The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1896-12-17
THE BURDEN OF PENSIONS.

in it are thrifty, selfsupporting persons, as
is to be expected of men with manhood
enough to do the work they did.
Yet there are 970,679 names on the PEN
sion-rolls, and it will take $140,OOOO00 OF
the peoples money to pay their pensions
during the next year. The total amount OF
pensions thus far paid is S2,034,817, 769, or
nearly as much as the greatest pubic debt
the Nation ever owed.
These facts are scandalous, of course.
They can only mean that hundreds Of thou.
| sands of names are on the pensOn-rolls that
ought not to be there; that for political rea-
sons pension laws, general and special, have
been passed with shameful indifference to
justice aud to the rights OF the. great body of
industrious people who must pay.
Tie Supreme Court holds that pension
once granted is q vested right and cannot he
refrain from adding to the pension charge
faster than natural causes reduce it.-New
York World
Similar editorials appearing in the
New York Sun and other papers show
that the soldier-haters have decided to
revive their old fight against pensions.
We must now get in line to receive
savage charge all along the front. The
larger papers are giving the signal, and
the smaller ones from Maine to Texas,
and from Pennsylvania to Texas, will
answer the signal and join in. We can
see the method in this. 1t is an attempt
to restore the old political lines as they
were before Free Silver broke in, and
get the party on the same grounds that
it occupied during Harrison's Admins
tration.
The Worlds statements show its Gus
tomary disregard of actual facts and
conditions. Every rational, sensible
man must expect the pension expendi-
ture to be larger now than at any time
before, and to even increase for some
years in the future. The reason is OBJ
vious. 1t is now 81 years after the war
the most critical period in the lives
of the men who bore the heat and
burden of the conflict. They were mere
boys or very young men then. Now
they must all have reached and passed
the meridian of life, when the drafts they
then drew on their health and strength
demand payment, and Nature is an
mex orable creditor.
For many years she seemed to forget
or ignore the fact that the young man
drew heavily upon her when he made
that forced march under burning sun,
or when he camped for months in ma
larious swampa, or when he spent day
and night, for weeks at a time, exposed
to the pitiless fury Of the elements.
Those things were only far-of dream
to him in his busy, active life, when he
was 80, and even when he was 40. But
when he passed SO they became much
more tangible than a dream. They
sprang into active life again in his
aching joints and throbbing nerves. For
the first time in his life he now needs
help, and naturally he turns to the Gov
eminent to give him this help, by repay
ing part of the debt it incurred when
he helped it at enormous cost to himself
What is true of one man is equally true
of nearly 100000 like him, who went
through similar experiences, and are
now of approximately the same age.
This is why any reasonable man must
expect an increase of pension expendi-
lures for the next few years
The prating of the World about
hundreds of thousands of names on
the pension-rolls that ought not to be
there" is merely wicked, wanton lying
It is wanton lying because no one knows
better than the World that this is grossly
untrue. No one knows better than the
World that this Administration came
into power upon assertions of that kind
and that it has spent an immense amount
of money and exerted the power of thu
} great army of office-holders in vair
!; attempt to prove their truth. There
, was nothing that the Administration
was more anxious to do than to demon
. state the presence of "hundreds O
, thousands" or even tens of thousands
, or even thousands, of names on tn,
pension-rolls "that ought not to b,
there" 1t had the strongest possibl,
motives for making herculean efforts t,
J discover these. This would justify til,