Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1897-12-17
PUBLISH THE PENSION LISTS.
IN Every Community Let 1t BE
Seen Who the Pen toner's Are.
New York T;mar

Seen Who the Pen toner's Are.
New York Times.
The only way to stop the greedy
rush for pensions is to publish the
pension lists.
There are 100000 pensioners al
ready, and 100000 pending applica-
tions, full generation after the close
OF the war. Twenty-Five years ago it
was said in the House of Representa-
tites that in the natural course of
events the number of pensioners
would shortly diminish from year to
year, and the annual appropriation
would be smaller and smaller. If
I pensions had been restricted to veter-
ans suffering from disabilities incurred
in the service, the only pension which
does not degrade those who receive it,
the list would have diminished and
the expenditure would now be borne
without distress or complaint by a
grateful nation. But the granting of
pensions to everybody who asks for
one, to men who never went to the
front nor heard a musket fired, to
deserters and camp followers, to
foreigners, and to perjured beggars
who get full disability pensions fer in
firmities that never existed, has
heightened the roll and added to the
burden until pensions have become a
national scandal and their cost ter
rible drain upon the resources of the
nations taxpayers.
The figures of the pension disburse-
ments since 1870 will show the ap-
palling growth of the abuse. In the
decade for 1870 to 1880, $326,OSS, ,l79
was paid for pensions, amounting to
1899 per cent. of the net ordinary
expenditures of the government. In
the decade of 1850 to 1890 the pension
payment was $7O2,232,632, equal to
33.47 per cent. of the net ordinary ex-
penditures. Adding the $140,0OO,OOO
appropriated for the last fiscal year,
we have the prodigious sum OF $2,-
OOS, ,7S3,9OS paid to pensioners in 81
years.
If the total cause amazement, the
rapid increase awakens alarm. We
paid out very nearly as much in the
first five years of this decade as in the
entire ten years from 1880 to 1890.
Nearly half the ordinary expenditures
of the government are for pensions.
Nine.tenths of our revenue for GUS
toms goes into the pockets OF the pen
sioners. Without the pension roll we
should need no Dingley law!
This terrible showing is beginning
to impress the people. But mean
while the pension agents are flooding
the country with their circulars, in
sulting honorably discharged soldiers
by informing them that "desertion
is no bar to claim" and the Con-
gressmen of one party strive to out
strip the Congressman of the other
in the demagogic race to do more and
all the time more for the pensioners.
There must be sharp awakening of
the public conscience, demonstra-
ton of the rottenness as we'll as of the
monstrous cost of the pension roll
that will create sentiment powerful
enough to deter Congress from adding
to the scandal and ultimately to lead
to the purging of the fraud-tainted
roll.
We have already had occasion to
point out the advantages of publish
.ng the lists. They could be furnished
to local newspapers throughout the
country, and in every postofiice there
should he posted an official list of all
persons receiving mail at that Office
whose names were on the pension roll.
The deserving veteran would suffer no
less OF public esteem from such pub
lication, while each community would
learn how many of its rich or well-to-
do citizens were secretly and meanly
adding an undeserved bounty to their
ample incomes, and how many worth
less and dissipated fellows, how many
sturdy beggars were supported at the
expense Of the taxpayers.
The shock of these discoveries would
be most salutary. 1t would provoke
public indignation and food Congress
with protesting letters, it would stop
the abuse where it is, and probably
force an investigation and cleaning up
of the lists.
The people already grasp the di-
mensions of the abuse. They need
now to know it in its shameful details.
Taxpayers merely grumble when they
are told that they are helping to make
up the sum of $14O 100000 for L.
600, 900 pensioners 80 years after the
end of the war. They will glow with
wrath when they know that part OF
the tribute extorted from them goes
to the village drunkard and another
part to the richest man in town.
A GENUINE ghost-story has yet to be
attested; but not so genuine blood
purifier. Over and over again it has
been proved that Ayers Sarsaparilla
stands alone among medicines as the
most reliable tonic-alternative in
pharmacy. 1t stood alone at the