The National tribune., 1898-11-24
WHAT THE VETERANS WANT.

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asked for, nor important amendments to
old ones, but an urgent demand was
made for the proper execution of the
present laws according to their clear in
tent and spirit.
If those laws were carried out with a
fair fidelity to the will of Congress in
enacting them there would be left little
room for complaint. The bitterest COM
plants against the Pension Bureau have
been founded upon the fact that Com
missioner Lochren assumed that Con-
gress did not know what it was about
when it passed the pension laws, and
that he was called upon to narrow down
their operation to meet his personal
views. Commissioner Evans has in
dorsed his predecessors views, and
ad0eQ some OF MS own.
AS THE NATIONAL TRIBUNE has
constantly asserted, this was no part OF
Commissioner of Pensions duties
Messrs. Lochren and Evans usurped
legislative functions when they modified
the pension laws and narrowed their
scope far within what Congress had in
tended. They made most wrongful and
dangerous usurpations when they de-
liberately nullifed those laws by restrict
ing their benefits to a certain number of
claimants each year, and under one pre-
text or another denied pensions to great
numbers who were justly and lawfully
entitled to them.
There was an unspeakable efrontery
in this proceeding by officials holding a
comparatively subordinate position in
the Government. They did what much
higher functionaries would never have
dared do. They felt that they could do
it with impunity, because the victims of
their perversion of the laws were help
less to resent it. IF the Commissioner
Of the Land Office, of Internal Reve-
nue., of Patents, Of Customs, of Rail-
roads, had attempted any such con-
tortion Of the law to the prejudice of
corporations or other interests capable
Of fighting him, he would have been
speedily brought before the Supreme
Court, and there sharply admonished
that it was his business to execute the
law as he found it upon the statute
books, and not to warp it to what he
might think that Congress ought TO
have enacted. But no veteran could
afford to take his case to the Supreme
Court, and employ high-priced lawyers
to teach needed lessons to an usurping
Commissioner of Pensions.
All the interminable chatter about
technical points, rulings, and other de-
vices by which it is attempted to defend
the course of the Commissioner of Pen
sions are merely efforts to befog plain
facts with multiplicity of meaningless
words.
The plain facts are that when Con
gress passed and the President approved
the Act of June II, 1890, the intention
was as clear and manifest as that Of any
public act could be, to give every man
who served 80 days in the army or
navy during the war of the rebellion,
was honorably discharged, and then
suffering from any disability, pension,
rated according to the measure of his
disability up to So month. The
widows Of such as had died were TO
receive pensions.
Nothing could be palmer, more
specific and simple than that mandate
to the Commissioner Of Pensions. He
was given metes and bounds for his
guidance as plain as the course of we'll
travelled highway. If man had served
80 days, was honorably discharged, and
suffering from any disability, he was en-
titled to a pension, and to receiue 1t at
once. But after this law had been
executed in this spirit for three years,
Mr.. Lochren entered office, and at once
proceeded to make virtually a new law
which should not mean nearly SO much
as the law which Congress had passed.
In place of the plain requirements which
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