The National tribune., 1896-02-27
AN OPEN LETTER.
To the Senate and House
of Representatives i'm
Congress Assembled

A StS~' INV - WIZ s~es~S-. ~
overwhelming Importance for the inn
mediate passage of Service Pension
Bill to which we have so far only briefly
alluded.
That is the urgency of prompt relief
to comrades who cannot be reached so
quickly and so effectively in any other
way.
1t will be over year from now be-
fore the present administration of the
Pension Bureau can be changed. II
will be fully two years from now before
another Congress and another President
can adopt the broadly remedial legisla-
ton which the country earnestly intends
that the veterans should have.
1t is impossible to exaggerate the
Importance of this period Of time to
those affected by it. A year or two
seems of comparatively little Importance
to men in the flush of youth or even the
prime of manhood. 1t is an eternity
to men trembling on the verge OF the
grave, and the span of whose lives may
be counted by days, OF, at most, months.
Every sun that rises and sets mourn
fully reminds them of the rapid dimi-
mutton of the scanty hoard of days yet
remaining to them. Debilitated by
physical impairments resulting from
their service, their bodies racked with
incessant pain, hope ground out of their
hearts by long years Of illness and pri-
walton, stranded on the shore of dire
poverty by the rushing tide of vigor-
Gus young men pressing into every
pursuit into which they can engage,
every pang Of disease sharpcned by
the gnawing of bitter want, it is the
reriest mockery to talk to them Of
what may be done for them a year
or tNp hence. Things in 1897 or 1898
may have as little interest for them as
things in A. ID. 2G00. Whatever is
done for them should be done NOW
not next year, or the year after, but next
month, If possible. Tomorrow would
be still better. The quickest relief will
not be fast enough to reach thousands
Of them whose feet already touch the
brink Of the Dark River. A year from
now at least 10000 of them will be far
beyond all earthly relief They will be
as deaf to rhetorical eiIervescences about
the couniryIs gratitude as the 50 head
stones with which the Nation marks
their last resting-places. Two years
from now 100000 of them viii be dead.
The best, the most instant remedy for
all this is the Service Pension bill. By
making it go into effect Immediately
upon its passage it will give at once to
every disabled and deserving man some
measure of relief. 1t will give him
enough to get food and medicine; per-
haps a shelter of his owD, where his
friends can care for and minister to him.
1t will keep his dying hours from being
enlbittered by the thought of bis coun-
tryis ingratitude. 1t will cut the end
less maze Of technical circumlocutions,
and hand over to him his little pension
with as little delay as is now practiced in
paving bondholders their interest. 1t
will make the rhetoric of National
gratitude practical reality by placing
the veterans on the same plane as the
Nations other favored creditors, and
giving them their little moieties as a
matter of right, to which they are as
much entitled as the men who lend the
Government money.
For this reason, as well as for the
many others, equally strong, which we
have previously advanced, We beseech
you to Immediately take up the Service
Pension Bill, and not let this session end
without its passage.
Yours, for humanity,
The NATIONAL TRIBUNE