The National tribune., 1901-01-17
THE COURT OF PENSION APPEALS.

IhE COUhT DE PENSION APPEALS.
If any other ofiiceT-Federal or State
possessed such arbitrary, despotic power
over the absolute means of living of 81
many thousands of people as the Com
missioner of Pensions habitually exer
cises, its exercise would have long
ago led to an agitation that might
have risen to the proportions of q
revolution. There would at least have
been such commotion as would have led
to a marked curtailment of his powers,
and 4 limitation in those remaining to
him, compelling their exercise in conform
ity with the principles governing all the
rest of our officials and institutions.
| To hundreds of thousands of Americans.
men and women, their pension certificate
is their most valuable property. 1t is
something that war earned far more hard
ly than another man has earned his farm
or his home. To a veteran it represents
all that accrued by years of indescribable
dangers. of unspeakable hardships. of
wounds and disabilities which have
wrecked his wage-earning ability and
filled his life with physical misery. To
his aged widow it represents all that her
prematurely aged and decrepit husband
was, able to leave her, for her years of
devoted companionship and nursing. Yet
any moment the Commissioner of Pen
Sions can, in the exercise of his discretion.
or in some vagary of temper. prejudice, or
mere whim. deprive this old man or wom-
an of his or her pension. and brand them
before their communities as frauds, and
they have absolutely no recourse. The
man or woman who is deprived of a pig
or COW, or even the most trifling bit of
property, has a remedy at hand. A neigh
boring Justice of the Peace will at once
furnish it. But the pensioner is deprived
of this commOnest right and protection of
American citizenship. No other man or
woman under the shadow of the Flag is
allowed to be so helpless before a master
as he or she is.
The claimant may pile up proof suffi-
cient in Il murder case TO send n man to
the gallows. and the Commissioner of Pen
sions may and does absolutely disregard
it, and there is no way of compelling him
to do otherwise Speedy iustice-prompt
adjudication of claims and COM
plaints-is one of the dearest rights of
American citizenship. Yet the Commits
sioner of Pensions can refuse-and has re-
fused in hundreds of thousands of in
stances-tO try and settle cases. until the
claimants We're dead, and there is no way
of compelling him to do otherwise
All this is grossly. outrageously I'M
American. For every other class of cred
y .ssy aFa1
the most ample means for speedy justice
The old soldier and his widow are alone
left naked and defenseless before their
autocrat. The man who sells the Gov
eminent a bunch of mules or few bar
rels of pork may go before the Court of
Claims and compel the Secretary of the
Treasury to pay him his money But by
express reservation the door of the Court
of Claims was slammed in the face of the
pension claimants. The man who invents1
new 'churn, or a potato-digger. can go
before the Court of the District of Co
lumbia and compel the Commissioner of
Patents to Immediately issue him n pat
ent. The man who feels aggrieved by the
actions of the Commissioners of Customs.
OF Internal Revenue, of Indian Affairs
of the Land Office, have similar equally
ready recourse and remedy. For the pen
sion claimant there is none. He can ap-
peal to the Secretary of the Interior,
which means in effect appealing to the
Board of Pensions Appeals. in effect an
other set of clerks of the Pension Com
missioner passing upon his acts. Even
this is mockery. The Board of Pen
siOns Appeals is more than 10000 cases
behind in its work. and getting farther be-
hind every day, and there is little chance
of the majority of cases being reached in
the lifetime Of the appellants.
This is why we want Court of Pen
sion Appeals, TO make a just and salutary
curb upon the unrestrained despotsm of
the Commissioner, and to bring to order
and simplicity the desperate tangle he has
designedly made of the pension laws and
their execution.