The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1892-12-08

wATCHMAN, WHAT OF THE NIGHTe"
Every veteran, and every relative and
| friend of veteran, has abundant reason for
alarm over the prospect.
| What will be the actual policy of the
| party which will take complete possession
/ of the Government on the 4th of March
next can only be surmised and feared.
No authoritative statement has yet ap-
peared from anyone having the right to
speak for the party, as to the course 1t VIII
pursue in regard to pensions.
But very large proportion of the news
papers and the public speakers which and
who belong to the party, aud were active In
securing its success, are venomously attack
ing the pension system, and urging with all
their might measures which range all the
way from serious gripping of the system
to its entire abolition.
this warfare upon the rights of those who
rescued the Nation from destruction. Every
hateful passion is appealed to which VIII
work to the injury of the veterans and IN
fame the public mind against National
Justice to them. No falsehood is too fragrant
for use in poisoning public sentiment
In the South the people are being told
that they are being robbed and impoverished
by high taxes to pay enormous pensions
to the foreign and native mercenaries who
were hired at big wages to insult, plumber
and murder them.
In the North the workingmsn and farm
ers are barrangued that they are compelled
to pay vastly more for everything that they
buy, eat, wear, and use in order to support
in idle luxury hundreds of thousands of
men, the greater part of whom were only
tempted into the army by the prospect OF
enormous pay and bounties, and who never
saw hostile shot fired.
These writers and speakers have fertile
soil in which to plant these seeds of malig-
nant falsehood. The ex-rebels and their
sons are only too willing to believe the
worst that can be said of the men who sup
pressed the rebellion. The same is true of
the Copperhead element of the North. Then,
too, there have come into the country since
the war many millions of foreigners, many of
whom know nothing of the causes and events
of the greatstruggle, and are naturally more
inclined to believe error than truth in re-
gard to it.
We have therefore reason for intense anx-
iety "a to how far these elements will con-
troll the course of the incoming party. 1t
seems impossible to hope that nothing will
be done prejudicial to the interests of the
veterans The best that We can reasonably
look for is that not so much harm viii be
done as is threatened.
A measure that is strongly pressed by
leaders in this crusade against the veterans,
is the suspension of the pension roll until it
canbe gone over and purified" The crnelties
of such process would exceed those of
Siberia The men and women now on the pen
sion roll have been placed there after years of
painstaking examination Of their claims by
ss competent tribunal as the wisdom of
many Congresses could devise. The PEN
sioners have been put to boundless trouble
and expense to establish their claims.
On an average it has taken them longer
to get their pensions granted than it did to
put down the rebellion, and thousands Of
them have seen a quarter of a century elapse
between the filing of their claims and the
allowance Of their pensions They have
had to send to the ends of the country, if not
the earth, to get the testimony of officers ard
comrades. They have conducted CORE
spondenee with the Pension Bureau as end
less as diplomatic negotiation, in which
they have been examined and cross-exam-
iLeus Uct ESuutsds ouu saffcouSesas AuCy
have journeyed to Examining Board after
Examining Board, where they have dallied
weary hours in the ante-rooms, and been
thumped, auscultated, thermometered, steth-
eoscoped and analysed in the presence Of
the full Board. Now, must all this weary
process be gone over again, and pensions be
held up while thousands die every month
who are robbed of their rights by the delay?
What horrible justice--what brutal in
gratitude!
This, too, in the face of the fact that an
other and much less deserving class Of tho
Nation'e creditors-th money lenders-have
been treated wholly different. They really
lent the Nation much less money than the
veterans sacrificed in wages in order to
respond to the country's call of urgent
need, yet the bondhoiders have been
paid nearly five billion dollars
$4,000, 100000. where the veterans have re-
ceived but one-fourth that amount in PEN
sions. The bondholdes have not had to
undergo any examinations; they have not