El Paso daily herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1881-1901, 1901-01-26
Special Correspondence of The Herald


| WASHINGTON, Jan. 19,-As 1 was
Waiting down town last night
''waltzing' is merely metaphorical and
is not rigidly descriptive happened
on a big fire which meant a good deal
to plenty of people outside Washing
ton. Most of our Washington occur
renceS do. Eight or nine engines were
Isobbing away at a big three story
building, which was burning as III put
up for the express purpose. 1t wasn't;
it was intended for bicycle store.
They were not doing much good in
spite of the supervision of the assem-
bled crowd, of whom l was which.
| There was lot of bicycles and auto
mobiles in the building which went the
way of all things in a fire, but that
wasn't of great importance-the trust
has plenty more. What was of import
ance though was the fact that in the
upper floors the biggest pension attor-
ney in Washington had his offices and
there were all his files and records;
the papers in thousands and thous-
ands of cases. At a rough guess 1
should say he had 100000. You can
cut that in two if you like. but 1 think
there were fully that. There were dis
charge certificates of soldiers, affidav-
| it's and a world of other papers, many
of which cannot be replaced, and the
loss of which will mean loss of posi-
BILE pensions.
To the man in the street, it looked as
if they were all gone, but today /
learn that most of those wholly de-
stroyed represent allowed cases-SO,-
000or so of them-which were filed on
the top floor while in the floor below
were pending cases. and that the dam
age to these latter is mostly by water.
hope it isn't greater
These cases were all formerly with
Capt. Lemon. now dead, who in his
day was one of our notable citizens
He had a sheer courage and dash in
business affairs which l never saw sur
passed, and which none of the latter
day pension attorneys possess. In
deed they hardly dare say their souls
are their own under the present regime
And congress has cut down the fees so
in these cases that first class men do
not go into the business any more.
The Pension System.
There is a big row on about said
regime just now and Washington I'M
dercurrents are seething herewith
Nobody much doubts that the present
commissioner, Henry Clay Evans of
Tennessee, is carrying out an admin
istration policy, but nobody wants to
say SO. 1t is SO much easier and pleas
anter just to abuse Evans. And he de-
serves good deal of the abuse on his
own private account anyway. The pol
icy is defined for short as that of
watching the graveyards,' which
means that it is only on the death of
some previous pensioner that new
pension is allowed-the idea being that
the sum total of pensions shall not be
permitted to grow. Instructions to
that effect undoubtedly went down |
along the line and Evans is probably
simply carrying out orders. During
the campaign he was the scapegoat
whenever the administration came in |
to contact with the Grand Army, al |
though so much stress was not laid on |
his entire responsibility when talking |
to men who do not approve of pen
sions. From a standpoint of pure rea- |
son, it would seem as if the list ought |
to be growing all the time now. 1t |
is 35 years since the war ended, and the |
soldiers are getting older in due course |
of events-at least most of them are. |
There are unQuestionably many
abuses in the present system by which |
the commissioner is made absolute |
judge of law and fact in pension cases, |
no appeal to any court being allowed. |
1t is whole lot of power for any one |
man in a non-autocratic country. The /
Grand Army wants to have a court of /
pension appeals established and there |
has been a delegation in town all |
week, working for it. 1t was headed |
by commander-in-chief Leo RasSieur /
of St. Louis. But they ran up against |
a snag first thing. In the senate pen
sions are referred to a committee of
which Gallinger of New Hampshire. is |
head. and in the house they go to an
other headed by Cy Sulloway, also of |
New Hampshire, and Gallinger'S |
Now Gallinger expects to
have a fight for reelection in 1905
Senator Chandler just defeated for re-
election is already camping on his |
trail-and he is fixing his fences. |
Among other people whom he wants to |
square are two constituents who are
not judges. They wouldn't do for the |
proposed court for that reason, but |
they would be just the men for a |
board of pension appeals" at $4,000 a |
year apiece. Consequently Gallinger
and Sulloway prefer a board. Evans, |
who is a sly sort of man in a cheap |
way, comes in with counter propo-
sition to have neither court nor board. |
but instead to let him refer ten ques- |
lions of disputed practice" to the
court of claims every year. Which as
tactics is good. There is nothing |
whatever in present law to prevent his |
referring ten questions or a thousand
if he wants to. And as he would Sc
lect the questions to be referred, it is
difficult to see where the penSioner
would get any forwarder.
All of which is as given me by a
Grand Army man.
A Much Amended Army Bill Passed.
The senate passed an amended-a
much amended-army bill yesterday