The National tribune., 1894-04-05
"a 1T NOT HIGH TIMEe

ment settled its accounts with its ex-sol-
diers?
In few weeks it will be exactly 20
years since the last hostile shot was
fired in the war of the rebellion-since
the last enemy sullenly frlrled his flag
in defeat, and since the last wardrum
shattered the silence with its defiant
roll.
Outside the Pension Bureau how full
the world has been Of great achieve
ments in those 80 momentous years
Without its quiescent walls men have
swept on from one great achievement to
another with the resistless energy of the
Mississippi current. Inside them the
activity seems to have been mostly an
eddy, which turned around and around,
year in and year out, without going for
ward.
When the Pension Bureau began the
work of settling the claims of the sol
diers of the rebellion there were but
100000 people in the country. To-
day there are 100000. The popu-
lation of the country has more than
doubled. We have added to our Ma
ton more people than there are in great
European countries like France, Spain,
or Italy, yet the Pension Bureau has
still about 100000 unsettled claims ly-
ing in its pigeon-holes.
When the Bureau began its work the
National wealth was about $16,000,000,-
900. 1t is now, in spite of the Wilson
Bill. more than s65,0O0,00O,O00. The
busy, tireless workers of the country have
more than quadrupled its wealth, while
the Pension Bureau, after 80 years of
employment, has still before it, unsettled,
one-third as many claims as there were
men in the Union army.
When the Pension Bureau began the
consideration of the claims of Union
soldiers, there were but $4,000 miles of
railroad in the United States. To-day
there are $4,000 miles. While the
Pension Bureau has been dawdling over
the business it was created to perform,
the railroad mileage has been nearly
sextupled, the far-of Pacific coast has
been bound to the Nation by three great
iron highways which have crossed track
less deserts, climbed great mountain
chains, and changed the bowling wilder
nesses to smiling farms and homes of
peace and plenty.
When thousands of the unsettled
claims that have grown yellow and
dusty in the pigeon-holes of the Bureau
were first filed there were but So States;
now there are A Nebraska, Nevada, Da-
kota, and Washington were Territories;
Idaho, Montana and Wyoming were
unknown on the maps of the United
States for years after. The fourishing
cities of Omaha, Denver, Kansas City,
and Minneapolis we're then struggling
villages; Chicago did not have one
sixth of her present population. New
York had about one-third, and Philadel-
phia one-half of their present inhabit-
ants.
Building cities, creating States, SUBJ
DUNG the wilderness and the desert to
civilization, gridironing the land with
misunderstanding seems possible to
Americans, except the honest settlement
of the debts due the men who fought
for and saved the country.
Nor has the rest of the world been
idle while the Pension Bureau has been
pothering over these claims. When some
of the claims which were recently al
lowed were first filed, Germany and Italy
were but geographical names for con-
geries of little, di.jointed, warning, dis
cordant States, Principalities, Duke
doms, Electorates, Bishoprics, etc. Now
they are great nations, united and pow
erful. Louis Napoleon was then the
mightiest potentate and France the first
nation in Europe. The German En-
peror was then merely King of an am
bilious little country. Servia, Bulgaria,
and Roumania, now household words,
were then only known to students of his
! tory Russia had MT tban addad 10 bo,