The National tribune., 1894-01-11
AN OPEN LETTER
To the Congress of the
United States.

OfNILbMEN. We apPeaA 10 you On pSb"h
of I'll 900 defrauded American citizens. W.
use the word defrauded" advisedfy. Yor
have heard, you still hear, much of "pensior
frauds" Nearly all this that reaches you
ears relates to mythical and imaginary ras
| Gals who, instigated by claim agents ant
not having the fear of God before their eyes
have wickedly, maliciously, and with malice
prepense and aforethought, inserted theil
several pipes into the bunghole of the
Treasury barrel, and are now living IN
guilty sffluence.
Undiseouraged by the marked failure Of
previous expenditure of 100000 to de-
velop these frauds, which the President
says are open and notorious in a thousand
communities. you recently appropriated
another 100000 to employ the best de-
iective talent ia the same line of iuvestiga-
ton. As you are sparing no money we are
content to wait results, merely expressing
the while or auazement that things which
the President says are matters of general
neighborhood knowledge, should cost so
enormously not to find out.
Leaving this class of frauds to the care
of the well-paid gentlemen in whose prov
ince they are, We beg you to turn your at
teHtion to another class of frauds, Of much
more momentous cbaracter-those perpe-
trated upon the ex-soldiers of the Union
and their dependent ones.
Even if the Presidents absurdly extraVa-
can't allegations were exactly true, the num-
Der and amount of the frauds practiced by
bogus claimants on the Treasury would not be
a drop in the bucket-nOt handful of sand
IN the desert-af the fraads which the United
States Government has practieed upon those
IN whom it owes its very existence, and to
whom it made the most solemn promises.
Let us recall to you the well-known fact
! hai 80 years ago the awful question of
whether this Gcvermms Mt shou d continue
to live or he bletted from the worlds politi-
cal map had 10 be answered at ouce-not by
politicians and editors, but by the whole of
the young manhood of the country. If it
was to continue the question had to be an
swered acknowledgement by speeches, reso-
buttons, and acts of Congress, but by mil
lions of fighting men resolutely determined
o overwheim millions of other fighting men
and defeat their wicked designs. The young
men of the loyal part of the Nation answered
the question afirmatively with the grandest
devotion and most heroic fighting that this
world ever saw. Two million of them
arraypd themselves under the National BAN
per, and struggled for four leng years with
nearly as many men arrayed against the Ma
lion. During thatfour years they fought more
than 1000 battles. many of them the blood
TEST in The annals of human warfare; they
wrested from their enemies a territory larger
han great European Empires, and in
the struggle they lost more of their number
killed On the field of battle than England
has lost in ali the fighting that she has done
in the 500 years that she has been Nation,
and while she has been extending her empire
around the globe. OF the 100000 men
who put on the blue, one in every IS was
killed outright, one in every six died of
disease, nearly one in every five was wound
ed, and one in every 10 was so badly disabled
that he he'd to be discharged before his term
Of service expired.
Thsse appalling figures, now unremem-
bered or unknown to the generation which
has arisen since the war, and to the millions
of foreign immigrants who have been adj
mitied to citizenship, were once only too
familiar to every community. Then the
President did not talk glibly about we'll
known pension frauds in thousands of neigh
borhoods. No; President Lincoln's great
heart was heavy with the grief that weighed
upon every neighborhood-tbe grief over its
newiy-slain, and the dread of whom the
news might add to the leugthen-
ing list of those who died for their country.
Out of the storm and stress of those terri
bic dsys-out of the dire need and the
heroism with which that need was met
there came the great VOW of the ehastened
people, which President Lincoln voiced in
declaration that it should henceforth be
the Nations solemn duty to care for him
vino had borne the heat and burden of the
battle, and for his sidow and orphans. This
Rad all the solemBity and sacredness of a
compact made by the ancient Israelites with
Jehovah in times of great trial fog the
people.
Now, gentlemen of Congress, how has that
promise been carried out? We ask you 10
look in the annual reports Of the Commits
sioners Of Pensions for an answer. Study
the columns there showing how long pen
sioBers have been compelled to wait for
the allowance of their pensions, and then
make brief mental calculation of how
many must have died for each one who sue