St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1895-09-13
TWO PRESENTATIONS

Following this Commander Lawler
said the comrades had decided to hon
or Past Commander Gen. John Palmer
of Albany, n. Y, by presenting him
faithful performance of his duty while
he was commander. The token was a
solid silver tea set. Judge Coehrane,
who made the presentation, spoke
briefly and to the point. He was sure
the boys could not have presented the
gift to any one more deserving. In
accepting the present Gen. Palmer
spoke feelingly: Il can scarcely find
words to express my gratitude to you,
my comrades" he said. II shall al
1t as the most precious of all my po-
sessions"
The next feature was the presenta.
ton of gavel made of gold, silver
mond, rubies and sapphires, to Com
mander Lawler. 1t was presented to
him by Senior Vice Commander Cleary,
OF Montana, in behalf of the Montana
division. 1t was given because Gen.
Lawler was the first commander-in-
chief who ever visited the Montana
posts. AS soon as the preliminary
programme was over Commander
Lawier delivered his annual address,
in the course of which he said:
u have Travelled about $4,000 miles
during the year. While the work has
been hard, yet the deep fervent spirit
of fraternity shown me by comrades
everywhere, and the loyal demonstra-
tions of the people in every depart-
ment visited, has made the years work
one of the pleasantest and happiest of
my life. Veneration and esteem for
the comrades and love for the old
nag was manifested everywhere, and
through this beautiful Southland, from
nearly every school house and public
building in the cities where the depart
ment encampmentS were held, old
Glory was flying"
LAWLER ON PENSIONS.
The commander-in-chief reported a
loss in membership during the year of
present number being 357, ,639 On the
subject of pensions he said:
IhFS is question that we as an
organization, feel a deep interest in.
We know that all the legislation en-
acted by congress in the interest of
the old soldier has been brought about
by or through the influence of this
Grand Army of the Republfc-and
those of us who are more fortunate
physically than others propose to keep
1t up just as long as we live. And
while we are not asking for any new
pension legislation, we do ask and in
Sist that when a law is passed by con-
gress that its provisions as intended
by them shall be carried out and not
misconstrued and misapplied by any
man or set of men of any party who
may be in power. | am not lawyer,
but l know the verdict of any court of
loyal men would be that after a man
has furnished the proofs and has been
granted pension, that pension cannot
be taken away from him without due
process of law. / know this is being
done, however, all over the land, for
I have seen the evidences of it in every
department in which l have been
pensions reduced from $12 to So, and
from S8 to $6, and many cut off en-
tire. Then again, man who applied
for pension two and three years ago
will receive a notice that his claim is
rejected, then notified that his case
is reopened and allowed, but only from
the time of reopening, thus cheating a
worthy man out of $500 or so. Many
Of our comrades thus dealt with are
not able to bring suit to test the con-
stitutiouality of this sort of ruling of
a pension commissioner. / would,
therefore, recommend that the incom-
ing counsel of administration be en-
powered to select a case and prose-
cute the same. 1t has been the custom
of encampmentS to appoint commit
tee to prepare some testimonial for the
retiring commander-in-chief. l recon-
mend that no such committee be ap-
pointed this year, but that this money
be used in making test case as to the
constitutionality of the act of June q,
$780,
ION my first visit to washington, u.
G. (when I did not see the presidenD
my heart was panied as 1 listened to
the recital of the sufferings of our
comrades, caused by their dismissal
from the departments, and their belief
in the power of our great organization
to again restore them to places from
which they claim they were dropped
without cause, convinced me that we
ought to have a special committee to
look after and help them. do there
fore recommend that my successor be
empowered to appoint a committee of
three fnr. this work -