Marietta daily leader. (Marietta, Ohio) 1895-1906, 1900-10-04
PENSION HISTORY.
Democratic Party Always TIE
Foe Of Union Pensions.
HoKE SMITHS VICioJs COURSE.

Under cleveland huu tuuer Pre-iueht
McKinIey-sui,i. Cuiu tncts tor the
Veterans to CunsIder.
Ever since the civil war the DEM
ocratic party has been the foe Oh ths
pension system. AL OF the pension
laws of the statute books have been
of Republican origin, and signed Dy |
Republican presidents. There is not q
single statute On this subject to the |
credit OF tie democratic party. On
the contrary, it has been the relent-
less enemy of the policy of doing JUS
tice to the aged or inlrm veterans of
the American armies.
The only Democratic president s.nce
hecivIl war was Grover Cleveland. III
his two terms he vetoed 524 pension
bills. Of the Republican presidents,
Lincoln, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Har-
rison and Mckinley have never re-
fused their signature to single pen
sion bill. President Grant withheld
his signature only five times during
his two terms.
In the last Cleveland administration
a board of revsioG in the pension bu-
reau was constituted to revise the al
lowance of pensions under the act OF
1890, which is TO be credited to Har-
rison's administration. During the
two years of the existence of this
board S,694 pensioners were dropped
from the rolls. and 23,702 pensions
were reduced. Not only was this done,
but a general campaign was entered
upon against the pensioners on the
rolls. 1t was assumed that the ma
iority were thieves and scoundrel. and
had no legal right to the pensions
they were receiving. An army of spe-
cial examiners was put into the field;
10000 Democratic postmasters were
used as spies at least 81 600 900 were
expended in the effort to brand the
majority of the pensioners as more or
less frauds. The names of the pen
sioners We're published, and Demo-
cratic neighbors in every locality were
called upor to scrutini2e the right of
each ih"lv dual to his pension.
What WAS the outcome of all this
enormous expenditure of pubic
money? What was the result of this
rigid scr',.iny and investigation
There were at that time in round
numbers g70c90 pensioners on the
rolls 1t was alleged that many thou
sands of these would he proved frauds
Cleveland in his message of 1898 de-
clared that thousands of neighbor-
hoods had their fraudulent pension
ers." This organized search for fraud
was made after that message was is
sued. The result showed that it is
easy to make wild charges, but very
hard to prove them to be facts. OF
the 100000 pensioners on the'list, only
39 were found guilty-one convicted
as fraudulent out of every 24,O00 hon
est pensioners.
When President Mckinley took his
seat, the Democrats changed their tac-
tics. From that day to this there has
been apparently an organized effort tC
create Gisaffection among the old sol.
diers. Pension Commissioner Evans
has been the target for unmeasured
abuse and viliification. William Sui.
zer, a representative from one of the
Tammany districts, made a speech OF
June 8, 1900. in the house, which pro.
ceeded upon the theory that every sol
dier and every member of the Grand
Army is a pension grabber, animated
only by base desire for spoils; anG
a large portion of his speech was
taken up In the reading of extracts
from issues of weekly paper publish.
ed in Washington, which was started
ostensibly in the interests of the ole
soldiers, but really to promote pen.
sion attorneys business. This paper
for reasons best known to its propri
etors, has beea the bitter enemy Of
Commissioner Evans. Its articles, pub
lished week after week, are false, mis-
: leading and inflammatory. AS was
said above, large portion of Mr. Sui
zer's speech is composed of extracts
from this paper. These are now
printed in leaflet form by the nationa
Democratic committee, and are spread
broadcast among the old soldiers. None
of Mr.. Suizer's remarks are given;
that would not do, for he attacked
every soldier as having designs upoI
Uncle Sans pocket. Nothing bu
these extracts ais printed, leaving tn,
| inference that Sulzer, the Tammany
lite, was the defender of the veterans
On the same day, June last, Hon
Charles Dick of Ohio made reply IL
Sulzer. lie gave the absolute fact.
from the records, and traversed ever,
accusation made indirectly by Sulzer
through his quotations from the ma
lignant Washington sheet referred to
, No more complete vindication of thu
course of the Republican party, or o
the present administration, or of Com
missioner Evans, could be made. o
the rs charges made against Mr.
Evans, every one is answered and tn,
truth shown. The speech should bt
printed and circulated among all wht
are desirous of knowing the truth.
few facts as to the liberal administra
r tion of the pension bureau under Nc
= Kinley are here given for considera
tion:
With the advent of the present al
, ministration, many thousands of new