The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-01-06
GLOOMY DAYS FoR PENSIONERS.

sanitary lesson.
GLOOMY DAYS FOR PENSIONERS.
The Old Pensioners and the Want-to-
Be Pensioners, who grew so roaringly
mad about that 'fsoldier-hati ting" admin
istration that made way for a soldier
loving administration nine months ago,
must be having a good many bad quar-
ter hours in these days. They grinned
with expectancy when they read the
nice things the new president said in
his inaugural, and they rejoiced when
they heard that he had made one of
them commissioner Of pensions. They
chuckled when word came out from
Washington that the commissioner had
said that he would have to have seven
or eight million dollars more next year
because there were couple of hundred
thousand applications that he was go
ing to take up right off. If there was
disappointment in the pension bill
that carried the same amount as the
last one-s141, 000, 000-they were reas-
sured by Chairman Cannon's jaunty
assurance that the deficit predicted by
the commissioner would fall IN while
congress was still in session and could
be met with deficiency appropriation.
1t must be with the dawning suspi-
cion Of the man who has put his conf
dence in the plausible stories Of the
bunco steerer that they are reading the
later messages that come out from the
focus Of their hopes and expectations.
1t must be chilling to them to read in
their own party organs that the word
has gone forth that a "halt must be
called in pension appropriations" If
they read 1t they must have been
shocked by that letter Of Gen. Herschel
V. johnson, a stalwart Republican, an
ex-soldier, he who was quite as bitter
as any In denouncing the soldier-hating
Cleveland administration, in which he
makes some comparisons that put the
annual pension bill in very striking
light, showing that the cost is getting
to be considered as a serious matter.
They will wonder If he has been COPY
ing from the G l o e''s editorials on
pensions, when they read: There is a
growing feeling that the pensions en-
1oyed by many thousands who are in
full health and comfortably fixed in
life should be terminated, and the gov
eminent be thus enabled more nearly to
discharge its duty towards the helpless
and the miserable" That Is what the
G b e has always said and what has
earned 1t the name Of being a Soldier
hater" among those who have no con-
ception Of what a soldier was or Is or
should be.
And the general goes on to say that,
IF the pension list could be printed,
every community in the land would be
disguised with it's revelations. Wealthy
men In large numbers would be found
upon it. Thousands would be revealed
whose disabilities were only temporary.
ard so have long since disappeared. A
small army Of men would be discover
ed to whom their pensions are in no
sense a necessity" 1t must send
shtver down the spinal cords of the
old professionals to hear such heart
less talk from so good a Republican
and so undoubted a friend Of the real
soldier. Then there is that other word
that comes from congress which an
nounces that there is a halt called in
the allowance Of private pension bills:
and thai, instead Of giving Friday even
ings to grinding out these bills, they
will have to take their place among
the other claims, the bulk of which fill
waste baskets at the end of the session.
ruthless slaughter of what can hard
ly be termed the innocents; and that ITO
clerks in the pension office have been
dispensed with and that Commission
er Evans has called a halt in the lib
eral policy that has heretofore pre-
vailed"
Great surprise will be manifested by
the veterans" says the Washington
correspondent of one of the papers that
imagines the G o b to be a Soldier
hater" and which poses as a. soldier
lover, when the actual situation Is
presented to them" and they are told
that "the question has assumed a prac-
teal phase" and that "it must now
be considered as plain business prop
| osition." It is getting serious when Re-
publicans talk like that Meantime the
G o b stands by it's guns. No pen
sion to the man who has means of SUD-
port; none to widows with means of
support, nor to those marrying a SOL
der who was past fifty years of age at
the time; pensions ample to provide de-
cent support to the soldier who Is de-
pendent upon his manual labor for sus
tenance and is unable, through physical
or mental disability, to work.
The death of Henry SibIey YOUNG
yesterday cut short at it's opening a
career of exceptional promise, and re.
moved one who had endeared himself
to all his associates. With the fine
courage and enthusiasm Of youth he
had thrown himself into a business
life in which he had already won as
surance Of high success He was full