The National tribune., 1900-04-19
HOW WILL IT LOOK TO HISTORY.

HOW WILL IT LOOK TO HISTORY.
At the very worst III. O. Evans must &C
some time. Then new eyes must study The
accumulated correspondence in the Pen
sion Bureau. Different men will pass IN
judgment upon the proceedings of the
Pension Commissioner for the past few
years. Other minds than one crazed
with desire for National advertisement
of his own 4shrewdness," "smartness," and
superlative cunning, will consider the
heart-breaking appeals from poor, disabled
old men and women for scant justice. The
clamors of the selfish, greedy Money Power
for reduced pension expenditure will
then have been forgotten, or regarded with
just contempt. The pressing exigency
for big campaign fund from it will then
seem of as little consequence as the flowers
that bloomed in some forgotten Spring. All
that these eyes, possibly unfriendly to Mr..
Evans's aspirations and those Of his i'm
mediate friends will see viii be the plain
text of the laws he was sworn to execute,
| anu llllSI IlGlSICSS
with them to defeat their purpose and
deny their benefit to the poor old men and
women whose only hope was the Nations
gratitude and justice. They will see, with
their appeals ringing in his ears, with
every mail that arrived at the Office laden
with their supplications for justice, that he
would day after day, devise new preteXts
for circumventing the laws, new mystifi-
| cations for plain mandates, new devices
| for denial.
Meanwhile, q thousand of these bafled,
denied, defrauded people, with whose
mortal misery he was Juggling, were dying
every week. He was striving to cover
their groans, their lamentations, and
the angry EXPLANATIONS of their friends
with noisy trumpetings of his great cum
ming in saving the Treasury fabulous
amounts of money, of blathering falsities
about frauds" pension attorneys" claim
agent sharks" etc. Were men dying off
at the rate of 900 week just to embarrass
him? Were claim agents" filling the
wrecked frames with rheumatism, heart
failure, prostration, anchylosis, and the
thousand other ills that flesh is heir to,
just to defeat his purposein Saving money?
Were men who had served their country
faithfully, and broken themselves down in
her service, only moved by the machina-
tions of some hungry claim agent, to COM
plain bitterly of the rejection of their ap-
plications for the few dollars a month which
had been promised them? Could the
claim agent feel as keenly the loss of his
trif1ing fee as they did the country's in
gratitude in denying them, in their need
and old age, that which they had earned
by the sacrifice of their health and strength?
How will all this look a few years hence?
How would it look today if some in
vestigating historian should bring to light
that many years ago there was another
Henry Clay Evans, who treated the soldiers
of the Revolutionary war and their widows
as the present one is treating the veterans
of the rebellion and their widows?
Would there be words in our language
strong enough TO properly condemn such
heartless man, dead to every sentiment of
patriotism, humanity and gratitude?
Think of how the history of even one
day of Henry Clay Evans's management
of the Pension Bureau would read, if ap-
piled to the men who fought the Revolu-
tionary war through, and to their widows.