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

mark OF your administrative DAY. Two
of the four years that you will probably
hold the Office have passed away, and
henceforth the weeks will fly swiftly to
ward the time when, SO far as you are
concerned, it must be said, Behold, the
night cometh when no man can work.
Perception of this fact must throng your
mind with anxious thoughts as to how
you can best employ the allotment Of
time yet remaining to you.
Are we safe in assuming that you
thoroughly understand that the people
of the United States are quite set in their
minds that every disabled honorably-
discharged soldier of the war of the re-
bellion shall receive a pension in some
measure adequate to his injuries? 1t is
not Boosting for us to say that we are
much better acquainted with the people
Of the United States than you are-better
than any but very few men in the coun-
try can possibly be. This is because it has
been our opportunity and our main bust
ness for very many years to study and
become acquainted with them-not with
any isolated community, but with the
whole people, from Maine to California,
and from the Lakes to the Gulf.
There is no other fact In American
politics upon which we are so absolute
and positive as that the American peo-
pie are determined and unbending upon
this matter of pensions. They have
always been so, and they will always
remain SO, as long as they are the great
hearted, right-loying, grateful people
that they are. 1t is exceedingly repug-
nant to them that men who served them
faithfully in their hour of need should
be afterward cast off and condemned to
the bitter bread of perjury and depend
ence. 1t is revolving to their every In
stinet. In the infancy of the Nation,
when its resources were scanty and its
Treasury lean, the people insisted that
the Revolutionary soldiers be taken
care Of, and pension laws were passed.
Though their means were but small
fraction of what they are now, they did
equally well with the soldiers of the war
of 1872, and put every man who had
served Il days upon the pension-roll
at rate exceeding bis pay when In
active service.
They have been equally liberal with the
cOAotSls VI lIIS eItAlCdu anu lUuldH NdIS.
Placing the minimum requirement of
service at 60 days, so as to take in every
one, they gave every man-rich and
poor, sick and able, wounded and un-
wounded, whether he had marched with
Scott TO Mexico, fought with Taylor at
Buena Vista, or merely enlisted and
en- route to Mexico-upon the rolls for
life, at rate greater than the active
pay it had offered him when he en-
listed.
This attitude of the people is un-
changed. If anything, it is more pro-
nOunced than ever. 1t is true that two
years ago the people, misled for brief
moment by the false and wicked clamor
against pensions and pensioners, seemed
TO pronounce verdict against further
extension of the pension system. In re-
atty they never faltered in their affec-
ton and gratitude toward those who had
served them well. They were firm
that every law then on the books
should remain there, and that every man
deserving it should receive the full
benefit of those laws. No one entitled
to be listened to asked for the repeal or
modification Of single one of those laws,
and the Congress elected at that time,
instead Of trying to diminish the scope
and effect of those laws, made an effort
to extend Ind strengthen them.
The most Incorporate denunciations
Of the condition of things in the Pension
Bureau were always coupled with the
saving clause that No deserving pen
sioner need fear" and that every man
entitled to pension should receive and
enjoy il without fear. These facts are
well known to you, and also the over
wbelmning reyulsion Of public senti-