Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1898-04-01
WHICH WAS FOOLED?
The Kind of Pension Abuses That
Attract the Attention of the
Country.

Attract the Attention of the
Country.
New York Times.
Upon that list of pensioners of the
United States that should be "roll
of honor" there is the name of a
prominent member of the House of
Representatives from the State of
Ohio. In the list of clients of two in
surance companies, carried by each as
a good risk for $4,000, this same
pensioned veteran is found, and the
insurance companies consider him a
very good subject to do business with.
Which was fooled?
General Charles H. Grosvenor served
in the United States army from 1861
to 1865. 1t appears that he served
well, but he did not meet with any
misfortune until October of 1865,
when in a railroad accident he was
thrown about a bit and was able,
hen he had reflected upon the mat
ter some Is years, to discover that he
had stiff elbow or shoulder, attribut-
able to this shaking-up received while
I" in the line of duty" Pension ex-
aminers may have been less exacting
then than they are now or the ap-
plicant may have brought superior in
tiuence to bear upon the pension Of
fee, for he obtained a decision that
gave him accrued pension money,
amounting to $3,975, being at the
rate of $22.50 per monah from October
10, 1865, to July l, 1880.
General Grosvenor may have had
an anchylosed elbow in 1880, but his
conscience had not yet become
anchylosed, for it responded to a re-
monstrance by public opinion, and on
March 25, 1884, the $3,975 was put
back into the United States Treasury.
But the general went on receiving the
$3.50 per month until June Z, 1882,
when he managed to have his rating
increased 70 $50 per month. Up to
June 7, 1897, he had been paid by the
government $5,923, which he had not
returned to the treasury.
We assume that this pension was
given to General Grosvenor because of
the extent of the damage inflicted
upon him during his service under the
government. We cannot clearly see
why, if he was entitled to receive any
thing, he should have returned that
$3,975, but it is interesting to know
that he did. 1t may not be at all to
the point to suggest that his circum-
stances have never been such as to
justify him in making himself a pub
lie charge, burden upon his fellows
in the name of patriotism. He is a
lusty, active and sometimes splenetic
old gentleman, has been in Congress
some half dozen terms, and manages
to keep his end up" very comfortably.
Some years after the pension Office
decided that General Grosvenor was
so injured by accident "incurred in
the line of duty" as to become en-
titled to be paid first $3.50 and then
$50 monthly from the treasury, he ap-
piled TO an insurance company to be
insured for $4,000. The usual in
quiries were made to ascertain the
physical condition of the applicant,
and it was decided that, notwithstand-
ing his pensionable disability, his ap-
plication should be granted. Within
few years he made similar applica-
ton to another insurance company,
and was by that company insured for
an amount equal to that for which he
was first accepted.
Which was fooled? Was it the
pension Office, with its expert exami-
ners, accustomed to the detection of
merely asserted disabilities, or was it
the insurance companies, dealing not
with greedy patriots, hungering to
have their love of country paid for, at
so much the month, but, but with
business men who are to be permitted
to make an investment only after
they have been proved to be in rea-
sonably sound physical condition?