The National tribune., 1892-06-30
THE NOMINATION OF MIR. CLEVELAND.

/
anticipated that possibly the Chicago Con-
vention might give the country candidate
less positively obnoxious to them than
Mr.. Cleveland. Any of the other possible
nominees would have been more acceptable;
no other could possibly have been so dis
tasteful. The Convention was well aware of
this feeling of the comrades-since it is only
four years since votes of the ex-soldiers, with
out regard to party, pronounced an emphatic
condemnation upon Mr.. Cleveland at the
polls. and deprived him OF the honor of being
his own successor. Nothing has occurred
since to improve their opinion of him, but
supporters and eulogists have been the
rankest maligners of the ex-seldiers OF
veterans in that party have been the
men and the papers who supported other
candidates for the nomination. Therefore,
the ex-soldiers cannot help feeling that the
denomination of Mr. Cleveland was direct
personal affront to them, and an intimation
that their votes and support are not desired
in the campaign which has been formally
opened.
The comrades cannot remember The four
years of Mr.. Cleveland's Administration
except with feelings of anger and humilia-
ton. 1t was long period of bitterness for
| them. In Washington and throughout the
country they were turned out of office by
thousands, that their places might be had
for mere political heelers and ex-reheis.
Ardently- desired general pension legislation,
which had been urged for years by the
National Encampment of the Grand Army
of the Republic and by the Department En-
| campments and Posts and which had been
| petitioned for by hundreds Of thousands OF
eK-soldiers as an act of National justice, was
| embarrassed and retarded by the most frivol-
Gus and aggravatng pretexis, and finally
vetoed by Mr.. Cleveland in message that
provoked even the indignation of many OF
his political supporters in the House OF
Representatives. The Committee on 1nva-
lid Pensions, a majority of whom were
Democrats, in scathing reply exposed the
chicanery of the Presidents alleged reasons
for this veto, saying that 1.-THE refinement of
a chemical experiment is exceeded in an
effort to do away with the plain provisions
of the bill.n I've regard the
strained Interpretation put upon the bill in
the message as an excuse rather than rea-
son for returning it to the House, and We
| believe that we do no injustice to the Ex-
| ecutive, when considering the whole mess
age, to say that if its provisions had been
palmer, and that no question could have
been raised as to whether it included only
those unable to labor, that he would have
/ yet interposed objections" The Committee
also resented another insult to the soldiers
In these words:
Your committee does not share ia the opinion
THAT there exists widespread disregard of
truth and good faith" in the prosecution Of PEN
sion claims Nor do we believe that the x-soldiers
of the country are prone commit fraud. perjury
| or subornaiion Of perjury for that purpose any
| other.
OF the 300 votes in the House when the
question came up, IT'S were for passage over
the veto and 125 against this rebuke Of the
President. From then until Mr.. Cleveland
yielded his Office TO his successor, he added
veto to veto of pension bills of all kinds,
| until the nsmber Of these disapproyed far
exceeded The total of the yetoes of every
nature of all the Presidents who had pre-
ceded him. He did not coniine himself to
giving reasons or alleged reasons for these
! disapprovals. but went out of his way TO
sneer al and make cheap sarcasm, upon the
unfortunate veterans, and the widows of
such, whom he robbed of the Nations just
/ ice. His whole course was painful re-
minder to the veterans of the malignancy
of the fre-in-the-rear Copperhead class to
which he belonged during the war, and the
strong survival of this malignant spirit for
more than quarter Of a century after the
! close of the war Not even the broader
views and great responsibilities of the Chief
Magistracy could eradicate or even amelio-
rate the bitter feeling that he had entertained
decades before against the men who heroic
ally went to the deadly 'front.' while he took
his selfish ease in the peaceful rear.
1t is difficult to understand how any ex-
soldier who honors himself and his comrades
for the part he and they took in suppressing
the great rebellion and preserving the Ma
tional life can bring himself to view with
any complacency the restoration Of Mr.
Cleveland to a position where he can renew
his insults and injuries to the veterans and
their dependent ones We believe that even
fewer veterans will vote for him this Fall
than four years ago, because they have for.
gotten nothing and learned much since then
as to his innate hatred of those who put him