The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1901-08-02
SEE CHANGE
IN POLICY
Will Republicans
Abandon Old
Soldiers.

The controversy over the retirement
from his office of Pension Commission
er Henry Clay Evans. of Tennessee, at
the demand of the Grand Army of the
Republic, has caused SO much COM
ment that the following article from
the Washington correspondence of the
Philadelphia Record (Democratic), may
give some light upon the drawing of
the lines:
Keen observers begin to perceive
more in the Sickles- Evans incident
than mere sparring for spoils or the
unVeiling of an unsavOry election bar
gain. The opinion is gaining ground
that the Republican party, under the
careful pilotage of the Mckinley ad-
ministration, is making ready to aban-
don it's old-time pension policy.
A veteran politician of the Central
West, and once a Republican leader of
note, today expressed that conviction,
and predicted to a group Of Washington
newspaper men that at no distant day
the Republican leaders will be found
actually advocating the repeal OF all
pension laws.
You laugh incredulousy, 1 see." he
remarked, yet l am very close to the
truth. Ten years ago you would have
been just as incredulous mad anybody
told you that the Republican party
would ever abandon the cause of the
negro. The signs that it would do So
were already quite apparent in the sec
ond Harrison campaign, and now we
see that it has practically put itself
in accord with the once obnoxious
mississippi plan of dsfranchsement.
or, at all events, has ceased to worry
over the suppression of the black mans
vote.
NOT MANY REAL SOLDIERS LEFT.
"Twenty-five years ago it was trea-
son to Republicanism to hint that the
policy of the party toward the old SOL
dierS was an e&traNagant and wasteful
one, or that there was any such thing
as pension sharks or pension frauds.
The country could not do too much for
the old boys who had saved the Union.
How is it now? There is a very differ
ent tone regarding this pension ques-
tion. The enormous aggregate pay
ments to the old soldiers are being
viewed with misgivings by many
stanch Republican partisans, while
others are openly criticising indiscrimi-
nate pensions. The language of the
Republican press today on pensions
would have broken up the party in 1850.
Two decades ago nobody dared to
question the pension policy of the gov
ernment as laid down by the Repubi-
cans. Now it is openly antagonzed by
hundreds of Republican leaders In all
quarters, and almost solidly by the
metropolitan press.
"All this, mind you, is as yet being
done almost covertly. All still bland
ly talk about the honest and deserving
pensioner; nobody apparently disputes
that the good soldier should have a
pension If the law says so, and so on.
/ 1t is only the frauds and sharks who
are devouring the national substances.
Meanwhile the enormity of the S145,-
| 100000 annually going to the army of
| pensioners is eternally enlarged upon
| by the organs of the coming change.
1t is having the sinister effect design
ed.
Pretty soon, as in the case of In
dlans all the good soldiers will be dead
ones. The Republican pension policy
has ceased to be a drawing card, and
1t will eventually 60 just as the stren-
uous Republican policy toward the
freedman has gone.
1.-The very fury with which General
SickleS has been attacked by the thick
and-thin administration organs ought
to show you what is coming. 1t is GER
tain that the. Republican committee
sought out the professional soldier
leaders and plead with them to go out
and pacify the veterans when the
great scare occurred last fall about
the soldier vote in Ohio, Indiana and
illinois.
SOLDIER VOTE LESS DANGEROUS
1.-The Mckinley managers deceived
the old soldiers in 1896 with promises OF
an open-door policy If he was elected
The administration was compelled tc
shuttle out Of the promises made ther
by Alger, Sickles and Tanner because
1t discovered that public opinion wa:
against further pension extravaganza
Then, too, there was a growing BELLE
that the soldier vote had ceased to bt
dangerous even If it was not right.
Understand me: There Is no chang,
in the pension system itself; the prin
ciple Is the same now as 1t was twenty
or thirty years ago, and the principl,
Is right and patriotic in my opinion
There are not so many pension shark!
now as then. Nobody Is now getting
rich by securing pension claims fol
soldiers. whereas then large fortune.
were rolled up in that business here II
Washington. What Republican news
paper would have dared to attack Sick
les and Tanner then as they have beer
attacked now? Why the change?
THE Republican party wants tn,
pension money for their army. for tn,
army retired list. Every army officel
is a deadly hater of the pension list.
rnnD HEDIrrNE Enp rrITr DDrNr