The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-04-22

up in town and city offering an induce ment for enllstments so mucn per month in pay and so much extra III pension in case a disability was incur red Now. the responsible head Of the pension bureau poses in the role or a 1 repudiator of these promises and ln- ducements.
 It has long been apparent that too much money has been paid out Tor pen sions. What is the remedy! Know or but one, and that is the sealing down
 of the rates. The government paid q
 private soldier SIS per month for the whole of his time and kept him busy , at dirty and deadly work. Now 1t pays him from s6 to $72 per month and re- | quires no duty nor moment or HIS l time. Corporations and others pay pen l sions as rule, at one-halt or regular l pay, which is, extremely liberal. IT the government had done this there never l would have been kick registered, put | there will be both kick and howl IT l the present rates are reduced to the one-half rule, It never will be done, to | be sure, for there isn't member or congress with courage enough to pro- pose 1t. and if there was, the members voting for it would be signing their
 political death warrants,
 "There is no use in crying over spill ed milk" and what can't be cured must be endured" Congress might legislate, as soon as it's present troubles
 are over, that in future enllstments lower rate of pension would be alloWed;
 this would reduce enlistn1ents to zero, but we probably would not need any in the good time coming, but if we did we could conscript them.
 In ten or fifteen years all the veterans of the civil war will be dead, and some of the older widows, and in forty or fifty years more most of the soldiers Of the Spanish war will have "shufhed off" together with many more widows so that the payments for pensions then would not be much of tax.
 As for Commissioner Evans, he may yet cut historic figure as minister to Zululand or some other place, but he will never have monument in Wash ington on account of his record as pen- sion commissioner.
 Doubtless many claims have been al- lowed, in the years that have passed, that should not have been, through the lax methods of accepting sworn testi- mony" as to incurrence of disabilities by comrades and eye-witnesses, but that hole was stopped before the pres- ent commissioner took the helm where he now is. Now, the pendulum is swinging back.
 f1,1r frd+ IA l, 1,n. ie-f f, Jy into the treasury through the pension bureau I will cite local case. Some two years ago I learned from a colored man known as Charlie" at that time a porter at the Fremont house. now a man of all-work at the Tcntine, that he had been in the navy during the war. I asked him if he drew pen- sion. He. said he did not for he had lost his dfsnshaTge. I took him to a pen sion agent to whom he told his story. The agens7sto!d him he could get dis charge from tte navy department, if he | had ever served, and that it would cost | him s3. I told the agent the man had [ no money Che was out of job them, | and that he would have to take the l case on it's merits and wait for his pay. | Ile ulu SD ana secured the mans dis charge, He then filed claim for pen | sion at considerable trouble and ex- pense to himself. to say nothing of the | trouble poor Charlie was put to in | hunting up witnesses, etc. At last, af- | ter about year. the whole farce was enacted. Charlie was examined by board of surgeons, and his claim-re- lected. l don't know what opinion Charlie has of the pension commission ar, or of, his pension attorney. but he called me down severely as being the cause of all his trouble for nothing.'' would like to ask those calamity aowlers who know Charlie if they don't mink him entitled to small pension Under our liberal laws?
 HENRY w. VAIL.