The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1895-05-30
The Grand Army's Progress.
From the New York Evening Post

ing of late about the Grand Army,
but we have heard no still small voice
asking, What are the facts? Pen
sioners and would-be pensioners,
veterans with votes to sell, and leg
islators and would-be legislators
eager to buy them, have been thrown
into commissions of noble rage at the
mere hint that their organization
stood for anything but the purest
and most unselfsh patriotism. To
the question whether the Grand (?)
Army is what it processes to be, no
one has risen to speak. Has it fallen
away altogether from it's original
objects q? Has it become a spoils-
seeking, cash-hunting corporation?
Resolutions passed at the various
encampments shows it's perversion
to base ends, and what veritable
rake's progress it has made.
The Grand Army was founded at
Springfield, ILL.,, in 1866, osrensibly
to strengthen the fraternal feeling
of the living, and to perpetuate the
history and memory of the dead; to
aid the widows and orphans of ex-
Federal soldiers; to encourage just
ice and liberty to all, etc.
Not word was said about pen
sions, not a word about Offices.
Mutual assistance and good citizen
ship were the end and aim. In fact,
so late as 1884 collection was taken
up for comrade who had lost leg
in railroad accident. This was pro-
posed by "Comrade Tanner" the
ever-present "Corp," and the COM
panion-piece to that other peripatetic
dead-head and ad-beat, the "Drum-
mer Boy of the Rappahannock."
But, politicians outside and inside
the Grand Army were not slow in
finding out the possibility Of exploit
ing ssthe soldier VOTE" and the SOL
der vote showed itself more and
more willing to be exploitation a
consideration. Trace the evolution
of the idea, now become so harmful
in our public service, that veteran,
no matter what his character or
capacity, is entitled to the Offices.
Its beginnings appear in 1868, when
Congress was urged to provide that
honorable service as soldier Or
sailor should constitute qualifca-
ton for appointment" By 1881 the
President was called upon to see to
it that the laws which plant Con
gress had by that time passed giving
the preference to soldiers, should be
"strictly enforced In 1888 the
angry attention OF the army was
fixed upon those Comrades holding
official positions under the govern
ment whose proper administration
demanded a large force, but who en-
ployed very few comrades, and, in
some cases, had turned them out to
make room for civilians" Comrades
WAC had been ousted were exhorted
to ssrefuse to submit to such dicta
ton" and to 'shold the fort"-mean
ing the offices. The encampment oil
1893 explicitly demanded laws which
would ''effectually guarantee a pre-
ference to veterans in public employ
ment of the United States"
This growth of the mania for Office
did not go on without efforts te
check it, nor without many plair
words of rebuke, against using th'
organization as a political machine
A recent blast from Gen. Coils tell
how this grand army is now ''devot
y ing it's energies to military education
8 in the public Schools" aud how it il
going to make itself ''felt upon tn
subject of the immigration laws"
i It is in the matter of pensions
however, that the progressive sale o
the army to the Devil-meaning tn
: | po1itioiona-oa most CLEARLY h