The Atlanta constitution. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1885-19??, 1888-03-06

! events tie senators were not put themselves
prone on their fronts, and asked the president
Ill advance whether he was going to sign an act.
| Mr.. Teller protested against the senate being
threatened with an executive veto. He had
never heard Of such a thing before in the sem
ate, and he hoped he would never hear it
again. 1t seemed to him to be great democrat
ization TO the senate for a senator to stand up
and say that he proposed to be governed in his
vote by what the executive thought, or felt, :,
or wanted. 1t had been hoped that the sena-
tor from Colorado would tell the senate with
the thought of speech of the senator from
Nebraska (MandersOn) as to the action of
the Grand Army of the r public-the bene-
ticiaries under the bill-as 10 what their lodges
and posts had determined that the senate
should do; and how far that was legitimate.
Mr.. Blackburn said he deprecated the viola
ton of that very rule which prohibited SEN
ator or representative from undertaking to i'll
tluence legislative action by reference TO the
presumed course of the executive. He had
heard that the rule had been violated by three
! senators-Davis, Henderson and Blair. These
| senators all said the bill had TO be framed and
fashioned to avoid veto message at the hands
Of the executive. He did not know the
authority they had for the statement but he
| did know that there was but one political
| organization i'll the country today which was
in marching order. ready to take the field with
| lnapsackS packed and all things ready 1t
was the Grand Army of Republic which
| reprcSented the only efficiently organized poll
| tical system on the continent today. The
senator from Nebraska, who ably championed
the bin, had told the senate and country that
the bill was demand made by the Grand
Army of the Republic, and had protested sub
s.antially against any material amendment
because that organization had formulated
what? Not its petition TO an American con-
gress; but its demand on an American congress
for legislation, i'll which las his colleague had
said) it was itself to be the beneficiary. If the
senator from Nebraska was to be accepted as
authority, the bill was not petition, but de-
mand sent to congress by great and well or.
gained, and perfectly systematized political
agency, that proposed to remove the trouble
which environed both houses to do away with
revenue bills and tariff revisations and
additions OF internal revenue taxation
and dispose of the treasury surplus by such
bills as this. And that was to be the only prac
teal solution to be offered by the republican
party for the financial difficulties i'll which the
country was involved. He denied that sena-
tor from Minnesota, Nebraska or New Hamp-
shire, or any other senator had any right or au-
thorityto charge, or to intimate, that the pres
ident had made up his mind to veto the BILL
il it went to him in one shape or i'll another
shape.
Mr. Wilson, of Iowa, moved an amendment
to insert the words "from infirmities of age"
so as to pension all eX-soldiers suffering 'froIn
infirmities of age" or from mental or physical
disability.
In the debate which took place on the
amendment Mr.. Plumb delivered an eloquent
eulogy on the army, referring particularly to
the fact that 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
permitted to disband and return to peaceful
feelings. He did not believe that any patriotic
man; any man who looked with patriotic
fervor on that portion of the Country'S history,
when two million men sprang to arms to main
tain the government, would ever be willing to
oppose the enactment of any law whereby
any OF the men should be drawn from
the brand OF poverty and given
at least a decent livelihood. The bill, as it
came from the committee, was perhaps step
in the right direction. 1t was not what it
ought to be, and he had sought to make it bet
ter. There was, too, he said. no insinuation
i'll the senate or elsewhere that union soldiers
were 10 be beneficiaries under the bill i'll the
sense of being Supplicants or unworthy per-
sens. He did not think that partisanship
would go that far, and if it did he believed
that the American people would refute it.
Congress was not now dealing with slender
resources, but was dealing with abundance.
Less than the pending bill would not be just
more was not asked for. a
Mr.. Vest said that he had not had the slight
est idea when he spoke to the Wilson amend
ment OF producing such burst of patriotic,
fervid eloquence, which the semitic had Just
listened to. They had heard good deal about
almshouses and veteran soldiers. In the state
of Missouri there were no federal soldiers in
the aims houses and he was proud to say there
were confederate soldiers i'll the alnlshouSes
either. When General Lee surrendered at
Appomatox there was but eight thousand out
of y million left of that splendid army which
had fought and which had been tattered and
beaten back by overwhelming numbers. Out
Of the companies which had gone into that
terrible struggle from l25 to $50 men strong,
only ten had gone back to their kindred and
their homes. The south today was covered
with manned and crippled soldiers, who had
been shot and sheled and sabre-struck, for their
honest convictions, and they asked no pension,
and would not take it, God lie blessed. They
were not in almshouses and none of them had
ever been seen begging for bread. Whence
then, came the talk of federal soldiers in
almshouses? They were not there. He was
tired and sick of the insinuations of robbery
and pretense and hypocrisy, i'll the name OF
the true and gallant soldiers of the union He
had personal friends among them, and (as he
said before 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, off God had
blessed our cause"
Why talk that congress had not done
enough for the union soldiers, when the coun
try had paid ont since 1865, eight hundred and
eighty-three million dollars for peusionsa
liberality unparalleled in the history of the
world. 1t has been said in the senate today
that the country owed the soldiers q debt Of
eternal gratitude because they had not with
mailed hand, seized the government. The
great military and political organization, the
Grand Army of the Republic, had thrown its
lance into the debates of congress, aud had
sent bills to their senators for the purpose of
being enacted. When the president of the
United States had honestly and bravely dis
charged his executive duty and vetoed an en-
actment which he considered improper,
he had been threatened by officers
of that organization with insult if
he dared make his presence known in the city
where 1t held its annual meeting. There was
a limit to human endurance He had voted
for pension bills, coerced by his position be-
cause he had been q confederate and because
lie was honestly anxious for the honor and
glory of his country. He had voted for them
because he wanted to evidence TO the world
that the men with whom he had fought in the
unfortunate strife were respected as fair and
gallant, and were willing TO give them even
more than they demanded but (he repeated
with strong emphasize there is limit, and /
have reached it. / will be driven no farther
by claim agents and plunderers in the garb Of
soldiers. For the honest and brave, and real
soldiers Of the union, i am willing to vote any
amount of pensions, In this city is corps
of men engaged in inyentng legislation TO
take more money out Of the federal treasury.
Report of commissioner OF pensions shows that