People's voice. [volume] (Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas) 1890-1917, 1894-11-01
THE PENSION COMMISSIONS n
ON PENSION FRAUDS.
JUDGE LONGS CASE REVIEWED
Declares He Has Obtained $1,000 to
Which lie WIS Never En- tiled Dis
honest Pension Attorneys and
Claim Age It's Severely De-
nounced-The Suspending
OfSuspicious Tensions

Aoner Lochren of the pension bureau,
II his annual report, reviews the case
Of Judge Long of the Michigan
supreme court at some length, saying:
This case has attracted wide at
tention because of the fact that the
pensioner is one of the judges of the
supreme court of Michigan and has
upon the rostrum and through the
press unstintingly denounced the
bureau and myself for alleged arbi-
trary and illegal proceedings in the
reduction of his pension, and because
of the suit instigatel by him in this
district against myself to prevent
such reductions.
1T is quite clear that under an
honest but mistaken int probation of
the pension laws by prior commits.
sioners this pensiOner has obtained
from the treasury more than 5000 to
which he was never lawfully entitled.
Should he make good his assertions
that lie will take this case for decision
TO the supreme court of the United
States he may, when it shall be final
ly decided, consider the propriety of
returning this money to the treasury"
The commissioner discusses the
work of special examiners which have
been criticised in congress and else
where, saying.
The report of the chief of division
exhibits the character of its work.
Cases which have merit but in which
the claimant has not been able to OBJ
tain essential evidence, with such in
formation in respect to witnesses as
the bureau can obtain, have been
placed in the hands of special exam
liners, who are often able to discover
and obtain the evidence necessary to
prove the claims. The larger part of
the force is always kept employed in
this class of work. But the special
examination division, aided, as it is,
by the law division, constitutes the
main protection which the gov
ernment| has against fraud and
imposition. Most of the pension at
torneys and claim agents are capa-
Bile and honorable, but some among
them are the most dishonest and un-
scrupulous of men, dealing habitually
in perjury, forgery and every specie
OF fraud. Without special examiners
the villany of such men would oper-
ate without check or fear of detec-
ton and be generally successful.
And it is too often now in spite of all
safeguards. Such men attract the
unworthy as clients-the bounty
jumpers, towards and deserters, and
the fraudulent maligners.
'As many of their crimes are discov-
cred, their fraudulent cases over
thrown and themselves and their
guilty confederates brought to pun
ishmeht by the work of special en-
aminers there were 1914 convictions
for pension frauds last year,, it is but
natural that such men and their
clients should be loud and unceasing
in decrying special examiners as
spies, and seeking with the aid of uu-
scrupulous partisan newspapers and
politicians to create prejudice
against special examiners in the minds
of deserving pensioners and others.
The worthy and deserving soldiers
who are still modest in the race for
pensions are elbowed to the rear by
the unworthy in their continued strug-
gle for pensions and increases as
when operating for bounties. They
crowd themselves to the front at all
soldiers gatherings with resolutions
for more pensions, and denunciatious
of every regulation tending to I'M
mask dishonesty and fraud as 'un-
friendly to the soldier" Their insat-
liable greed and detestation of all
resolutions made to insure honesty
and restrain or discover fraud, shame
lessly proclaimed, has done much to
lower the regard which would other
wise be universally manifested for
the deserving soldier. 1t has been
reported that the attempt to discover
frauds is a new movement and credit
been given me in that direction to
which | am not fairly entitled"
The provision placed on the pen
sion appropriation bill December 81,
1893, preventing the commissioner
from suspeuding pensions until
fraud had actually beer established,
the commissioner says, has been car
ried out, but with no advantage to
the bureau. He continues:
THE effect of this provision is to
take from the officers of this burea IL
the power to interfere where the Y
plainly see the treasury being plum
dered by the fraudulent and un-
worthy. could cite numberless in
stances of pensioners having no title,
pensioners drawing more than one
pension, widows, who have remarked.
continued to draw pensions, and all
manner of fraudulent and illegal
pensions, where the treasury would
continue to be plundered for time
with the knowledge of the officers of
this bureau, who, because of that
/ provision, were rendered powerlesS
| to prevent it.