Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-05-18
PENSION PAYMENTS.
Defense of the Pensioners From
One of the Great Army.

A Defense OF the Pensioners From
One of the Great Army.
To the Editor of The Evening Star:
In your issue of May appeared an inter-
view with "a well-known pension official"
ostensibly in Justification of the act of
March %, 1896. relative to the payment of
pensions. but, to those who are conversant
with thu facts in the matter, the official
quoted. seems really under a veil of fall
lacious reasoning, to offer gratuitous in
suits to thousands Of men and women
whose moral characters would compare
very favorably with any class Of public
employees. This quasi Justification of an in
justice seems to be cautiously worded; II
designedly conveys impressions equivalent
to, but does not make any positive asser-
ton of facts. From beginning to end all
attempted reasoning is made nugatory by
al excessive use of innuehdoeS and insinua-
tons derogatory to the character of a
whole class Of persons once respected and
honored as patriots, but now publicly ma
hgned as worthless, ribald, blasphemous
drunkards and dissolute characters, not be-
cause there has been any change in the
moral condition of the maligned, but evil
GENTLY because long suppressed hatred in
the maligners may now be vented with i'm
punity. There is no line drawn in the ar
ticle to distinguish the large percentage of
good from the very small percentage of
bad perSonS-an ever present element in
every class of society. The recent act
(Which was rushed through Congress with
suspicious haste) treats pensioners as a
body, thus presenting TO the vilifers broad
target at which to fling rhetorical mire, an
exercise they seem to engage in with sa-
tanic exultation. And to their lasting
credit be it said that pensioners, as a class
have SO conducted themselves as to compel
their enemies to resort to the vile strategy
of insinuation. l would call attention to a
single sentence in this pension officials
statement:
nh
of thousands upon thousands of pensioners
congregating before dawn, four times a
year, in the neighborhood Of the agencies
al large cities, awaiting their slow turn I'M
I'll nightfau or longer, exposed to all sorts
of weather, women with babes at breast
and children clinging around them, many
going hungered throughout the entire day
fakirs and suspicious characters lowering
around like vultures to feed on their prey
ribald men in various stages of intoxica-
uon-a Very Babel of tongues and terror of
conditionS-can well appreciate the merit
of change which brings by post to the
hcme OF each the envelope containing the
government check, thus relieving the pen
Sioner, male or female, not only from the
cost and suffering, in a large majority of
Instances, of attending one or perhaps two
or more days for personal payment but
also from exposure to the elements and the
revelation to the public eye of their possible
poverty and distress"
From the first word to the last of this
sentence the representation is in every
particular. untrue. 1t is flagitious mis-
representation of character and conditions
Those who have observed" says this Will
fer of good. honest men and women; that
Is to say, the man in Inc moon or the peo-
pie of Mars who have observed; for who for
a moment can even imagine any one on
earth ever had chance 10 observe such
barbarous, brutal condition of life in a pub
lie street? l have now had thirty years
personal experience at the Washington
agency, which has nearly 1000 more pen
sioners on its rolls than New York, and
have been, I believe, in the longest lines
awaiting my slow turn and have never
seen one-fourth Of a thousand In line at
one time. / have never left my home until
after my usual breakfast time q ami;
have never had to await, excepting once
only, more than one hour, and never was
later than 1870 am. in having my check
cashed at the treasury. I never saw a wo-
man, with or without children, in the line
OF pensioners. l have never to my knowl-
edge seen ''fakir or suspicious character
lowering around the agency" Why should
such be there when the pensioners money
was in the treasury more than a mile
away? AS to the "ribald men in various
stages of intoxication-a very Babel of
tongues and terror of conditions" cannot
imagine what grounds "a well-known pen-
sion official had for such an Infamous
Calumny, save that he drew a pen-picture
from his own social surroundings. In my
thirty years experience l have never seen
an Intoxicated man in line at the agency,
nor have l ever heard there an expression
that would be Questionable In any ordinary.
assembly Of mon. I here deliberately assert
that fully as much ribaldry and intoxica-
ton and terror o. condition may be seen
twice q month in the government depart
ments on pay day as has been seen
at the agency on pension days. / speak
from experience In both. Pensioners it is
true, have not all of them been clad in
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