The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1889-05-02

there exists any reason for taking FIVE years
or longer to ascertain whether man is en-
titled to place on the pension rolls. A
business firm which would take even months
to do what the Pension Bureau requires
years to accomplish would speedily end its
operations in public disgust and bankruptcy.
Then think of the appalling cruelty Of such
a sterile system. The old soldiers are dying
off at the rate Of say, q. 900 year. So those
$4,000 who finally got on the pension roll,
after waiting from five to 81 years, must
represent frightful number of tens of thou
sands who had equally good claims for pen
sions, but who, owing to the cruel slOwness
of the Pension Bureau, went to their graves
without receiving that which they had
earned with their best blood, and which the
laws intended they should have. AS it
has been conducted, the Pension Bureau
has been monstrous Calvary of crueifed
hopes, boundless Golgotha filled with the
slain of technicalism and red tape, an Ander-
sonville in which the victims have been
| imprisoned, starved and denied, and which
has inflicted, in the aggregate, more actual
misery upon the Union veterans, their
widows and orphans, than was perpetrated
in the infamous prison-pens of rebeldom.
We do not say that the employees of the
Bureau have been willing accomplices in
this. While among them are undoubtedly
many who should never have been there, the
great bulk of them are unquestionably faith
full officials and friendly to the veterans.
They are not to be held responsible for the
past. since they have done nothing but
render faithful obedience to the system, and
endeavor to carry out the wishes of those
over them.
The reformation of this evil system will
be stupendous labor in which you will
need the active and hearty cooperation of
your official superiors-the President, the
Secretary of the Interior and the Assistant
Secretary, as well as the sympathy of your
comrades. An official system, cemented by
long years of continuance, and invariable
"set" in one direction, is frequently too
much for the strongest wills and most
determined intentions of the official heads.
The Hindus embody this idea in an cpl
gram:
as there any one more powerful than
thou?" asked a mortal of the God of
Strength.
Eyes" replied the God, ga System is"
Even your determination to reform the
pension system viii not avail unless you
have the cordial support of your official
superiors, which the results of the election
last Fall enable us to assure you that you
will have. And the reform is not to be ac-
complished in a week Or a month, or year
even. 1t must be steady, persistent, long
continued, neyer-fagging effort, which will
at last permeate the entire sluggish mass,
and infuse motion into what has hitherto
been dead obstruction. Cunningly forged
clogs must be taken off here and there,
labyrinths of senseless circumlocution, in
which some of your subordinates love to
wander year in and year out, must be
broken up and cleared away; men who are
so welded to obstruction that they cannot
understand the forward" signal, must be
set adrift, and though this brings shrieks
and yells from the soldier-hating press, you
will have the firm, loyal support of every
veteran and friend of the veteran, and great
will be your reward in love and applause
Yours, in sanguine hope,
THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE.
a SPECIMEN of the absurd technicalism
which has disgraced the management of the