The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-01-15
THEY TALK PENSION
The House Considers at Length the
Appropriation Bill.
REPUBLICAN SENATORS, TOO
They Take Occasion to Tell the
Soldiers How Friendly They Are
to the Disabled Veterans
and the Widows.


Washington, Jan. 14-The house took
up the pension appropriation bill imme-
diately on convening. Northway, re-
publican. Ohio. replied to the criticism
offered by Bartlett, democrat, New
York, yesterday. 1t mattered not to
him whether the pensions were legal
gratuities or constituted vested rights
Morally they were higher than vested
rights could be. Pensions should be
given in a broad, catholic, humane
spirit. Veterans should not be placed
In the position of mendicants. The spirit
in which the pension laws were being
administered was manifestly unfriend-
ly to the soldier. In proof of this he
cited the case of a soldier who lost one
arm and one leg, who was deprived of
his pension under the total disability
act of 1890, because he was able to earn
SIS a month as guard at a railroad
crossing.
The pension bureau had ruled that.
under the act of 1890, if widows in
come exceeded 500 a year she was not
entitled to a pension. A soldiers Wild
ow should not be obliged to stand shiv-
ering and starving at the door of the
pension office in order to obtain a pen
sion, and the pensions committee there
fore had reported an amendment to the
present law requiring that as a condt-
ton precedent to receiving a pension
she should prove that her net income
did not exceed $500.
Hemingway. republican, Indiana, ia
vored the adoption of the Graft amend
ment, prohibiting the suspension of
pensions until fraud had been proved
in a United States court. He predicted
that in November next the people
would elect a republican president who
would appoint a loyal man from the
North secretary of the interior to ad-
minister the pension laws with justice
and fairness to the old soldier.
Arnold, republican, Pennsylvania, in
criticising the pension Office, denounced
particularly the practice of calling on
democratic postmasters to furnish in
formation as to alleged fraudulent pen
sions.
Gibson, republican. Tennessee, who
was pension agent at Nashville in 1881,
devoted much time TO the exploitation
of particular cases which he claimed
proved the hostility of the pension
office.
A speech by Walker, republican, Vir-
ginia. attracted more than usual atten-
tion. Walker was a general in the con-
federate army on the staff of Gen. Ju-
bal Early. He replied particularly to
the remark of Hemingway to the ef-
feet that when a republican again took
his place in the white house no man
from the South would preside over the
pension office. General Walker de-
clared there was a misapprehension
of feeling and sentiment of the south
ern people and the southern soldiers
toward pensions for the men who
fought for the union. There was no
sentiment against the pension policy
of the government in the South, and he
assured his republican friends of the
North that the fortunes and pensions
of the union soldiers would be safe in
the hands of the soldiers of the South.
His remarks ELECTED applause from both
sides of the hall
Wood, republican, Illinois; Fitzpat-
rick, republican, Kansas, and Poole.
republican, New York, followed, and
then Cummings, democrat, New York,
created the sensation of the day by a
short but bitter arraignment of the
pension Office and an eloquent repudi-
alton of the sentiments expressed by
his colleague, Bartlett, yesterday. He
declared 1t was time some radical ac-
tion was taken to call a halt on the
pension office
At the conclusion of Cummings
speech the committee rose and the
speaker announced the appointment of
the Chickamauga park commission as
follows: Grosvenor. Ohio; Keifer, Min
nesota; Strong. Ohio; Avery. Michi-
gan; Bowers, California, republicans:
Wheeler. Alabama; Cox. Tennessee;
and Crisp, Georgia. democrats
He also announced the appointment of
Delegate Flynn of oklahoma to the
on agriculture and Murphy
of Arizona on coinage. weights and
measures, and mines and mining. The
house then. at 4:25, adjourned until to-