Catoctin clarion. [volume] (Mechanicstown, Md.) 1871-1940, 1889-01-17
Washington Letter
FROM OUR REG ULAR CORRESPONDENT.
WASHINGTON JAN. 14th, '89

FROM OUR REGULAR CORRESPONDENT.
WASHINGTON JAN. 14th, 80.
Reports to the State Department
show that during the last ninety days
there has been a great falling off in the
importation of pauper labor. At the
port of New York the coming Of 1tal.
ian contract labourers has almost ceas-
ed. This is attributed entirely to the
investigation by Mr.. Ford's House
Committee and the fear Of vigorous
legislation on the subject, Mr.. Ford can
leaye Congress without the slightest
danger Of beng forgotten. He has,
completely unaided, accomplished a
great good, even if it should only result
in abolishing Castle Garden.
The Nicaragua Canal bill having
passed the House is now before the
Senate, and will 60 to conference
committee. It's fate will then be deter
mined by the mood of the House when
the amended bill comes before it.
In the great Pension building and
entered from the balcony overlook
ing the magnificent court where the in
augural ball will be held, are the admit
ted files Of the Pension Bureau. The
shelves reach to the ceiling, and are
built out in wings us in crowded IL
brary. On this shelving, properly
jacketed, belong the papers in nearly
three quarters of a million pension
claims, those that have been admitted
to the Pension Office as just claims and
the claimants pcnsioned. What a be
wildering array. Tons on tons of pa
per, from heavy calendered War De-
partment paper, covered with offic-
ial reports, to The cheap note paper on
which the soldier wrote home from the
front. Ink now faded and yellow with
age, and ink that was faded before 1t
touched the paper. an ocean of ink.
Think of the almost ihnumerable
words that are written upon the paper
packed away IN this attic. If Adam
and Eye had been condemned when
driven out of the garden of Eden to copy
a number of words equal to those here
collected, and had even been expert
copyists and had worked at the job ey-
er since every day, they would not be
through yet. If schoolboy we're set
to work to merely count the separated
documents and lived and toied to three
score and ten, death would find his
work unfinished.
These rooms contain, however, but a
portion of the official records of the
Pension Bureau, though quite enough
to be food for speculation. There are
records of gallant service and records
of cowardly assertions. There are
cheerful letters from brave soldiers
written as they lay mangled in hospit-
ais, and whining letters from cheap
scamps whose sole aim was to be in the
hospital. Then there are the millions
of afidavits containing the testimony
by which these cases We're establish ed.
That some of this testimony is abso-
lutte and unqualified perjury goes with
out saying, that Il larger proportion of
it is not unalloyed truth is quito us cell
tain. And this is to be said no more
of the cases recently allowed than of
those admitted years ago, as hundreds
of ex soldiers have hled claims for serl-
Gus gun shot wounds during the last
FIVE years, and an examination of War
Department files has unearthea the pos.
tive record of the wound in battle
These be honorable scars. The class of
claims where perjury is most rife is in
the cluims of widows on account Of the
death of husbands who died since the
war.
The law entities the widow Of last
war soldier to pension only when the
soldier died of a cause originating in
service. In the more remote and poor
er districts Of the country many an ex-
soldier is scarcely cold in death before
the widow has made application for
pension. No matter what he may have