The great West. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1889-18??, 1893-07-28

some estimate of which can be formed
from the fact that experts have stated
that even under our liberal laws from
one-fifth to one fourth of our present
pensioners should never have been en-
rolled at all, and at least one-third of
those properly there, are SO grossly
misclassed as to be practically fraudu-
lent pensioners.
Touching the claims paid to real and
alleged widows, Mr.. Warner says:
Until lately widows were mainly
those who before the war had been the
wives of the soldiers in whose names
they made claim, and had resided
ever since in the communities whence
came the proof of their widowhood.
But of late the aggregate OF cases has
increased year by year. where design
ing girls have yoked themselves to de-
crepitude to secure public support for
the rest of their lives, or where irregu-
lar life is afterward preferred to mar
riage in order to retain the thus be-
draggled pension, or of claims either
based on relations such as the dead
veteran would have been first to dis
own as justifying the use of his name,
or false throughout and in favor OF
women who never saw the soldier for
whom they weep. 1t has increased
until the proportions Of unworthy
claims has grown into national scan
DIAL"
From list of outrageous frauds
given in Mr.. Warmers manly letter,
let us here call attention to but one
statement, that in one of the Middle
States in county of "a, 900 population
there are four families of illegitimate
children lone family having eight
children) whose fathers and mothers
were living and whose mothers were
drawing widows pensions. In two of
these cases, the parents married as
soon as the illicit Capitalization was
discovered at the pension bureau and
the pension stopped.
There are on the pension rolls, not
only skulkcrs, bounty jumpers and
criminals, but men in sturdy health,
earning their living by manual labor
and more than holding their own in
the rivalry of life-even serving as
efficient and fully paid government
officials. -who are in regular receipt
of full pensions for total disability,
not pretended to have been incurred in
the service, Added to these are other
tens of thousands who are among the
well-to-do and many Who may be
classed as wealthy, who do not claim
disadvantages resulting from the serv-
ice, and yet they have by perjury and
the suborning of perjury quartered
themselves on q nations treasury. In
stances of this kind do not need to be
mentioned-scarcely a community ex-
lists without one or more notorious
cases.
Mr.. Warner truly says: 1T is those
who vociferously derrecatc the COM
polling of a veteran, who has not been
injured by service, to prove necessity
before being awarded a pension for
his support, who are really blackening
the blue and insulting the flag. Pow
erty is no disgrace; but it is a dishonor
needlessly to become public burden,
and necessity is the one excuse which
the self-respecting man should be per-
mitted to offer-and the one which the
less sensitive should be compelled to
prove before being allowed to put
himself in this position
Some caviling member of Fost
or some political whip may
seek to throw opprobriums upon
those who agree with the
above sentiments, and may openly
charge that the persons expressing
such views were either ''copperheads''
or "ba bes" during the war. To such
it is retorted that some of the most
stentorian shriekers for liberal pensions
have been those whose business
called them to Canada from go to '65,
but who came home when peace
broke OUT and who have been scalp
ing rebels ever since ''for revenue
only" or who were like John j. In
gals. court-martialing chicken-thieves
in the rear when bullets were singing
their pseans OF death in the front
Here is an extract from the Grand
Army Gazet.e:"
mo American can afford to neglect
this important matter. With pen
sion roll greater than the number of
men in the field at the close of the
war of the ruDellion-and NEST of those
lie in honored graves-and with an ex-
penditure of over $1oO, 600. 900 year
for this one item. it behooves those in,
terested in the real veterans, and the
tried and true veterans themselves. to
be up and doing =. Every dol
lar paid in fraud is stolen, not alone
from the patient taxpayer, but from
deserving veterans Strike, comrades!
while the iron is hot. and if it should