The National tribune., 1899-01-05
WHAT OF THE NEW YEaR9

y
Administration.
The veterans of the country have
waited most patiently through all the
past q months for him to give them
the relief from the hardships and
injustices of Cleveland's Administra-
ton, which was great part of the
issues Of the campaign of 1896.
Twenty-one months is a long time to
wait, especially for veterans of the war
of the rebellion, for they know that the
years, and months, and even days yet
remaining to them are few.
The first year they waited patiently,
because they appreciated the disorder
in which Mr.. Cleveland had left the
National establishment, and that time
was necessary to get the Treasury and
the finances in proper shape and to put
competent men at the head of the
various Departments and subordinate
Divisions. They felt certain their turn
would come in due time, when the
President could feel free to give atten-
ton to the wants of his old comrades.
They could wait for offices and pen
sions until he made the big men
Secretaries, ambassadors, Ministers,
Commissioners, Collectors, Judges, Mar
shals, etc, and until the new tariff could
ell the Treasury, and stop the buying
of gold. There is nothing like the
patriotic patience of the veterans 1t is
one of the many lessons they learned in
the army.
The second year they had still more
urgent and patriotic reasons for patient
waiting. The country had become en-
broiled in foreign war, the dimensions
of which no one could foresee. 1t was
their duty to forget self, and give the
most enthusiastic he p they could to him
in the momentous duties that suddenly |
devolved upon him. Their worst
enemies could not but admire the way
in which they did this Beyond all
question, the most loyal, ardent, I'M
supporters of the President
in the whole country were the veterans.
lesson of the war of the rebel
lion. They stood by him in all that he
said or did as they stood by Abraham
Lincoln in 1873.
Now the Spanish war is over, and all
its problems conclusively settled, except
the minor details of the Government of
the acquired territory, which are being
worked out by our Generals assigned to
the duty. The revenues of the country
are greater than they have been at any
time since the war, the Treasury is so
overrun with gold that it is making un-
usual efforts to return it to circulation
All of the Presidents appointees have
had more than year in which to get
with their duties. There
never was a time when a President
could feel at more leisure for any spec
ial work on hand, and we respectfully
but earnestly urge President Mckinley
to employ it in consideration Of what is
due his long-waiting, long suffering COM
rades
In the first place, there is the Pension
Bureau, which is the source of infinitely
more just complaint than anything else
with his Administration. 1t
alone of all the Departments and
Bureaus shows no change from It's
under his predecessor,
whom it made exceedingly unpopular.
The only difference is that Henry Clay
Evans now signs as Commissioner and
Travis the pay, instead of VIM. Lochren.
All of Mr.. Lochren's obnoxious orders
and practice. remain in full force, the
same little ring Of perniciously active
controls the Bureau, and {
continue it the same engine of cruelty
and injustice it was under Cleveland. {
All this is the more grievous because
he veterans and their dependent ones
Ire six years older than they were at (
he commencement Of Cleveland's AID s
their needs are incompara-
bly, greater, and the failure to receive :
relief from an Administration elected {
Upon the issue of giving them relief il