Its Passage.
Washington special.l

Washington special.l
The Grand Army pension bill was up
for consideration in the Senate on Wednes-
day, and gave rise to warm debate. Mr..
Plumb, of Kansas, led of in a speech
fuvoring the rnousuro. Ho sdverted 30 tho
fact that when the war closed tne 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 permitted to disband
and return 10 peaceful avocations. He did
not believe that any patriotic man, any
man who looked with patriotic fervor on
that portion of the country's history when
1900, 900 men sprung to arms TO maintain
the Government would ever be willing TO op-
pose the enactment Of any law whereby any
of the men should be drawn from the ban
of poverty, and given at least a decent
livelihood. The bill as il came from the
committee was not what it ought to be,
and he had sought to make it better.
There was to be, he said, no insinuation in
the Senate or elsewhere that the Union
soldiers were to be the benefciaries under
the bill In the sense Of being supplicants
or unworthy persons. He did not think
that partisanship would 60 that far, and if
it did he believed the main principle
would refute it. Less than the pending
bill proposed would not be just; more was
not asked for.
Mr.. Vest attacked the pending measure.
Why, he asked, this talk that Congress had
not ao-.s ~.eueh for tho Union soldiers,
when the country had paid out since 1865
1888, 900, 900 for pensions-a liberality un-
paralleled in the history of the world? The
report of the Commissioner of Pensions
shows that when the arrears of pensions
act of 1879 was passed there were some
10000 applications for pensions pending.
The very next year the number Of applica-
tions jumped to 10000. The claims agents
invented thpt law and put limitation on
it, and the number of applications for
pensions jumped in one year from an. nnn IN
lilo, 900, and the amount of disbursements
from $50, 100000 to $57, 900, 900. Mr.. Vest
went on to say that of the 100000 men
enrolled as soldiers during the four years
of the war there were applications from
1000, 900 for pensions on account OF disa-
bility. Such military execution, he said,
had never been known in the history of the
whole world. The doors of the Republican
party were now open and Presidential cam
didates were coming to the front without
limit as to quantity or locality. The Senate
had been engaged for some days past in a
political auction for the soldiers vote. First
huti como his friend from Nobr@slss Man
dersonl, backed by the Grand Army, and
even that Senator'S fiings at the President of
the United States had not detracted from the
general merit of his bid for the soldier
vote. That was the object of oil the de-
bate-bidding for the soldier vote
of the country in the coming contest.
When the Senator from Nebraska had
taken his seat he Vest had thought that
the bid was in his favor. But the present
occupant of the chair, the Senator from
Maine (Frye), had Caught the eye of the
auctioneer" Grand Army of the Re-
public-and "had gone one better" That
Senator was prepared to vote a pension to
every man who had served a day in the
Gederal army.
He (vest) was about to knock down the
prize to the Senator from Maine, when his
friend from Kansas (Plumb) came to the
front and outbid the Senator from Maine
by an amendment TO the bill which would
increase the expenditure under it $50,OOO,-
900 or $75,00O,000. He (VesD had then
been strongly of the opinion that the auc-
tion should close and the prize be given
to the Senator from Kansas, but then the
Senator from Illinois (Cullom) had come
to the front and made q bid from that
great Prairie State which staggered his
(Vest's) conviction as to the propriety OF
closing the sale. Since that time he has
been in a condition of anxiety waiting to
hear from other bidders in the great ma
tional auction.
The Senate had not yet heard from his
dulcet- -tongued friend from Iowa Allison },
nor from the distinguished Senator from
Ohio (Sherman). nor from the presiding
officer Ingallsl, who had been nominated
by the District Of Columbia, and every one
knew that the District of Columbia only
acted from the most disinterested and un-
selfish motives.
Mr.. Teller replied to Mr.. Vest. If there
was some little diversity of opinion, he
said, among the Republicans as TO who
was to be their standard bearer, his Dem
ocratic friends were not in that position.
Their standard bearer was selected for
them; whether they willed it or not. II
was even said that arrangements had
been made in the same interest for
the nomination of the Governor of q cer-
tain State for Vice President. The Re-
publicans were not disturbed by conflicting
opinions and conflicting interests, even if
they had q large number of prominent
men who would mako good Presidents;
but the Democratic party was compvlle ed to
admit that it had but onJ man-of all the
great body of men who had assembled at
lte IaSt NaJlOnal OOnVentlOu-WDO WIS u
suitable and available candidate.
Mr.. Platt here read an extract from Mr..
Cleveland's letter of acceptance in 1884
against the policy of a second Presidential
term, and intim ated that il must be O mis-
take to consider Mr.. Cleveland q candidate
for the Democratic nomination.
Mr.. Teller repeated that the great Demo-
cratic party had to- day no other man whom
it would dare to put in nomination, and
said that it went without saying that the
Democratic convention would simply meet
to ratify what had already been declared.
The general horde Of ofice-seekers had
made themselves heard and the muewumps
brought up the rear. The Democrats had
surrendered the liberty Of choice.
Mr.. Plumb said the Senator from Mis-
souri, was welcome 10 the position he had
assumed. He had enlarged the scope of
the debate, not for the special purpose of
ridiculing Senators who we're supposed 10
be Presidential candidates, but for the
purpose of arguing against the whole idea
Of pensions TO Union soldiers, whether
disabled or otherwise.
THE will Of the late w. w. Coreoran has
been probated at Washington. The estate