The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1893-06-16
SECRETARY SMITHS RULING.
\ Move to Deprive Deserving Soldiers OF
Their Just Dues.

Inelr just Dues.
The new pension ruling by Secretary
Smith is practically to the effect that
claimant under the act of 1890. known
as the dependent pension law. must be
totally incapacitated for manual labor
before he can receive assistance from
the government. This construction of
the statute in question is calculated
not only to prevent large number of
needy soldiers from obtaining pensions,
but also to take pensions away from
many to whom they have already been
granted; and the boast is made that
fifteen million to twenty million dollars
per year will thus be saved. The law
declares in general terms that all sol
diers ''who are now or may hereafter
be suffering from mental or physical
disability of a permanent character,
not the result of their own vicious hab-
its, which ineapacitates them from the
performance of manual labor in such
degree as to render them unable to earn
a support" shall be entitled to pensions
of not more than twelve dollars per
month and not less than six dollars per
month each, ''proportioned to the de-
gree of inability to earn support
This surely does not mean that a man
must be pauper in order to secure a
pension. If it had been the intention
of congress to confine the benefits of
the law to the totally and helplessly
disabled, as Secretary Smith holds,
then a single rate would have been
fixed, and nothing would have been
said about degrees OF disability. The
meaning of the act clearly is that a
man who is only partially incapacitated
may be granted a pension, only ii must
be less than that allowed to a man who
is unable to do any work.
1t may be true, as charged, that Com
missioner Raum was too liberal in his
Interpretation of the law, and that the
maximum rate was granted in most
cases without proper discrimination;
but this does not justify Secretary
Smith in ruling that total disability
alone shall be regarded as valid claim
in any case. He has no right to enforce
the law in such way as to defeat its
evident and benefcent purposes. II
pensions have been improperly allowed
they ought to be revoked Nobody
will undertake to defend or excuse viola
lions of the law in the interest of the
soldiers any more than against them.
The people want the pension system
conducted in fair and just manner,
and upon the theory of causing it to
do the most possible good to those for
whom the money is appropriated; but
they do not want its usefulness cur
tailed by technical distinctions for
which there is no reasonable warrant
1t is true that the pension expenditures
are very large, but it Is equally true
that they represent a debt which the
country is not at all disposed to repudi-
ate. The dependent pension bill was de-
signed to reach all soldiers who arr
permanently disabled, and to help them
according to the degree of their ina
bility to earn living by manual labor.
That is what it says in plain words,
and that is the only view that can logic
ally be taken of IL Secretary Smith
has perfect right to promote the cause
of economy in all authorized and suita-
bic ways; bat he has not the right to
save money for the government by TAX
ing OF Withholding it from those to
whom It legally belongs.-St. Louis
Globe-Den,oc-at
An Infant Iadustry.-Baby farm