The Louisiana Democrat., 1891-04-29
The WASTED SURPLUS.
How the Leak, In the Public Treasury
Were Created.

The billion dollar congress put out q
good deal of its plunder at good inter
est. Although the brakes were turned
on just in time in regard to the most
thieying ship subsidy bill that was
ever conceived, and the horde OF
wolves in Washington, that constitute
the steamship lobby, were balhed OF
their principal prey. Yet they got a
toothsome morsel in the postal subsidy,
and with the connivance of such keen
treasury pointer as John Wanamaker,
they may reasonably hope to secure n
goodly share of plumber from the re-
ceptacle of the peoples money. The
owner of the bargain counter at Phila-
delphia, who suborns all the papers in
his guild by enormous advertising, and
who was smart enough to have the
Pan-American congress corraled in his
store and addressed by his principal
| hoor-walller, has charge of the postal
subsidy business, and he has already
made the hearts of the lobby glad and
raised their expectations by his pre-
liminary arrangements in reference to
the mail subsidy steal. Pious John
may always be relied upon to execute
the orders of the boys with neatness
| and dispatch, as far as the law will
| permit him. He is thoroughly repre-
sentative member of the Harrison ad-
ministration, the motto of which has
been repeatedly put in practice and may
be described as: Curse the public, and
spend all their money"
Allied to John Wanamaker in the
work of spending the money of the
people in the most lavish manner posi-
BILE, is the notorious Green B. Raum,
commissioner of pensions. That coat
of whitewash, flung over this tattooed
official at the eleventh hour, by a re-
luctant ajority of a congressional in
vestigating committee, is already
cracked in several places, and the
marks are still visible A large proper
ton of the revenues of the government
are handed over to this branded official
that he may work his sweet will upon
them and dispense them according to
the dictates CT his brother sharks, and
in the interest of the private 'Son
John" annex he has attached to the
pension office. There is no branch of
the government in which such whole
sale fraud exists and receives the in
dorsement of official authority as in
the pension Office. Union veterans, the
most deserving of the pension appli-
cants, are treated with contempt, and
nIn
word, unless they consent to share
literally with the Washington sharks.
One of the most recent instances of
fraud in this fraud infected office is
that of an employe of the office named
Pratt, who was formerly in the volun-
teer service. He appeared, eighteen
years after the war, for a pension, on
the ground that he hal received
wound in the left hand, and the sur
geons who examined him declared ad-
versely to his claim. But, being an
employe of the bureau, he got his pen
sion all the same. For scar on the
third finger of his right hand, Mr..
Pratt not only received regular pen
sion, but received nine dollars month
from the date of his first appli-
cation and thirteen dollars a month
after the decision of the bureau in
which he was employed. The loss of
the entire finger would have entitled
him, under the law, to only two dollars
a month. Dudley got the increased
amount for him, and he put it into real
estate purchased from Dudley. Odell,
a Washington shark, had his pension
increased by Tanner from six dollars
to twenty-four dollars a month, with
over one thousand dollars back pay
through rerating. A townsman of Har-
rison, named Johnson, who had been
dropped from the rolls as fraud, has
managed to rake in seventeen hundred
dollars through rerating by Dudley's
aid, and is now applying for an in
crease.
The pension Office is absolutely rot
ten from the commissioner to the hum |
blest eInploye. There is no longer any
disguise as to the waste of the peoples |
money in that corrupt bureau. Anyone
fortunate enough to have a ''pull" in
the office or with Lemon, Dudley, Tan.
ner and John Raum, can get a pension
on the f1imsiest grounds, and there are
thousands of democratic ex-soldiers,
with genuine claims, who cannot even
get hearing. The American peo-
pie have been, goodness knows, lib
eral to the utmost degree in this PEN
sion business. and, although it is nearly
twenty-six years since the war closed,
they are still willing to pay literally
for the claims of the survivors of the
war. But they decidedly object to
such preposterous claims and to such
wanton waste of their money for the
most corrupt purposes under the direc.
tion of a branded and tattooad official.
The presence of Green B. Raum in the
pension bureau is an insult to every
American worthy of the name But he
IS the pet protego of Harrison, and he
will remain as the dispenser of one
hundred and thirty million dollars an
nually while Harrison can keep him
here. The billion dollar congress has
given him, at the eleventh hour, So
'alled certificate of good conduct by
LIBERAL coat of whitewash. The next
democratic congress cannot do greater
service to the country than by ordering
prompt investigation of Green r