The morning times., 1895-08-20

In an open letter to Commissioner of Pen
sions Lochren, Corporal James a. Tan
ner, eX Commissioner OF Pensions, and
colonel of the Union Veteran Legion, OF this
city, protests against 1.-The outraGes per-
petrated through the Pension Office on
dying meu"
Col. Tanner expressly states that he be-
Iievgs the wrongs have beeu done without
the knowledge OF the commissioner He
holds responsible a number of the subordi-
mates, one OF whom DR. w S Bell, he names,
and the information as to the others he
promises to furnish for au investigation.
The peremptOry dismissal Of DIR. Bell is
demanded and a searching inquiry is re-
qiested, although, Col. Tanner says, some
of the suborliuates complained of are like
himself, old soldiers, Republicans, aud
themselves pensioners.
The full text OF the letter follows:
THE OPEN LETTER
"Washiugtou, b c., August 10, 1895
'Hou William Lochreu, Commissioner Of
Pensions.
yDearJudge The ewarmpersoualfriend
ship existing between us the unBoundcd
courtesy ana kindness that l have always
experienced at your hands, my thorough
knowledge of your individual gentieness
ana large sense OF justice is the only apology
l have for writing what have to say 10
you on thes tartI Intend shall be d very frank
letter
You are,I think, Individually about the
most thoroughly misunderstood man in
the United States. | have said this to
you personally 1 have astouished, not
to say astounded, many OF my Old soldier
Republican friends by calling a halt time
and again in their denunciations Of you, in
telling them OF what 1 believed TO be your
innate desire 10 do exact justice wherever
ana whenever you can have personal knOwI-
edge on which TO base your official action
People generally over the country have
not the slightest idea of how much of the
business of the Pension Office Is done over
the stamped signature of the Commissioner,
and OF which business the Commissioner has
no personal kno wledge whatever. l told
you long since that your reputation was
being murdered over this country and par
ticulany i'll old soldier circles by thousands
of outrages perpetrated through your Of
flee on dying men. of which outrages you
had no personal knowledge, and would not
countenance or permit if you had that per
sonaI knowledge, but which before the
country atlarge you have to take the respon-
sibility.
QUICK TO RECTIFY.
Il can truthfully say this. that while /
have gone to you scoresof times with state
ments and dpapersconnectedw with cases " here
injustice was being W rOught, have not gone
yet but that when had convinced you of the
injustice, you made hot haste to rectify
it. The main trouble is in the medical
division, and l think the condition OF af-
fairs WAS very fully and cOnCisely summed
up in an expression made TO me this very
day by an old emplOye of the office, when
he said to me that there were lots of men
there who, under the previous adninistra-
tiOn, if a man sneezed three times, would
hold that he was entitled to a pension, to-
day could not find a case that, i'll their opin-
ion, was sufficiently Well proven to warrant
u pension.
Il had the honor to-day to call your at
tcution to the case of Charles N. Knapp,
late Company A. Twenty->iXth Massachu-
Setts, now and for years past an inmate
of an hospital at Los Angeles, Cal. Claim
rejected on the ground that the medical ex-
anlina tiOu showed that he was not disabled
in a pensionable degree under the disabiIi-
ties alleged for earning a support by manual
labor; and yet the report of the medical
board that examined him showed that when
ne appeared before the board he had teen
brought out of the hospital to appear fore
them, and had to have the services of an
attendant to get there.
when you read ME that report you had
no hesitancy in stating to ME as you did,
| that clearly that man was entitled to a
| pension. At MY request you called in your
medical referee, DR.. Featherstonhaugh
| He read the report land said the same thing.
! Then 1 produced the notice of rejection,
| and an affidavit of one of the most reputa-
! blephySicians ofLos Angeles-a man withno
! possible interest in a claim, who declares
under oath that this man is not only en-
! tirely unable to perform any manual labor,
| but that he VIII never on this earth be able
! TO do again a days work.
DR. BELL THE MAN
You and your medical referee prompt
! ly reversed the action OF rejection, and this
man gets justice. l was informed before I
! left the building that the member of the
| medical staff who had acted upon the case
and rejected it was oneDr. W s. Bell, an
| oCtogenaran, twenty years employed in
! the office, Republican in politics, himself
a pensioner at $30 per month, but, as
| was told, one who could seldom see that an
| other veteran was entitled to pension.
Il asked you in the privacy ofyUur room,
and l ask you now III eommunica ton
| which l hope may find its way to publicity
! through the channels of the press, If there
was not some decent Democrat of medical
education that you would do the old soldier
claimants the justice of putting in this
mans place.
81 have some reputation as man who
has great sympathy with my old comrades.
| | tell you now that l would much prefer.
in view OF the light afforded by his action
| in this case, TO have any surviving surgeon
of the Confederate army sit in the medl-
cal division TO decide upon the claims of
Union veterans i'll preference TO men of the
deCayed faculties, disposition and conse-
| auent advanced senility evidenced by this
man DR.. W. s. Bell.
1.-The newspapers have repeatedly re-
ported cases where old soldiers have had
their pensions reduced or their claims re-
| iected and have gone out i'll the woods
and hanged them selves, and in other in
| stances drowned themselves. | read OF
1 one within a, week. Knowing the order
| of procedure i'll the office as l do,