The National tribune., 1894-04-05

| w nat patience can anyone nave WIFI
the preposterous idea that 20 years after
the close Of the rebellion is not ample
time for the Government to close its
accounts with the veterans.
About 100000 unsettled claims in
the Pension Bureau 20 years after the
close of the war; Just think of it.
THE NEW YORK TIMES'S SENSATIONS.
The second instalment of the New
York Times's sensational investigations of
the 5000 pensioners Of the State of New
| York, whose names it claims to have,
has come out in pension supplement"
which is mainly filled up with praises of
its own smartness, loud promises of what
it is going to develop, and extracts from
other soldier-hating papers lauding its
"great work"
In this issue it devotes itself to Water
town and Potsdam, and has discovered
there several pensioners who to the eyes
of its reporters seem fairly strong and
healthy" though some of them are So
years old and even older. Two or three
of these actually 60 hunting occasionally,
which the Times seems to think is an
objectionable sin in pensoner, though
the pension laws strangely enough omit
all prohibitions against INDUCING in this
recreation.
Again, we must remark upon how
valuable must be the opinion of the
Illness young men upon the physical
condition of the pensioners as opposed to
the conscientious verdict of the medical
experts, who made searching exami-
nations, and presented medical facts,
which were afterward carefully scruti-
nized by another board of medical ex-
perts in the Pension Bureau.
The Times has made the startling dis
covery that a number of pensioners
I" live in comfortable houses, are active
business men, and are estimated by their
neighbors to be worth from 81, 900 to
$4,000" What in the world has this
got to do with it? The property feature
was discussed to the fullest extent in
Congress and elsewhere before the laws
were passed. There was an overwhelm-
ing weight of opinion against making
pensions pauper allowances, and it was
rightfully held everywhere that pen
sion for disabilities is the payment of a
contracted debt, which the Government
owed the soldier, which was part of
the stipulations when he entered its
service, and which it owes him just as
much if he is worth 100000 as
if he is not worth dime. Nothing
could have been more effectually repu-
dated than the pauper idea, which it
was rightfully said was, in addition to
its legal injustice, highly immoral, in
that it punished the pensioner for being
industrious and thrifty and put pre-
MUM on Incidence and dissipation.
The Southerners repudiated the idea
equally strongly when the Mexican
pension bill came up, and insisted that
it should be service pension pure and
simple, as most of the previous pension
legislation of the country had been, and
given the soldier without reference to
his worldly circumstances. 1t is mat
ter of record that one of the first men
to claim under the Mexican pension law
was "Cerro Gordo" Williams, then a
Senator from Kentucky, one of the
wealthiest men in the State, and who
had been Major General in the rebel
army.
One of the "pension frauds" which the
Times has singled out is Maj. VIM. III
Walling, Of Potsdam. He was First
, Lieutenant in the 142d N. Y, and wa,
several times promoted for bravery. he
J particularly distinguished himself al
Fort Fisher, where he captured rebel
flag and was severely wounded, from
which he suffers to this day, and fol-
|; which he draws a pension of $24 {
month. The charge the Times makes
: against him is that he is a hardware
merchant, sis probably worth s25,00Q'
and does not need his pension.