Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1889-10-11

IalA lldklnS tllc Siilic sOrb OI SpcccBcS
that he has made since March, and he
was appointed Pension Commissioner
as a reward. General Black had been
very liberal in granting pensions. The
disbursements under him increased
rapidly. He would not give pensions
to men dishonorably discharged, but
on the whole he was much more lib
eral in his constructions of the law
than Colonel Dudley was, and Dudley
was appointed because Bentley made a
man prove his right to il before he
could get any public money, and be-
cause he was not agreeable to Wash
ington claim agents. Dalkell says in
this letter we have. quoted from; that
Tanner is the best friend the soldiers
ever had in the Pension Office except
General Black" And yet in spite OF
these facts every Republican editor and
"Spellbinder" was last fall appealing
to the old soldiers to vote the Repub
lican ticket, so that pensions would be
larger and easier to get. Everybody
who could read or who could listen to
a Republican argument last year un-
derstood that the Republican party
promised. if elected, to make pensions
bigger and easier Tanners appoint
ment was not asked by the Grand
Army of his own State, for they knew
his incapacity; they asked for Major
Poole; but Commander-in-C War
ner, of the Grand Army, and his as
sociates insisted upon Tanners ap-
pointment, because they knew that he
would pay out more money and ask
fewer questions than any other man.
They demanded his appointment as
the fulfillment of the promises made to
the old soldiers during the campaign,
and it was on that ground that the
President appointed Tanner, after
trustworthy and influential Republi-
cans had assured him that of their
own knowledge Tanner had not the
sound judgment and the executive
capacity for the position.
But the appalling financial results
of six months of Tanner, the scandal of
bad appointments in the Office, the
recklessness with which clerks, under
Tanners influence, were rushing
worthless claims to approval, the in
decent and even criminal greed with
which employees in the Pension Of
flee improved the era of laxity to re-
rate each others pensions; the shock
ing impropriety of making a present
of 81 800 to Senator Manderson for
the purpose, as Tanner himself ex-
planned, of proving to the country
that he had as much sympathy with
the wealthy and powerful as he had
with the poor and obscure-all these
things were too much to face the
country on, even with the support of
the Washington claim agents and a
small but noisy faction in the Grand
Army, and President Harrison has
been compelled to confess before the
country that promises that the Re-
publican party made last year, and
on the strength of which. in some de-
gree, it succeeded in getting back into
power, cannot be kept without ruinous
results.
Of all the promises made by the Re-
publican party last year the only ones
that have been kept were the promises
of certain customs decisions made
through John F. Plummer and proba-
bly, John Wanamaker, in return for
certain large pecuniary contributions
to the campaign fund. The amend
ments, by the executive to an act of
Congress, on which the party leaders
sold an option last fall, have been de-
livered. The clean sweep is in rapid
progress; the colored man has not got
possession Of the Southern patronage /;
$4S ,OOO, 900 are loaned without interest
to "the pet banks;;" the interest
bearing bonds are not redeemed as
rapidly as they were under the last
Administration, and now even the old
soldiers are told that the Administ' a.
ton would rather risk disaster in the
fall elections than to attempt any
longer to keep the preposterous promise
that it made to them last year when
it wanted their votes and was afraid
they would vote for Cleveland and
Thurman.
What do the men who voted for
Harrison and Morton think they
gained by it? a..