The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1893-12-28
AN OPEN LETTER
To the Commissioner Of
Pensions.
Hon. WTIliana Lochren.

next number of The NATIONAL TRIBUNE,
| with its doubtless valued words of friendly
advice and fraternal admonition, shall reach
you the year 1893 will belong to the irreclaim-
able Past It's fearful record, it's long, sad
story of sorrows and heart breakings, its
| gruesome roll of National promises belied,
of broken National faith, of migrate sacrifice
of the country's defenders, will have been
| brought to a close The most sorrowful
chapter in the history of the veterans will
have ended. The years list of their dead
will have reached far up toward two score
thousand. The mounds rising over their
new-made graves, if placed together, would
make a mountain; the needless, excuseless
miseries they and those yet living have suf-
fered are more than mountainous in aggre-
gate. Powerless prisoners in the fangs of
Age and Disease, with Deaths feshless
hands clutching remorsely at their hearts,
yet their cruelest pangs were that the coun-
try for which they had given all had de-
serted them in their day of direst need.
Thoughts of this kind must swarm upon
you, Comrade Lochren, as you mentally re-
view the history of the dying year. Even
were you not in your present position, you
would still he saddened as you thought over
the year, and recalled how many men of your
immediate acquaintance, whom you remem-
bered as stalwart, courageous, patriotic
youths, caring nothing for themselves, but
everything for the country, spending their
strength as recklessly in her service as if
OF no more value than Autumn leaves, who
became prematurely aged and broken, aching
with thousand pains, and then passed
away like candle flames in drafty night.
How many, in the remnants of your regi-
ment, brigade and division have thus disap.
peared during the past II months? How
many of these had to wait weary years for
their meager pensions? How many were
subjected to the most vexatious inquisitions
and subterfuges for delay? How many were
cruelty deprived during their last days of
the means to procure absolute neeessaries,
and how many actually died defrauded of
their pensions? The number of these, even
in the relatively limited circle of your per-
sonal acquaintance must startle you. What
must, therefore, be the awful aggregate when
you apply that same ratio to the whole of the
III 900 cases now pending in the Pension
Bureau.
But, as we have said before, all these
things are now bygones. They belong to the
irrevocabIe past. Much as we may deplore
them they are now beyond Human remedy
or amendment. The burning question is
whether 1894 shall be an atonement for or
an aggrayation of 1893 1t will be one or
the other. A continuation of the present
policy viii be deep aggravation, for it will
be sin against the light gained by fuller
knowledge and experience. Things that in
1893 might have been excusable through
want of knowledge or misrepresentation Of
facts, will lack that excuse in 1894. Then,
again, the veterans are a year older; they
are long Sabbathday's journey nearer the
grave; their wounds and disabilities, their
pains and Embellishments increase In an arith-
metical-yes, a geometrical-ratio with
every solstice. The injustice of denial and
delay becomes more fragrant every month,
when men and women have reached the
point when their span of life is reckoned by
months rather than by years.
1t is incredible, COmrade Lochreu, that,
standing at the threshold of the New Year,
and looking back over the past, you do not
see much to regret and wish otherwise. We
all do this at the close of the year, even
though during it we have not as you did
entered upon a great office filled with COM
pick and perplexing duties for which there
could be no previous preparation. Only
superhuman intelligence could have avoided
RIItfOu5 VI oLIi6SioH euu COmulS-
sion.
The best that we erring mortals of every
station in life-whether plain citizens or
Pension Commissioners-can do is TO hon
estly try to avoid repeating the disastrous
errors of the past.
In common with the rest of US you are
now doubtless forming your good resolutions
for New Years. We commend to your ear
nest attention the stirring lines of Tennyson,
which are always popular at this season of
the year:
Ring out, wild bells. 10 the wild slcy,
Tue flying cloud. the frosty light;
The year Is dying in the night;
| Ring out wild bells and let him die.
Ring out the old, ring in the new,
| Ring. happy bells. across the snow,
The year Is going let him go.
| Ring out the false. ring ia the true.
Ring out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here more;
Ring out the feud Of rich and poor.
| Ring in redress TO all mankind.
| Ring out the slowly dying cause
| And ancient forms of party strife;
| Ring in the nober modes OF life
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