Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1900-03-17
Grand Army Column.


were made for the most part by Con-
grsssmen who were either in the army
themselves during the four years OF
war or were in Congress at the time.
and were contemporaries with the
men who did the fighting and knew
of their sufferlngs and heard the Wild
ow and the orphans OF the men who
went down in the struggle. These
laws may not be perfect--nothing hui
man has that rare quality--but these
laws are satisfactory to the soldiers,
and all they ask is that they shall be
enforced in the spirit in which they
were enacted 1t would be almost akin
to crime to allow them to be set aside
by later generation of law makers,
who have no especial sympathy with
the veterans.
Over year ago the Senate called
upon the State Department to send to
all the Pensions officials of the old
country in Europe and elsewhere for
copies of their peusion laws. These
copies came to hand recently and are
now in the hands of the Senate Com
mittee on Pensions. The Senate at the
suggestion of the present Commission
er of Pensions, Hon. II. Clay Evans,
has passed an act recently creating a
commission composed of five MEM
bers, each of whom will receive $4,000
year. to take the laws relating to
pensions and revise and codify them.
This bill was passed by the Senate
without comment at the request of the
( Chairman of the Cimmlttee on Pen
sions, Senator Gallinger, and one is
| led to ask if the United States Sen
ate has ceased to be a deliberative
body. So now, if this bill passes the
House. the proposed commission will
take the pension laws as they now
stand and be at liberty to remove and
cut out and amend and mutilate them
in any way they please and when this
august body shall report the results of
their work to Congress, for fear of
offending Senatorial courtesy no doubt
they will be enacted into law. The
veterans of the war have ceased to be
a factor in politics that the ordinary
politician respects That is the i'm
preston that has gone cut. but the
outcome may be very different.
Some legislators no doubt take the
idea seriously that the pension laws of
Europe are a new discovery. Quite
the contrary is true. 1t has always
been well understood and known that
al pensions. Who cares whether they
do or not; what has that to do with
the question of the enforcement of the
laws we now have, The veterans of
the war of the Rebellion need have no
fears that cur pension system will be
remodled after the plan of any old |
country, where military service is cum
pulsory and every citizen able to bear
arms is part of the standing army
either in reserve or in actual service
CONGRESSMEN.
There are plenty of good and true
men, Americans of the Americans, who |
will never be afflicted with pension |
phobia or Anglomania or any other
mania, who are not frightened by the
size of the pension roll because they
know something about what two mil
lion men in arms means, because they
realize what hardships were endured
by the men who saved the Union, and
they will stand by and see fair play
without fear of what will be done for
or against them at the polls The his
tory of such men has been that they
were all right when they came to the
polls for the people have never yet de-
serted law maker who did his duty
by the soldiers who fought the coun-
,ry's battles.