The National tribune., 1897-08-12
NO ApoTHECARY,s SCALES" THEN.

The instructions issued by Assistant
Secretary Davis to the Commissioner OF
Pensions to sweep away the web of
aggravating technicalities laboriously
constructed by the late Administration to
keep pensioners out of their rights marks
the opening of a new era in the treat
ment Of the veterans, more in unison
with the nature of the ungrudging, un-
calculating services rendered by them.
What would have become of the Gov
ernment if the men whom it called to its
assistance had been one-thousandth part
as wretchedly quibbling and reluc-
tant as to their duty to it as the late
Administration was as to the Govern
ment's duty to them? The rebels
would have been in New York and
Boston before Corporars guard had
enlisted. If the young men of the
United States had been as exacting as
to conditions upon which they should
venture their lives as the Government
has been as to those upon which it would
pay them few dollars, Lee might have
marched from the Potomac to the Penob
scot and from the Atlantic to the Mis-
sissippi without a cap being snapped at
him.
But the young manhood of the Ma
ton had "no apothecary's scales in
mind when they responded to the Gov
ernment's call of distress. They never
stopped to scrutinize the law or the
terms of enlistment to find out how little
they could be actually compelled to do,
and then strain every Juggling artifce to
reduce that little to the lowest mini
mum. That sort Of ignoble chaffering
had to be invented by Commissioner
Lochren for adjusting their pension
claims
No, they felt that it was enough
that the Nation sorely needed them
that it required the very best that was
in them to save its life. They were
only fearful that they could not do
enough. If their blood could save it,
let it take it as it would water. If their
lives would ransom it, count them no
more than the forest leaves in Autumn.
IF miles of marching were needed,
march them to the ends Of the earth.
If Drawing storms, facing the tempest,
enduring bitter frost and the blazing
sun were called for, then summon
against them every inclemency that
| Nature had in store. All would be as
nothing, so long as the Nation was saved.
What a bitter mockery of all this
splendid, unreckoning self-sacrifce it was
to have the officials of that Government,
a generation later, 60 among the broken
and decrepit survivors of these men,
and, with the ideas of a usurer and the
methods of pawnbroker, employ every
artifce Of law to rob them of the little
stipends which stood between them and
grinding need. 1t would have been in
finiteIy nobler to have denied their ser
vices outright, than attempt to measure
the sacrifice of a life with the same
scale one does a pound Of butter, anC
to pettifog over paralyzed limbs ane
ruined health as one might over trading
broken winded horse.
The men who enlisted in 1861!
only stopped to ask:
Docs the Government really neet
us? What can We do for it?"
Then they gave at once unstintedl,
all Of their young manhood's healtl
and strength to it.
So We believe that the Government
should only stop to ask:
Did this man serve honorably? ]
he now disabled and suffering?"
Then. without farther delay or ad,
without quibble, technicality, or eli
cumlocution, it should give him his pei
sion as matter of undoubted right.
The instructions to the COMMISSIONS
of Pensions seem to us long step
this direction.
JAPAN is sending some war vessels