The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1894-05-24
THE GREAT DIFFICULTY.

the pension problem is to make the gen.
Grafton which has come upon the stage
of action since the war, and the foreign
ers who have immigrated hither since
1866, understand the immensely of the
conflict. This is the point that the SOL
dier-hating papers studiously keep in
the background. They constantly en-
large upon the magnitude of the pen
sion-roll, the greatness of the pension
payments, the length of time which has
elapsed since the war, etc. But they care
fully keep out of sight the. length and
bitterness Of the struggle, the number Of
bloody battles fought, the myriads of men
engaged, the sickening slaughter and
wounding, and the inconceivable hard
ships suffered. They will fill columns
about "Coxey's army" and yet not re-
call that Coxey did not bring to Wash
ington one fve-thousandth of as many
men as served in the Union army, and
that they did not, altogether, go through
as much as a three-months or 100-days
regiment which saw minimum of serv-
ice.
OF the people living in the United
States to-day only one in every 60 saw
actual service in the Union army. Four
out of every five of them have been born
or immigrated into the country since the
war. They have as little conception of
its magnitude as they have of the dis
lance between the planets.
1t is the plan of the soldier-hating
papers and speakers to keep them thus
ignorant. They never expatiate on the
fact that the Government moved against
the rebels in opening the campaign of
1864 the enormous number of 100000
effective men, probably twice or thrice
the number of electives ever moved
before into battle. That within 80
days after the operations began fully
100000 of these were either dead
or wounded, and that another 80
days saw another 100000 killed or
wounded, and that Virginia and north
ern Georgia became vast charnel-houses,
with new-made graves as common as the
bullet-scarred trees. That everywhere
along the long fighting line there was an
unceasing tide of stalwart, brave, enthu-
siastic young men ever pressing onward
to the battlefront, and an equally cease
less tide of shattered, manned, broken
men struggling painfully to the rear and
the shelter and help of the hospitals.
The homes, farms and factories of the
North were constantly drained of their
youths to supply the gaps made in the
ranks by the merciless storms of war.
Myriads of neutrality-suspicious. could not
gather in men as fast as the fighting de-
voured them.
1t is these facts that the young men
and women of to-day find as hard to
understand as they do the fury, the
wreck and ruin of tornado in some
distant State.
They shudder at the report of half
dozen killed in railroad accident or a
score swept away by tornado, but they
do not remember that 10000 men went
down in 20 minutes before the merciless
storm of death that beat upon them
from the rebel breastworks at Cold
Harbor and that regiments which went
into the Wilderness 1000 strong left
from one-half to twc-thirds of their
number lying in its gloomy shadows.
They do not reflect that in single battles
more men were killed and manned than
in all the railroad accidents, all the tor
nadoes, all the mine explosions in the
history of the country.
Could they be made to realize only
portion of this they would cease to Won
der that the pension list is so large.
They would rather wonder that it is not
surprisingly larger.
The old theologians made sharp dis
tinction between contrition and at