The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-12-14
MR. LINSLEY'S LETTER ON PEN
 SIONS.
His Argument Reviewed by Another Old
 Soldier.

Soldier.
 To the Editor of the Journal and Courier:
 MT. S. T. Llnsley's letter on the sub-
 ject of Pensions and Pensioners, pub
 lished in the Journal and Courier of De-
 cember 6. deserves attentive considera-
 tion. He has made an argument that
 ought to be carefully regarded by all
 who are in a position to ask for pen
 slons or to grant them.
 I am only one ex-soldier and citizen
 and possibly l am not so we'll informed
 in such matters as other men. At any
 rate I am obliged to confess that MT.
 Linsley's argument for service pensions is new to me and somewhat surprising. If I understand his argument it's pur- port is that service in the Union army in
 the civil war was aquasi- business affair, l payment for which (the somewhat ! doubtful venture of saving the Union 1 having gloriousy succeeded), should | now be readjusted without regard to ! the original contract of service and without reference to such sentimental and effervescent motives as love of country, liberty, humanity and honor, | by which, in time of youthful enthu- siasm and public excitement, men were led to volunteer their service without due calculation of its worth according to business standards of profit and loss. What fools we soldiers were in those days! But some of us, it seems, have got our wisdom teeth at last and are out for the stuff'' with a stiff urgency that bodes Ill to any politician who does not side with us.
 MT. Linsley illustrates his argument by reference to his own case. He was getting wages of forty-six dollars month at the time he enlisted and shopmate was receiving the same. The employer had not work for both and was on the point of discharglng the shopmate, who had no contract, while MT. l.. had one running for year. Mr. l.. volunteered to accept discnarge for himself in otder that his shopmate might keep his job, and then he enlist cd in the army, serving for three years and eight months. He does not say that he had any previous purpose of Joining the Union army as duty of pa triotism, and in that case one cannot but admire the generous spirit in which he yielded his job to his friend, who never entered the service but kept on working with increasing wages until he received seVenty-eight dollars a month, while MT l.. served his country for the pay which he agreed to serve for with but one slight increase. He now makes calculation to show that the differ ence between what the government paid him and what his shopmate earned was on the avearge $444 a year or for three years $1 330-his multiplication, not mine. He makes no account of the eight months over three years and throws off $80 besides, calling the differ. ence only $1.250. This he says Is what had sacrificed, or, in other words, had loaned to the government"
 Mark the term loaned" It is wholly false and misleading, but it Is the basis of his claim that the government now owes him the difference between what 1t paid him and what he might perhaps have earned if he had not enlisted He goes on to compute that at per cent compound interest this uncancelled l "loan" now amounts to S10 900, and for l ali who enlisted in the Union army, as- | suming that all loaned" an equal sum the uncancelled debt. less pensions paid, | is now, he says, s21,042, ,720, ,O00l "Sol- | emn figures" indeed! especially solemn | when it is remembered that the total | assessed value of all the real and per sonal property of the whole nation was in 1890 but $25,473, ,1734
 But this showing does not do justice to the equitable claims of the soldiers, according to MT. Linsley for he says what one who hears much talk of old | soldiers knows to be a ranking idea of their imaginatiOn-that if the soldiers were to be paid as the bondholders were