Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1889-01-16
THE PROPOSED RAID.

since the election of Mr. Harrison, one
would suppose that the mission of all
government was to provide office and
distribute pensions. The offices must
be filled and we think Republicans
should fill them. Pensions should be
given TO all soldiers disabled in the SER
vice, but the peoples money should not
be used to fatten disreputable claim
agents throughout the country, and
every reading man knows that it is the
claim agent who has organized the
wholesale assaults on the treasury with
in the last twenty years. The returned
soldiers were proud of the part they
took in saving their country and the
only reward they asked was the plaud.
its and good wishes of their neighbors
and courtrymen. Those men were gen.
orally young and hearty; they bore
themselves with military dignity and
would have felt insulted had any one
suggested that they were broken down
in mind and body.
But the pension agent came along
and first reminded these heroes that
beside the debt of gratitude, the govern
ment owed them debt of money and
from that time on, thousands of able
bodied men saw that it would be as
easy to live in idleness. 10 what ex-
tent the abuse of the nations liberality
has grown is shown in a recent article
in the Forum by Leonard Woolsey Ba-
con. He finds that in January, 1879,
fourteen years after the close of the
war, was passed an act for instigating
and facilitating frauds upon the public
treasury, commonly known as the ar
rears of pensions act. In 1862 the law
had been that pensions should begin
from the date of discharge from service,
when the claim had been filed within
one year from that date, otherwise that
they should begin from the date of fill
ing claim. In 1854, the time within
which claim filed might secure arrears
of pensions was extended to three years
and, in 1868 to five years. And there it
rested, everybody being satisfied that
five years was long enough for man to
find out whether he had been disabled
or not. There was no pretense that
any considerable class of deserving
claimants suffered hardship on account
of this limitation, or that relief by pri-
vate bill was not ready to flow forth TO
exceptional cases. The pressure for a
Rbauno did mot FROM
General Hawley declared this in the
senate, and no man better knows the
minds of soldiers than he. The stimu-
lus, he declared, started from Wash
ingtOn, and went out into the country
to come back to Washington again.
Where the carcass is, the vultures will
be gathered. Where the great surplus
is lying in the treasury, the hungry
eager, able and thoroughly organized
thieYes of public money will be estab-
lished alongside, and will have their
accomplices where they are most need
ed. There is absolute genius in the
audacity with which the Washington
ring OF pensiOn-thieves laid and carried
through the plan by which the sum of
five hundred millions of dollars was to
be lifted out of the treasury. By dill
gent correspondence and personal oper-
alton in all parts of the country, under
stimulus of the enormous plumber to
be divided, the appearance of demand
WAS created. The bill to make every
pension grant retroactive to the date of
discharge was skillfully drawn, with
the omission of obvious precautions
against fraud; was adroitly brought in
to congress III such way as to evade
the customary scrutiny of committees
and tests of debate; was rushed to a
vote, and then, in spite of warn
ings from Secretary Sherman, of the
treasury department, that 1t would call
for not less than $50, 900, 900, was signed
by President Hayes. And when it be
came law. says General Hawley in the
senate, soldiers we're as much sur
prised as anybody" Secretary Schurz,
from the department of the interior,
urged that some provision be made
against frauds. for Secretary Schurz ap-
parently did not understand that this
would have defeated the intent of the
act. But Senator Benjamin Harrison,
when the great robbery had been effect
ed and there was some harmless talk of
repeating the act, Yentured the safe and
thoroughly defenSible remark that it
was anomalous that i've hundred mil
lions of dollars should be paid out of
the treasury on mere er-pdrte affidav-
it's" The consequence was what might
have been fQreseen. The nation offer
ed bonus of 81 900 cash, besides fu-
tufe payments, for every new pension
claim that could be proved. The gang
of claim agents in Washington were
busy urging ex-soldiers everywhere to
solicit government aid, and assuring
them OF F.Onc unusual facilities" What
wonder, considering the iDhFmities of
human nature, the invitation to step up
and take a thousand dollars apiece,
with an annuity, ont of the treasury,
Ion mere er-pGrte affidavit" should
be accepted in the same large spirit in
which it was offered; that men in COM
Portable circumstances. vino had been
ashamed to ask for twelve dollars a
month, should find the offer of thous-
and dollars in lump to be quite diff
ferent matter; and that men in comfort
able health should become conscious all
at once Of hitherto unsupported disor-
ders, Uraceable through the subtle lines
of causation to longer or shorter mil
itary service? OF course, everybody
Except Senator Blair might have
known, as everybody now does know,
there were frauds innnmerable. And
the Senator from New Hamshire. whose
guiIeless hands had been employed to