The Emporia weekly news. [volume] (Emporia, Kan.) 1881-1889, 1889-04-18
rHEPRNsloN QUESTION

Halstead's paper takes the ground
that the need for extra compensation
to old soldiers who are disabled from
earning even partially living. and for
the needy widows and orphans of 9th
ers, makes it we'll nigh impossible for
the government to grant service pen
sion to all who shouldered musket. a
service pension, it says, viii call for
500, 900, 900 per annum, or one-half
the entire government revenue, and
will take from the government the pow
er to care more fully for the invalids
and disabled soldiers now trying to sub
sist on small pensions. Justice to these
latter demands that their needs be
looked after first. To do that, will call
for a good round sum. Besides, there
are many old soldiers we'll fixed who
would scorn government help while
any of their comrades lay languishing
in poor houses because of insufficient
pension. 1t quotes letter from Ser
geant Parker of the Eighty
ninth Ohio volunteers, from which
we extract the following:
regard our service in the army in
the light of self-defense and self-pres-
ervatiOn. We were protecting our
selves, our own homes and our own
fresides. And the man who now de-
mands, or even asks pay for defending
and protecting his own home and FAM
lily can hardly be accounted true pa
triot, or even a good citizen. The
proud consciousness OF having per-
formed our duty to our country, to our
families and to ourselves, ought to be-
an all-suficient compensation. And
when in addition to this we look
around and see the most happy, pros
porous and free people, and the most
glorious Nation Spelled with big NJ
under the sun, all OF which is the out
come and result of our patriotic en-
deavor, hardship and suffering, we
ought to feel proud and glad that we
were instrumental in bringing about
such grand glorious results, and that
in these things We are amply and suttic-
iently repaid for all we have done. 1t
would be a belittling of ourselves, a
compromising of patriotism and a dis
grace to our record to now step up
and demand pay in money for doing
that which cannot be estimated in dol
and cents.
Everybody will commend the patri-
otto ardor with which the sergeant
puts his ideas, and the complete I'M
selfishness with which he views the
question of service pension. when
in the field,' he says in substance,
81 fought as much for myself and my
own Preside, as for others''-and he
might have added that others were
fighting as much for his Preside as
their own-''Why then should 1 ask to
to be paid for defending my own hearth
and home" That is the honorable
and unselfish view he takes of it,.
On the other side, listen to G. A.
Powers, corresponding secretary of the
National Service Pension association
at Terre Haute, Indiana. Mr.. Powers
says:
Any man who advocates postponing
a service pension to the. soldiers of the
late war until they are sixty-tWO years
old deserves the pains and penalties of
| heil-flre.
Powers would give every man and
woman connected with the war pen
sion, if it bankrupted the government.
The difference between the two men
and the views each takes of the pen
sion question, is as wide asundef as
darkness and light.