The National tribune., 1900-11-08
TIE COURT OF PENSION APPEALS.

THE COURT OF TENSION APPEALS.
Now that the election is over we can
turn our attention to the Court of Pen
sion Appeals, proposed by the National
G. A. r. Committee on Pensions and in
dorsed by the National Encampment.
This was not merely device to pacify
the comrades until after election, as many
have charged. Nor has it wholly refer
ence to the lamentable condition of things
in the Pension Bureau, as is generally
supposed. Mr.. Evans's course has sim
ply brought to head that which has been
| fermenting in the minds of many think
ing comrades for years.
What pensioners and applicants for pen
sions have suffered most from in public
opinion is the too general belief that too
much discretion is given the Commissioner
i'll adjudicating claims. The soldier-hat
ing press and orators have industriously
cultivated the idea that pensions have
| been given without reference to law or
evidence, by too partial Commissioners.
| Thousands of columns have been printed
| in the New York Herald, Times Evening
Post and World, and papers initiating
them, charging that such Commissioners
as Dudley, Tanner and Raum shufiled out
pensions to whoever asked for them, re-
| gardless of the deserving of the claimants,
| and that this practice was most fragrant
on the approach of elections, and in States
that were doubtful. That there was not
shadow of truth upon which to base
such allegations did not abate in the least
the ferceness of these charges. 1t was
good enough campaign stuff, and it was
always available for an attack on Re
publican Administration.
The unwearied reiteration of these
charges, year after year, made many peo-
pie, even those most friendly to the vet
Grams, begin to believe that there was
much truth in them. The more or less
Republican papers in New York and Phil
adelphia, like the New York Tribune and
the Philadelphia Press, never had the
knowledge of the subject sufficient to con-
fute these charges, and were too indiffer-
ent to acquire it. Possibly they really
lacked the ability to do so, for the ed;-
torials of those papers have been for years
notoriously weak.
Now, it is hoped and expected by the
establishment of the Court of Pension Ap-
peals to remove any reproach of personal
or political favoritism from the pension
roll, and place it, and every name upon
it, upon the high and unassailable ground
of a judicial decision. This will be done
by having tribunal Of the dignity of
the pension laws, and lay down rules for
the guidance of the Commissioner of Pen
sions which he will be compelled to fol-
low. 1t does not imply for an instant that
every case will have to come before the
Court of Pension Appeals, nor even that
any great number of them will. The
Court will simply take the place of the
Secretary of the Interior in passing upon
any disputed question, and being Court,
made up of trained jurists, speaking with
the force and effect of a high tribunal,
will be more far-reaching and efficacious
than the rulings and decisions of any mere
ministerial officer can be.
ANY Court of fairly able lawyers would
at once cut to pieces the web of circumlo-
cution which has been painstakingly elab
GRATED to keep claimant out of his claim
until he dies. or until some one on the
pension roll dies and makes a place for
him.
The Court would simply decide that
when Congress said A it meant A, and
that the Commissioner must not infer that
it really intended some other letter of the
alphabet. 1t would decide that laws
were passed with the purpose of being
carried out, and that the Commissioner
who invented distractions and discovered |
purposes in the law that were never In
tended was perverting his functions-that
he was there to carry out the law, and not |
to hunt up pretexts for thwarting its op-
Grafton.
The next great gain would be that when
the Court decided that class of claims |
were legal and should be paid, the Admin
istration would be absolved from any re-
sponsibility as to the amount it would |
take from the Treasury. The Admins |
tratiOn could not be charged with extrav- |
agance in paying the Courts awards, nor
could it get any credit for economy by |
neglecting to pay them. 1t would have |
no interest in the matter, one way or the |
other, any more than it has now in the |
judgments by the Court of Claims, or the |
Supreme Court.
AN ISDISCREET CLERK,