Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1894-04-25
Honor to the Veterans!

Certain Administration organs, act
ing presumably underinstructions from
Westinghouse are waging malignant and
treacherous warfare upon Union pen
sioners. The ISLANDERS uttered by these
organs, and gleefully echoed and ap-
plauded by the mouthpieces of South
ern Bourbonism, will not hurt the vet
Grams. But they illustrate the hatred
with which the Cleveland Administra-
ton and the ruling element in the
Democratic party regard the grayhaired
men whose courage and loyalty saved
this Republic from Democrats treason.
The President who vainly attempted to
restore corrupt monarchy in Hawaii
and who has used all the power at his
command to destroy American industry
and beggar American citizens, regards
Union pensioners with undisgusted hos
tility. His official advisers and large
majority of his party heartily sympa-
thize with him. Nothing that the Cleve-
land Administration could do to deprive
veterans of hard won pensions has been
left undone. No subterfuge has been
too mean; no pretext has been too trivial
for Hoke Smith to use in robbing the
old soldiers of their just dues. No libel
against the veterans has been too afro
cious for the Cleveland organs to print
in the futile endeavor to defame the
men whose records are constant re-
proach to the President who hired a
substitute to face danger for him.
But the nation is not deceived. The
fame of the men who bore the Stars
and Stripes through four years of diff
Guilty and danger, of suffering and
blood, to grand and final triumph. is
sure for all time. The maligners of the
heroes who followed Grant and Sher-
man and Thomas and Mead have made
themselves odious to every patriotic
American. They can not make the
Nation forget the services of the men
who saved it. They can not rob the
veterans of the gratitude of the Ameri-
can people. The Press has shown that
the highest point in pension payments
has been reached. and that henceforth
the disbursements for this purpose are
likely to diminish rapidly. But the
amount paid for pensions matters lit
tie. The soldiers of the Union did not
count the cost when they offered their
strength, their manhood and their lives
rs u free gift to their country. The
Nation which owes its existence TO their
valor and their devotion does not make
return with a niggard's hand. The
| people have decreed that no veteran
and no veteran s widow shall want for
the necessities of life or tread the stony
path that leads. to the -almshouse. The
Administration whose constant aim is
to lessen the veterans bounty, and
whose proudest achievement is the
snatching of a pension from an old
soldier trembling hand, has earned
the condemnation and contempt of
every loyal citizen.
In ancient days the man who saved
the life of a Roman citizen was enti
tied to wear, as a badge of honor, a
laurel wreath. The soldiers of the
Union saved the life Of the Republic;
and the pension voted by grateful
country is their Sadge of honor. The
men who seek to take it from them by
tricks and bubbles, who garb their
malice under the cloak of hypocrisy
and cover their treachery with the
pretense of patriotism, are guilty of
baseness-which makes the crime of the
highway robber seem honorable by
comparison. The nation reveres the
veterans who preserved it, Grover
Cleveland and his associates will find
to their cost when the next election
comes that the American people will
neither forgive nor forget injustice to
the defenders of the American Re-
public. New York Press.