Evening star., 1898-12-13

through rigid Interpretation he is blamed
by the claimants who fail to get a pension,
and if, on the other hand, he is liberal in
his Interpretation he is blamed by those
who don't get as much as they expected.
The commissioner Of pensions holds d most
trying and difficult position. He finds him
self unable TO rectify abuses, amend bad
laws and prevent frauds. Ill-advised legis-
lation is put upon the statute books, inade-
quate appropriations are made, and then
everybody takes a shy al the commissioner
of pensions for being harsh, cruel official,
an enemy to the Old soldier. to the world
and to creation. The commissioner of pen
sions is kept occupying the space between
Scylla and Charybdis all the time. On the
one hand he is urged by thousands of claim
ants to execute the law as they see ii, and
further, with due respect for a labyrinth
of opinions" decisions, holdings and
practices of many succeeding Secretaries
of the Interior whose divergent views have
afforded precedent for any kind of adjudi
catory acrobaticS; on the other he is obliged
to keep within the large, but still made
quate, appropriations for pensions. The
congressman Join the claimants in their
clamor for more pensions, and yet are un-
able to provide enough money to meet
them. The public stands aghast and dumb
founded. 1t gets suspicious. The newspa-
perS cry "Fraudi'
They say the surest way to cause the re-
peal Of q bad law is to enforce il. This
might be done with the pension laws, but
it would bankrupt the government.
Thousands of Good Claims.
There are piled up in the pension office
thousands of claims rejected by the last
administration, the majority of them per-
fectly good under the law as it now stands.
From all parts of the United States these
very claimants are blaming the commits
sioner of pensions for not adjudicating their
claims. There is not enough money to pay
them If they were adjudicated-
Congress is the responsible party and
should be made to bear the brunt upon its
own shoulders. If Congress will only as
sumo its responsibility, pay the money that
these claims demand, and then amend the
laws and revise the pension list, under
new restrictions, the government will have
pension system which will reflect credit
instead of dishonor, The friends of the old
soldier, who want to make the pension list
a roll of honor, believe it is ar idle dream
that this will ever happen. Congress will
repeat itself, as history does, and will go
on passing new laws general and special
requiring large sums of money from the
treasury, and then appropriate an made
quate sum to pay the pensioners.
And there stands the commissioner of
pensions. be he democrat republican,
facing an angry throng ef disappointed men
and women, the only wall between these
unwise laws and national bankruptcy Per-
haps, after all, it would be wiser and more
satisfactory for Congress 10 break up the
entire pension bureau and create a new
machine, whose work would be at least just
and incapable of permitting frauds. Ex-
Commissioner Bentley proposed a scheme
to do away with the whole system of allow
ance of claims eX parte evidence by the
esta bishment of circuit or travelling pen
sion courts, before whom the claimants and
their witnesses should appear, the courts
sitting from time to time in specified places
1t is too much to require of the pension
bureau operating in many instances thous-
ands of miles from the home of claimant,
to pass upon and inteligently adjudicate
claims. 1t is not too much to ask, it is
argued. that every claimant and every wit
ness should be brought face to face with