The age-herald., 1900-02-17
CAUST|C DEBATE
 IN THE HOUSE Members Wax Warm Over the
 Pension Question: SIMS MERELY ARRA|GAEO Prs g h for Civil Service Left s it Appropriation Bill. ine REGULATION ANNUAL JOKE This Action Has For Several Years Been Taken in Committee of the Whole
 But Afterwards Restored
 By Committee.
Ino REGULATION ANNUAL JOKE

Washington, February 16.-The house to- 1 day indulged in its annual joke by striking from the legislative appropriation bill all provisions for the civil service commisson. This action Is taken each year in committee of the whole, where the members do not go on record, and the provision is then in- variably restored when the bill gets back in the house where members have to re- spond to their names upon roll call. Ine vote today to strike out was 10 to 67. To- morrow the house will reverse this action as usual aye and nay vote. Most of the time of the house today beyond that occupied in the discussion of the civil ser vice law was devoted to attacks upon the speech made by MT. Sims, democrat, or | Tennessee, on Wednesday, in which he fur | nished some figures of the pension office, showing the number of applications TOT | pensions filed by soldiers of the volunteer 1 regiments engaged in the Spanish war, to | show that the northern soldiers were much | more clamorous in that regard than the | southern ones, and attributing this to the | deIbauching of public sentiment in the | north the pension question. l Mr. Pearre, republican, of Maryland,
 raised the storm by reference to those | figures and the statement that hundreds of | Massa chusetts soldiers who never smelled powder had applied for pensions. This 1 brought out an indignant reply from Mr. 1 Fitzgerald, democrat, of Massachusetts, ! who detailed the record of the Massachu- sets volunteers in the late war He was l followed by others, who defended the rec ords of the soldiers from their several states
 Hepburn Assails Sims MT. Hepburn, of Iowa, vigorously assailed Mr Sims, and considerable temper was shown.
 When the session opened announcement l of the receipt of the currency bill from the | senate was made, and by unanimous con- | sent the senate amendments were disagreed 1 to- The speaker appointed Messrs Over
 street, republican of Indiana; Brossus, re-
 publican of Pennsylvania, and Cox, demo- | crat of Tennessee, conferees. The house l then went into committee of the whole on
 the legislative appropriation bill. Mir.
 Pearre, republican of Maryland, vigorously
 attacked the appropriation for the civil
 service commission, and charged that the 1 departments were full of incompetents He
 announced his unequivocal opposition to the 1 law. He reiterated the charge made sever | al days ago that the departments were full of incompetents.
 "Where are they?" asked Mr. Fitzgerald, | democrat of Massachusetts.
 | Where were they under the old system?" | asked MT. Pearre, replying with ques- | tion.
 "Every where; there were thousands of
 them," replied MT. Fitzgerald. If the
 bars were down now you would have the
 departments crowded with Marylanders." | Massachusetts need not sheer at Mary | faw | ago a gentleman read list of hundreds of
 Massachusetts soldiers who never smelled | powder during the Spanish war, but who | are already clamoring for pensions"
 Thus began lively debate.
 Question of Campaign Fund MT. Fitzgerald said he knew the law was I not lived up to here in Washington and l other sections of the country. It had been | grossly violated during the last campaign | in Ohio he said, when federal officehold- l CTS all over the country were appealed to for funds for that campaign. Docs the gentleman say that was not l done under the Cleveland administrations" | asked some one on the republican side. "Neyer" replied MT. Fitzgerald. | MT Fitzgerald then indignantly denied that the Massachusetts regiments had never smelled powder in the Spanish war: The Second Massachusetts. he said, had three men killed, three officers and forty one men wounded in the Santiago cam- paign In all, the Second Massachusetts lost 9s men; the Fifth Massachusetts. 55 mem the Sixth, 10S men; the Eighth, 197 men, and the Ninth, 130.
 What was the cause of their death?" asked MT. Wachter, republican of Mary land.
 Disease contracted account of in- efficiency of the government" replied MT. Fitzgerald hotly, amid applause.
 MT. Fitzgerald, continuing, told har- rowing story of the return home of the Massachusetts volunteers, broken and wrecked by disease. If they had been ren- dered incapable of earning a living by the failure of tine government to provide them with proper care and sustenance, then, sad he, they were entitled to pensions.
 MT. Hepburn, republican, of Iowa, called attention to the statement made by MT. Sims on Wednesday contrasting the records of eight volunteer regiments in the north and south, showing that from the former came 3,5SS pension claims and from the latter 761. MT. Sims had attributed the disparity to the universal pension senti- Saent in the north. MT. Hepburn pointed out that for the purpose of comparison the tables adduced by MT. Sims were not alike.