Los Angeles herald., 1892-06-14

oetter reasons. We shall be glad to be
made acquainted with those better
reasons.
The Pinch at Last.
[5an Francisco Examiner June 12l
To the misfortune of this government
in possessing an annual surplus for half
generation we owe the acquisition OF a
pension roll Of $50, ,000, 900 year. As
long as the problem confronting our
financiers was how to spend our super
fuuus revenues the steady increase in
the expenditures for pensions attracted
little attention. 1.-THE government has
no use for the money!" people said !;
"why not give it to the old soldiers p"
And SO it was given to the old soldiers,
and, incidentally, to the horde OF clam
orous lobbyists and brokers that fat
tened on them. From the annual PEN
sion appropriation of 10000 900, which
| Garfield said in 1878 would probably
never be reached again, the figures
were allowed to creep up to $50, ,000, 900
| in 1880, $50, ,000,0 900 in 1884, sos, 900 900
in 1891, and $135, 900 000 in 1892, with
estimates of $147 600, 900 for 1893. Dur
ing this time the other necessary ex-
penditures of the government have been
increasing with the growth OF the
country. At last the inevitable pinch
has come. The surplus is gone, and ex-
cessive pension appropriations hereafter
will mean, not dip into an illimitable
hoard, but hard, grinding retrench-
ment in all other directions.
The miners of California ask $3.50, 900
to enable them to unlock the mountain
| store-housee in which the means of sub.
eistence OF a hundred thousand people
are guarded. Congress sympathizes,
but points to the empty treasury. The
money that should be there is absorbed
in pensions. One-tenth part of that
small fraction of the pension expendi-
lures devoted to the fees and salaries oil
Mr.. Raum's official force would give the
miners all they ask.
The army engineers estimated that
100000 could be proitably spent this
year on the improvement of Humboldt
bay. The house cut down the amount
to 5000, 0,OC0, and the senate still further
reduced it to $4,000. The engineers
asked for $4,000 for the Sacramento
and Feather rivers. of which congress
allowed $4,000. They recommended
the expenditure of $136,750 on the
| San Joaquin, of which $50, 900
went into the appropriation. The
estimates for necessary works, each of
which would have been of incalculable
service in checking railroad exactions,
were scaled down in the same way all
along the line. Out of $69, 900, 900 asked
for by the army engineers congress ap-
propriated only $2l, 600, 900, and it was
denounced as criminally extravagant for
doing that. The entire amount of the
estimates could have been provided for
out of the pension appropriation, and
still have left the expenditures for PEN
sions greater than those OF all the other
nations of the world combined.
The sum asked for surveying the pub.
lie lands was $400, 600, and this would
have been inadequate. But the house
committee on appropriations was 80 op!
pressed by the appalling state of the
finances that it tried to have this amount
cut down to 100000. A single Wash
ington pension agent clears two or three
keep up scale of pension expenditures
whose mere fringes are of this imposing
extent the settlers on the frontier must
be deprived of the opportunity to gain
title to their homes.
Congress has been compelled this
year to scrimp the appropriations for
the navy and coast defenses in order or
that it may have the means Of support
ing gigantic standing. army that was
supposed to have been disbanded
twenty-seven years ago. A single years
pension expenditures would make our
seaports safe against attack and build
all the new ships we need.
All the scientific departments OF the
government will be cramped for funds
next year. The fish commission, the
geological survey, the coast and geodetic
survey, the Smithsonian institution and
national museum have had their appro-
priations slashed. Congress could do
nothing else with $150, ,000,0 600 of PEN
sions to provide for out of the dimin.
ished revenues allowed by the Mckinley
tariff. The work OF these bureaus not
only elevates the reputation of our gov
ernment throughout the world, but is
of the highest practical value to Ameri-
can farmers, miners and seamen.
Very few new public buildings, if any,
will be authorized this year. The gov
ernment simply has not the money to
spend in that way. In the case of San
Francisco this is not an unmitigated
misfortune, but there are plenty of
growing cities without swamp postoflice
sites in the market to which this denial
| OF modern facilities Tor business Will be
a serious hardship.
The point at which the government
touches the people most nearly is the
postoffice. The appropriation bill just
passed ruthlessly cut down many items
that would be Of priceless value to the
patrons of the mails. Their Importance
was recognized, but with deficit in the
treasury they will have to wait. The
farmer will still have to trudge through
mud and slush for his weekly mail, in
stead of having his letters brought to
his door every day. Merely the water
in the pension roll would pay for that
convenience.
This is the pinch the people are begin
ming to feel just now. If we permit the
present tendencies to continue much
! longer they will feel harder one in the
| ehape of direct taxes.
Estee Gold Oyer the Nomination.
A special from New York says that
the nomination of Harrison did not
elicit any enthusiasm worth noting in
that city. In the Fiith-avenue hotel
there was a crowd of about l5O in the
corridor in front of the desk, among
them Morris M. Estee of California, who
was permanent chairman of the 1888
convention, which first nominated Har.