The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1890-09-18
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UNCLE SAM ADEAD BEAT
ITS A SHAME THE WAY HE FAILS
TO PAY HIS DEBTS.
Some Instances of Deserving Claims which
Have Been Before Congress for Year,
and Yesrs-Mr. springer's Plan for a
COart of Claims.
[special Correspondence.l


have your faith In Uncle Sam shakep
come down to the capital and note the
manner In which he pays his debts. /
say 1T In sorrow and humiliation that
Uncle Sam is a dead beat We all know
he is rich, and constantly growing richer,
that he has millions Of dollars locked up
In his strong box, and yet he never pays
debt if he can get out Of it by hook or
crook, and IL nothing else will release
him from his obligations he stands ready
to plead the Statute of Limitations One
day last week the country was told in
the press reports of the passage in the
house Of representatives Of the famous
Mckay claim. No doubt that was
just claim or it could never have run the
gantlet of legislative scrutiny. But
thousands upon thousands of claims
equally just are pending before congress.
Some of them have been pending for
twenty-five, fifty, even hundred years.
Not few of them will be pending half
century or a century hence.
You may see in the corridors of the
Capitol here, haunting the rooms of the
various committees on claims, the grand
sons of men who fled claims in their
prime, and who died poor and disap-
pointed, leaving as heritage to their
sons and their sons sons and grandsons
an unhonored obligation of the great
est government under the sun" There
are in the pigeon holes of the claims
committees, dust covered and spider
webbed, bushels of claims growing out
of the Revolutionary War, the War Of
1912, the Mexican War. Wagon loads Of
claims arising out Of the war Of the
rebellion are here. All the claims COM
mittees are years behind in their work.
Sometimes they work pretty hard, too,
despite the discouraging outlook. They
know very well that not one in a hun
dred of the claims which they examine
and find good and valid will ever be
paid. 1t is loves labor lost but still
they go on grinding out the bills.
When claimant succeeds in coaxing
a member to introduce his bill he thinks
the battle half won, and in his dreams
sees piles of government gold and green
backs spread out before him. When the
bill is reported favorassy by the COM
mittee, and placed upon the calendar of
the house, the claimants hope natures
into confidence. at is a just bill-does
not the committee unanimously say so?-
and of course Uncle Sam pays his honest
debts, doesn't he?" In week, or a
month at the latest, the claimant thinks,
his bill will become law and the treas
ury doors will open to him.
The experienced congressman tells his
claimant to go home-that nothing is to
be gained by renal ming here. Lucky
the claimant who accepts this good adj
vice, and goes home before hotel bills
have eaten up the little substance he has
and left him stranded. Many poor fell
lows-and poor women, too, for many
women come to congress pressing claims
stay here till they can't get home, and
remain to haunt the corridors as living,
pitiable witnesses Of the red tape and
impenetrable barriers a great govern
ment hedges its treasury with The
calendar is full to OVERLOOKING with such
bills. There are now more than 900
private bills on the calendar, and not
two dozen of them will succeed in run
ming the gauntlet TO the statute book.
Many of these bills on the calendar have
been put there by successive congresses
for dozen or thirty years.
Just claims that ought to be paid? |
Yes. Obligations which a solvent, hon |
est individual or a respectable railway
or other corporation would pay? Yes. |
And yet the government will never pay
5 per cent. of them. OF course it is not be-
cause the government is dishonest, nor be-
cause members of congress are faithless,
or ungenerous. 1t is the fault
of the system of government by con-
gress. Congress has too much to do. 1t
is big machine, but it is unequal to the
task which comes to il. Its members,
its committees, its ramiications are
many, but the question in congress al
ways is which dozen of ten thousand
measures shall we consider
and pass? And so the claimants come
and go, the private calendar piles up and
up, and no progress is made toward
the many millions which
Uncle Sam owes.
Many remedies have been sought for
this deplorable, almost disgraceful, con-
dition of affairs, but none is more prac-
teal than the suggestion of Representa-
tive Springer, who would have a court
Of claims, with jurisdiction over all such
eases as are now pending before con-
sress. The radical and unjust method
If passing a constitutional amendment
taking claims away from congress en-
lrely, and compelling claimants TO
make their cases in the ordinary courts
If law, has been proposed. Speaker
Reed favors sweeping away all the
claims that have been pending more
han ten years, because this would "re-
move the temptation to waste lives and
lcpes in chasing the will-o'-the-wi Of
justice" The speaker
dds, Energies which could have made
lew fortunes have too often been spent
n vain pursuit Of decisions of congress
which never have been obtained"
Mr.. Springer, who was once a member
f the committee on claims, and who
ave up the craftsmanship of that COM
nittee and resigned from it because he
I'D not like to have his heartstrings
ugged at twenty times day by deserv.
ng but hopeless claimants, says the
lonor Of the government is involved in
he question Of providing a means of ad-
Indicating and paying all the public OBJ
lgauons. There is now a court of
laims, but il has jurisdiction over those