The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1895-08-22

snect have become patriotic inspira-
ton. But when pensions ere scatter.
ed about broadcast on the pretence
that those who have seryed the coun-
try as soldiers or sailors can, whatever
the merit of their services, never be
sufficiently rewarded; when bounty
jumpers and deserters are penslOned |
ON the same terms with men who
have really suffered in the service Of |
their country; when it is known
among the people-which itusuallyis,
especially in country neighborhoods,
where people are well acquainted wit
one another-that mul'itudes of per.
sons draw pensions who have never
suffered, and who have obtained their
pensions on tlimsy or entirely false pre-
fences or by downright fraud-then
the effect upon the popular mind be-
comes very different one. Then the
public treasury appears to great
many as mere grabbing out of which
everybody may get as much as he
can. The undeserving or fraudulent
pensioner is then no longer looked
upon as an evil-doer, but only as a
smart fellow; and the conscientious
old soldier or sailor who does not con-
slider himself justly and legally enti-
tied to pension, and therefore alb
stains from base tricks to get one, is
set down as simply fool.
When people have once arrived at
this stage of loose thinking it is but
short step to the further conclusion
that false swearing or forging testi-
mony for obtaining apension is very
slight offence, If any offence at all.
They reason thus A is just as much
or as little entitled toa pension as B
is. B has pension, but A has none.
II A commits little perjury or for
gerry, or permits an enterprising pen
sion agent to do it for him, there is no
real wrong in it, for it serves only the
ends OF substantial justice be ween
A and B. There fore, the man who
does such things, or the agent who ar,
ranges them for others, is really guilt
less. There is, however, another inhu
ence Of great moment In many com
munities the pensioners constitute
very considerable proportion OF the
customers of small business esta dish
ments, groceries, drink shops. and the
like. The more pensioners there are,
and the larger pensions they get, the
more money they can spend; and
many of the business men whose GUS
toners they are care little whether
that money has been obtained Justly
or unjustly. They care only that there
be much of it. They are among the
most profoundly convinced adherents
and the most jealous advocates of the
doctrine that our lavish pension ex-
penditure is good thing, because at
circulates money among the people"
1t is curious fact that this notion is
entertained even by some otherwise
intelligent men, VINO seem to forget
that the public treasury does not
draw it's funds from some mysterious
outside reservoir, but that every pen
ny in it has by taxation been drawn
from the people themselves, mostly
from people Of small means-that is,
not from boards which otherwise
would lie sta gnant, but from the mon
ev already circulating among the peo-
pie, thus being withdrawn from circu-
lation while it passes through the
treasury.
1t is only logical that those who
have been taught by the existing con-
dition Of things to see our pension
business in such light should regard
faithful government officer hunting
up pension frauds and bringing the
guilty parties to justice not at all as a
meritorious public servant, to be hon
ored and encouraged, but rather as a
mischievous meddler, who takes the
bread out of poor mems mouths, who
disturbs business, who interferes with
the circulation of money among the
people, and who should be put down.
These being the notions planted and
developed among large part of our
population by our pension system
not to speak OF the extent to which it
has debauched the manhood of the
politicians of all parties, and to which
it has made confirmed paupers out of
persons who otherwise would have
been something better-we may well
doubt whether the moral effect of that
system mas not been even worse for
the country than its financial cost.
Certainly it is the highest time TO call
! halt.-Harper's Weekly (Rep)
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