The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1895-04-11
AN OPEN LETTER
To the Commissioner OF
Pensions.

SIR: We call your attention to the
following local item from the Philadel-
phia Record. We will say by way OF
premise that the Record is paper which
has been conspicuous in Its demands for
"pension REFORM and its editorials
have been particularly severe upon the
" frauds" shirks, -" cofee-coolers, ETC.,
"who disgrace the pension-rolL" 1t is
one of the many soldier-hating papers
which we have constantly taken to task
for the discrepancies between the facts
which its editorials allege to exist and
the actual facts found by its reporters
who come in contact with those who are
in receipt of pensions 1t is one Of the
papers which we have constantly urged
and challenged to send reporters to in
vestigate those in its neighborhood
who are in receipt of pensions We
have repeatedly dared it and other papers
of similar mind to give us the exact
truth concerning any numbers of pen
sioners within the scope of It's knowledge,
and have promised to cheerfully abide
by the result of such an examination.
Not one of these papers has ventured to
accept our challenge. They feared to do
so. They realized that the pensioners in
their particular locality were all right,
but alleged that there were vast numbers
somewhere else who were all wrong. 1t
was in vain that we insisted that pen
sioners were alike everywhere, and that
the condition of things in any one COM
munity was the same as in every other.
All things considered, the services and
the hardships of the war were pretty
equally distributed, and 100 or 1000
veterans in any one place represented
about the same amount of fighting,
suffering and enduring as the same
number in any other place. Men may
have put in three years in the Army
Of the Potomac, of the James, the Cum
berland, the Gulf, the Tennessee, Of
the Frontier, but the rebels in front
of them were the same, had the
same kind of guns, and fought with the
same tenacity. One man had to en-
counter the miasma Of the Mississippi,
another the mud and bleak storms of
the Cumberland and Virginia, and an
other roasted on the sands in front of
Charleston, but the result was the same
Shot and shell tore him, and the ex-
posure sapped bis young manhood. But
here is the item, the plain, brief story of
some reporter who was only anxious to
get at the facts, and present them in the
most concise form:
DISABLED SOLDIER MoUREED BECAUSE
his PENSION WAS REDUCED.
The prolonged stay of Joseph Kneipp, a
veteran, In his room, at No 2013 Peare
street, yesterday morning, caused his wife
Lille 20 make an investigation. The idea
occurred TO her too late, however, for when
She entered his room she found her husband
hanging TO bedpost, with no spark Of life
remaining. Policeman Gibson, of the Seven
ieeDth District, cut down the body and noti-
fed the Coroner of the case.
Kneipp's pension was recently reduced
from Sl2 TO So per month. He had been a
sufferer from ca,arrh Of the stomach and
several other complaints contracted in the
war and which incapacitated him for work
The pension was all the elderly couple had
10 live on and when il was reduced Kpeipp
began TO worry. His wife tried to cheer
him up by telling him that she would take
in washing, and yesterday she carried her
resolve into effect. As Mrs. kneipp is a
cripple the idea of her being compelled 10
work hard in her old age only deepened the
anxiety and dependency Of her husband
About 10 o'clock yesterday morning Mrs.
Kneipp requested him to get some wood
from the cellar. He dropped the armful he
had gathered as though he were IN great
haste and hurried from the room. When
his wife called him back and asked what
reason he had for being in such hurry, he
replied by kissing her as she leaned over the
washtub:
You've been good girl to meln he said
as he left the room. Then he went upstairs
and hanged himself
Now, Mr. Commissioner, we feel that
no words of ours can add a single ele-
ment to the intense pathos of this simple
story. We can only say that this is
merely sample Of what is being suf-
fered in every part of the country.
Within sight, within a stones throw Of
where the poor, despairing Kneipp died
by his own hand can, perhaps, be found
a number of other cases where the need,
the suffering, the misery are no less
where the injustice and ingratitude of the