The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1888-03-01

beaten back by Overwhelming numbers
Out of companies which had gone ints
that terrible struggle from l25 TO is'
men strong, only ten had gone BACK g
their kindred and their homes. ihs
sauth to-day was covered with malmeo
and crippled soldiers who had been shot
and shelled, and sabre struck for the'l
honest convictions, and they asked M
pension and would not take lt-God bt
blessed. They were not in aims houses
and none of them had ever been seer
begging for bread.
Whence. then, came this talk OF
Federal soldiers in aims houses: 1hey
were not there. He was tired and sics
of insinuations of robbery, and pre-
tence, and hypocrisy in the name OF the
true and gallant soldiers of the Union
He had personal friends among them,
and. as he had 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 last dollar. He would
have done the same for the Confederate
soldier sif God had blessed our cause. .
Why talk that Congress had not done
enough for the Union soldiers when the
country had paid out since 1863 $685.
900, 900 for pensions--a hberailty
unpaTalled in the history of the world.
The Senate had been told to-day that the
country owed the soldiers debt OF eter-
nal gratitude because they had not, with
tie mailed hand, seized the government.
That great military and political organi-
zation, the Grand Army of the Republic,
had thrown its lance into the debates of
Congress, and had sent bills to their ac-
credited Senators for the purpose OF be-
ing enacted. When the President of the
United States had honestly and bravely
discharged his executive duty and vetoed
an enactment which he considered inn
proper, he had been threatened by Off
GERS of that organization with personal
insult if he dared to make his presence
known in the city where it held its an
nual meeting. There was limit
to human endurance. He had
voted for pension bills, coerced by his
position, because he had been Confed-
crate and because he was honestly anx-
ious for the honor and glory of the
country. He had voted for them be-
cause he wanted to evidence to the
world that the men with whom he had
acted in the unfortunate strife respected
fair and gallant soldiers of the Union,
and were willing to give them even more
than they demanded, but he repeated
with strong emphasis, ''there is limit,
and have reached it. / viii be driven
no further by claim agents and plunder-
ers in the garb of soldiers. For the hon
est and brave and real soldiers of the
Union / am willing to vote any
amount of pensions. In this city is a
corps of men engaged in niventing legis-
lation to take more money out of the
Federal Treasury. The report of the
Commissioner of Pensions shows that
when the Arrears of Pensions act of 1879
was passed, there was some 1000 appii-
cations for pensions pending. The very
next year the number of applications
jumped to 10000. The claim agents
invented that law and put no limitation
on it, and the number of applications for
,r,1.1 no
$4,000 to 10000, and the amount of
disbursements from thirty millions to
fifty-seven millions"
Mr.. Vest went on to say that of the
1900, 900 men enrolled as soldiers during
the four years of the war, there were ap-
plications from 200, 600 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 ordnance
stores, and yet making due allowance
for the effect of climate in producing
disability, it would appear that one Con.
federate soldier, half clothed and hall
fed had disabled three of his adversaries
There had been no such destruction In
! military annals since the children oi
Israel marched through the wilderness
| destroying whole nations in a single
| day. The Workmanship of the Persian
Prince in TIE Arabian Nights, whose
| arrows crossed mountains ana rivers
and despised space in their fight, hat
been nothing 10 that of the Confederate
| soldier. His bullet must have hit TIVE
| or more at the same time, and strucl
| where it was not aimed. Fifty per cent
| of all the list of the Union army wer,
applicants for pensions on account o
disability. Who. he asked, believed tha
they were honest applicants? VIII
believed that these pension bills had no
degenerated into political abuse which
cried aloud in the faces of all homes
men for redress
| He had great regard for many of hi
friends on the opposite side of the cham
Der, and in the words which he ha
| spoken, he had wished TO give an oppoi
tunity to some of them who had lurke
/ back in the contest over the bill, t
throw his spinning lance among 18th
| confederate brigadiers" and try TO carr
off Republican for the Presidency.
i recent dispatch from Paris had cause
Presidential candidates to become a
thick '.as leaves in Valambrosa." b
fore that dispatch had come under tn
yeasty waves OF the ocean, the Republ
can party had heen in the condition {
the man who having gone HON
some hours before his usual time in til
pmorning, and having been asked VIII
he had gone home SO soon, replied ths
every other place in town was shut VI
The doors of the Republican party wel
now open. and Presidential candidate