The National tribune., 1893-09-07
SENATOR VOORHEES, SPEECH.


ator Voorhees, has been true and earnest
| friend of the soldiers ever since he has been
| in the Senate, and every measure for their
benefit has had his certain and powerful
support.
Not the least, by any means, of his serv-
ices for the veterans was this speech, with
its utterance of many things that the coun-
try needed to have said to ii, by a Senator
put forward as the leader and champion of
important financial legislation.
The first was his firm conviction that the
Pension Bureau has been as honestly and
capably administered as any other Depart
ment of the Government, and that the frauds
under its operation have been rs rare and es
unimportant as in any other disbursement
minds of his hearers that he fully believed
this, and with his unusual knowledge of
the matter this must have great weight
with the country
1t is strongly confrmatory Of the declaia-
tons by Commissioners Dudley and Black,
that after the most rigorous examination
they did not succeed in finding more than
one case in 1000, or the tenth of one per
cent of fraudulent cases. No other Bureau
of the Government can make better show
ing than this.
Edward Atkinson, the eminent statistician,
and who is not at all friendly to pensions,
bore similar testimony after careful study
of the pension system.
The next was his testimony as to tbs
immense value-to the common people of the
country and 10 the country at large of the
periodical payments by the Government of
large sums of money to the pensioners
scattered all over the land. He pointed out
how much more valuable as business factor
these were than any other way in which
money is paid out from the Treasury. The
money did not go into the Golfers of banks.
or be buried in safety deposit boxes, but
flowed out in every branching stream to the
very extremities of the body polite 1t was
as different from the disbursements to the
bondholders as water stagnating in a pond,
and water led by ramifying bitches to irri-
gate an arid plain.
What he said on this head was directly in
line with THE NATIONAL TRIBUYE's con-
slant teachings. We have repeatedly pointed
out how every dollar paid out through the
pension agencies, in few weeks does the
work of possibly 500 in the payment of
debts, and the quickening of the pulses of
business. Twenty-four dollars paid to Com
rade Jones, Of Unionville, on pension day
does not stay in his pocket even until he
reaches his little home. He stops on his
way to pay few dollars on his doctors
bill, to settle his account at the grocery. TO
buy pair of much-needed shoes for his
wife, and get some little comforts for him
SELF Two-thirds of his $24 are gone. But
the doctor meets a man whom he is owing.
and hands him the s. he has just received
from COmrade Jones, and he in turn is
likely to pay it to his butcher, who Iiqui-
dates with it bill he is owing the grocer.
Before the week ends Comrade Joness SIG
have likely paid several hundred dollars of
Indebtedness, before the storekeeper at
Unionville finally gathers it in, with other
similar sums, and deposits them in the bank
10 meet draft on him for the goods he has
bought months before in New York.
Senator Voorhees, agrees with Senator
Sherman's oft-expressed opinion that moth
ing helped SO much to end the panic of 1873
and bring the country to a resumption of
specie payments as the passage of the Ar
rears Bill, which distributed hundreds of
millions Of dollars directly TO the people,
enabling them TO pay at least 81 ,00O, 900, 900
of their Indebtedness, and start fair again
on a specie basis.
Taken altogether it was a very great
speech, in its logic, its common sense in its
history-in what it actually said, and in
what it suggested to all reasoning, thinking
men.