The daily morning journal and courier., 1897-12-21

cal influence to solicit and demand an- nual pensions for all living veterans of the Union army whether they are in dire need or not. My protest is against pauperizing the whole body of ex-sol- diers because some among them have no scruples aGaing taking any gratni- ties they can induce congress to grant, unfortunately, congress always con- tains large proportion of professional politicians who have no Scruples about spending the peoples money in any way that seems likely to buy votes for themselves. It is not unnatural that these two classes should conspire to promote their selfish ends. while the honor of all public service, military and civil, suffers a common debasement.
 Now let us consider what the service pension proposition advocated by Com rade Battery No, 1" means to the mutilated and suffering pensioners now rightly borne on the rolls. His own statement is in the following words:
 While some are receiving more than they ought, others, quite as deserving, by reason of a failure to substantiate their claims, are receiving nothing. For N4iio iSttSoll llllllllttlli NAiSSS 'A'S ~N-Ns
 just measure to be adopted is the granting of a service pension to every veteran whose record during the war was such as to warrant 1t. This would dispense with boards of examination and much of the machinery of the pen sion office, and the money thus saved could go where it more justly belongs, And the expense to the government I i, 1N,,%
 greater than it is at present"
 The saving by dispensing with por-
 ton of the present machinery of the
 pension office would be mere drop in
 the bucket. One million dollars would
 be large estimate of the reduction of
 this account. To grant service pen
 sions to all veterans and keep the total
 expense of pensions at, or anywhere
 near, the present limit could only be
 accomplished by greatly diminishing
 the invalid and disability pensions now
 allowed. If I correctly understand the
 language of Comrade Battery No. 1,
 he means that the service pension shall
 take the place of all invalid and disa-
 bility pensions In that case unless
 the service pension is to be as liberal as the present pensions of these classes
 it will operate as cruel wrong to de-
 serving pensioners. If he means what his quoted words seem to mean, bat
 tery No. has trained it's shotted guns, manned by soldiers who came out of the war unscathed against their less fortunate comrades with an envy that fitly may be called brutal. But if such is not the purpose, and justice, as he
 reckons justice, is to be done, not by depriving the present pensioners of
 their merited gratuities, but by giving equal and larger gratuities to all who
 served honorably in the war, then the nation must expect to be taxed for a
 pension appropriation at least double,
 and probably treble, that now required. The initial point of vantage sought by the shrewder advocates of service | pension Is to get the principle recogniz-
 ed in legislation. They will be content for the present with any small stipend
 which establishes the policy of service
 pensions for them. This point gained their ideas of what is adequate to their need and becoming to a generous na- ton will be subject to swift enlarge
 ment. Experience teaches that the measure of government bounty that \ will satisfy pensioners is an always growing one Comrade Linsley's ''sol- emn figures" indicate the scope of pos- sible demands which some soldiers think to be within the limit of the plain obligation of the government to it's de- lenders, apart from any considerations of charity and mercy.
 I earnestly commend these and all similar indications of the after-thought of patriotic volunteers to the consider ation of sober-minded statesmen Off there are now any statesmen of this sort), and especially do I commend them to the consideration of the light hearted jingoes who think the nation | to be in need of another war to insure | the happiness and prosperity of the | people. WALTER ALLEN.