The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1893-08-17
THAT INVESTIGATION.


THAT INVESTIGATION.
| Again we return to our weekly duty Of
demanding an investigation of the pension
| roll in vindieation of the honor of soldiers
of the Union army.
Every week shows still more strongly the
wisdom as well as the duty of such an in
vestigation. Our enemies have clamored
that we fear and oppose an investigation.
In reply we have demanded an investigation
of the most searching and conclusive nature
and one that can be made without difficulty
and without expense to the Government.
And one of the strongest reasons in favor OF
the public mind is wrought up on the
matter, when it demands immediate infor-
nation, and when such information is i'm
peratively necessary to meet widespread
calumnies of the most injurious nature.
Other methods of investigation which have
been urged will involve great expense and
take years to make, during which time
public interest in the matter will have sub
sided, and hundreds of thousands Of those
whose soldierly honor is implicated, will
have gone to their graves with stigma
resting upon them.
Certainly matter which occupies columns
in every issue of at least half the news
papers of the country, which constantly calls
in question the honesty of about half the
total annual expenditures of the Govern
ment, should receive very prompt and seri-
GUS consideration by the Secretary of the
Interior and the Commissioner of Pensions.
It is not at all sufficient that they may
personally believe, as the Commissioner has
expressed it, in the honesty of pensioners as
mass. The matter has assumed a magni-
tude where the beliefs or unbeliefs of any
one man, no matter how high his station,
are of little consequence. The people have
had quite enough of beliefs and disbeliefs
from all sources. What they want now are
absolute facts upon which to rest and shape
their own beliefs.
If by taking handful of wheat from the
center of a carload man can satisfy him
self to the fraction of cent as to the value
Of the thousands of bushels in the car-if
thin boring into the middle of barrel of
-four will show the worth of the contents of
the entire barrel-if the gold contents of
1000 tons of ore can be determined by the
assay of shovelful taken from the dump,
then the merits of the whole 100000 pen
sioners on the roll can be quickly and salts
factorily shown by giving the absolute facts
concerning 1000 or 1000 cases taken from
the middle of the whole mass of allowed
claims.
We have merely asked the Commissioner
to apply to the pension-roll a business.
method with which our people are entirely
familiar, aud which they use daily in de-
termining the value of the billions of dollars
worth of property in the country.
We again repeat that this investigation is
demanded by the people of the country that
they may satisfy themselves fully as to the
rightfulness of the expenditure of some
$3.50 O00,0 600 year for pensions; the veter-
ans and friends of veterans demand it to
show whether or not those in receipt of
pansions are properly entitled to the money
they receive, and, finally, the Commissioner
ought to make the investigation of his own
accord, in order to justify his policy before
the people and taxpayers, of whom he is
the servant.
We sincerely hope that he will see the
force of these reasons. and hesi-
tate no longer to order the investigation.