The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-01-11
WILL THEY APOLoGIzEe

WILL THEY APOLOGIZE:
One can scarcely restrain his amaze
ment who examines the files of the
leading Republican newspapers of to-
day and contrasts them with those of
the last ten or twelve years in their
utterances on the pension question. A
man would think, from scanning the
columns of Republican organs today,
that no greater abuse had ever crept
Into the administration of our finances,
and that no greater need for reform
existed anywhere than in the pension
office. These statements are absolutely
true. The publication in the converted
New York Sun of the facts about the
pension lists and pension expenditures,
together With the pressure brought
upon the treasury by the continuance
of a deficit, has at last forced the Re
publican leaders to admit that some
thing must be done to purge our pen
sion system of the frauds that have
permeated it from center to circum-
ference. With nearly a million names
on the rolls today of alleged sur
vivors of the civil war, supposed to be
so far incapacitated for self-suppoyt as
to deserve the bounty of the govern
ment, it is, indeed, time that something
were done. 1t is probable, as charged,
that there are more persons drawing
pensions from the government today
than there are actual survivors of the
civil war all told. Inasmuch as there
is a long roll of honor" containing
the names of veterans who fought
through the war, but are too proud of
their record to accept money from the
government when they have means to
support themselves, the proportions Of
the frauds that have been proposed
begin to reveal themselves.
Following the lead of the New York
Sun, newspapers and politicians the
country over. headed by a Republican
commissioner of pensions himself, tell
the people that reform must be begun.
Probably they feel that the political
advantage that resides in an indis-
criminate granting of pensions is on
the wane; and that, with the old SOL
diers dropping into their graves now
by thousands every year, the pension
racket has been worked for pretty
much all that it is worth. We do not
care so much. however, for their past
attitude or their present as we do for
the monumental hypocrisy and false
hood of which they stand convicted TO-
day. 1t is we'll enough that the recti-
fication of the pension system should
be committed to the hands that de-
based 1t. 1t is proper and fit that the
Republican party, by whom the doors
of the treasury were thrust wide open,
and at whose instigation every fraudu-
lent claim was placed upon the rec
ords, should be obliged to undo some
of its own dishonorable work Before
1t sets out upon it, however, it owes,
In common decency, an apology to the
men whom it has slandered and vilified
for telling precisely the truths which
1t is today obliged to admit and for
suggesting precisely the policy which
1t now declares to be justified and made
necessary by the facts.
Let US not forget the attitude of this
party and its bosses in the past toward
every man who presumed to object to
frauds upon the pension rolls Can we
not hear yet the chorus of dirty and
profane objurgation that went UP all
over the country against President
Cleveland because he dared to veto
such bills as have swollen these
lists to outrageous proportions, and
to call a thief thief? Has
1t passed out of our memory
how Tanner was appointed for the
express purpose of granting a pension
to every man who asked for it, whether
he had ever smelt powder or been out
side of the home guards, and whose
watchword, by his own declaration
was to be God help the surplus?" Has
any man who possesses the common in
Btincts of decency forgotten that when
Judge Lochren, gallant veteran of
the Union army, a judge without re-
proach and a gentleman and a patriot,
was appointed to take charge of the
pension Office, and made statements far
less damaging and proposed amend
ments and reforms far less radical than
those of Commissioner Evans today,
he was cursed and reviled like a pick
pocket? The very same men who are
telling US now that the pension rolls