The National tribune., 1897-02-11
A WORD OF WARNING.

harping on "big bounties."
The first strong reason against 1T Is
that it is furnishing ammunition to the
enemy. The soldier-haters are only too
glad to have us rave about "short-term
men who got big bounties and never
saw battle This is playing directly
into their hands. 1t is the most effect
i've work that can be done against pen
sions in general. 1t is the surest way to
prejudice the public mind against the
whole pension system. Our enemies
will not fail to enlarge upon and exagger-
ate the statements we furnish them,
until they can demonstrate to the salts
faction of those who are opposed to oil
pensions that there was nobody IN the
army but short-tsxm men, who did no
sort of valuabls service, and received
immense bounties for doing it.
ANY comrade who reflects can see this
at once. There is a very large proper
ton of the community which is desper-
ately and Indignantly opposed to pensions
on principle, or rather on lack of prin-
ciple. They will welcome anything that
can be said against pensions and pen
sioners, and viii magnify it 20 times
seven times. Where one undeserving
pensioner can be pointed out they will
see myriads. Nothing delights them so
much as to have some veteran declaim
against his comrades. We all know
how widespread this feeling is. The
President of the United States is most
vigorous and persistent exponent of it,
and did not hesitate upon entering office
to brand the ex-soldiers of the United
States as an aggregation of humbugs by
officially proclaiming that there were
thousands of neighborhoods which have
their well-known pension frauds" Do
we want to seem to support this outrage
Gus SANDER?
Then there is another equally large
element which lacks the hostility and
malignity of the other, but is actuated
by pure selfshness. 1t is the one which
continually reiterates:
go, the war-always the war! Lam
sick and tired of hearing of the war.
You forget that the war ended 80 years
ago. Yet you want to keep on taxing
us for the benefit of lot of fellows who
got enormous bounties, and never heard
a gun fired"
These men simply avail themselves Of
any pretext or excuse to evade the
burden of pension payments. Do We
want to play into their hands? Do we
want to furnish them with pretexts and
excuses for Sinking the peoples plighted
duty?
The next reason is that there is really
very little basis for this clamor against
short-term men who received big boun-
ties. The number of short-term men has
been grossly exaggerated; the amount
of bounties they received has been
tremendously overstated. The service
they rendered has been wilfulIy depreci-
ated. A very large proportion of the
short-term men served more than one
enlistment. The bounties they received
were paid in greenbacks worth but 40
cents on the dollar, and really counted
very little as an inducement for enlist
ment, and they all helped a great deal
to secure the victory.
We have often before called atten-
ton to one short-term, latter-day,"
"eleventh-hour" regiment as specimen
Of the whole and an illustration of the
cruelty and injustice of this clamor.
This was the 9th Mass, one of the very
last regiments which Massachusetts, sent
out. 1t lefs Boston April Is, 1864, with
1862 men, and went as directly as rail-
roads could carry it to the battle of the
Wilderness, where it was baptized with
fire and blood by loss of 81 killed, 1913
wounded, and 80 missing-more than
some regiments lost in three-years' serv-
ice. A few days later it went into the
battle Of Spottsylvania, where it lost 13
killed, 55 wounded, and missing. So
it went ON through that whole bloody
cananaiou Az pefnrchuro Iupo II -