The National tribune., 1901-05-23
THE CHATTER OF "FRAUD. -

Everybody who cares at all for the
! truth now fully understands that this
continual chatter of fraud by Mr.. Evans
| is made wholly and solely to cover up and
| distract attention from his unjust admin
| istration of the pension laws, and to ad-
vertise his own marvellous "smartness.'
How can there be any frauds now on
the pension roll? Eight years ago Mr..
Cleveland. then playing to the unrecon-
structed rebels of the South. the unrepent
ent Copperheads of the North. and the
Free Traders, who wanted the pension
| roll wiped out to give less excuse for
Protective Tariff, came into Office with n
proclamation that the pension roll was
hOney-cOmbed with fraud" and that
thousands of neighborhoods have their
well-known pension frauds" He appoint
ed a Commissioner of Pensions selected
with express reference to supporting this
wholesale SANDER of a COpperhead poll
tician upon the men who had saved the
Nations life. This Commissioner at once
made the extraordinary demand upon
Congress for 100000 for special investi-
cations, and Congress gave it to him and
put a horde of Special Examiners into
lut ut1u " uuu " SuDpDIl TINS
calumnious broadside When this money
was exhausted he went to Congress for
more, and got in all the enormous sum OF
81 100000, or enough to have put 10000
pensioners on the roll at SS a month. In
addition to his Special Examiners, all ap-
pointed with reference to their finding,
| by hook or crook, material with which TO
| substantiate the Presidential allegations,
the whole POstoffice Department and De-
| paftment of Justice were drawn into the
quest for frauds, and the 1000 clerks in
the Pension Bureau were diverted from
their legitimate work of examining and
allowing Iong-standing claims to hunting
up pretexts by which pensioners should
be dropped from the rolls. In spite of all
| this vast expenditure of effort, animated
by partisan zeal, in spite of the enormous
expenditure Of money, the '.fraud-cru-
sade" was one of the most stupendOus
failures ever known. While thousands of
pensioners were dropped upon Commits
sioner Lochren's mere say-so as to what
| the law meant, the utmost number OF
actual frauds which he and Mr.. Cleveland
were able to show for any years work,
and the expenditure of half million dol
lars in money, was 3S9, where 339 had
been the average discovered in previous
years, by other Commissioners, in the Or
binary course of operations.
The Republican papers and politicians,
which were then seeking the votes of the
veterans, made the country ring with de-
| served ridicule of the humiliating failure.
Everybody had to admit that the pen
sion roll had received a splendid Yindica-
ton. 1t had undergone an investigation
such as no other department of the Gov
ernment's expenditures had ever received,
and had endured it in a way that no
other could have done. Any other branch
of the National expenditure, of so much
as S10000.000, if subjected to the same
| rigid and unfriendly scrutiny, would be
certain to develop more fraudulent prac-
tees than the whole $40, 100000 spent
for pensions had
In spite of this, Mr. Evans took up
| Commissioner Lochren's clamor of fraud,
| just as he inherited all his vicious orders
and practices, and proceeded to enlarge
upon it and them. He has shouted fraud
as vehemently, and much more persistent
| ly. than Lochren did, who became
ashamed Of it toward the end Of his ad-
ministratiOn, and felt that the paucity of
| results he had been able to show com
PEELED abatement of his vociferousness.
! Mr.. Evans has already spent more than
81, $4,000 in special fraud hunts, and he
has enlisted large part of the RepubIi-
| can officials to assist the allies which
Lochren had in his work. Every man and
every woman on the pension rolls has been
| put through rigorous inquisition in the
eight years that Lochren, Evans. ct al,
! have been at this work. Willing spies
have gathered up every fragment of neigh
| borhood gossip, and every doubt has gone
against the pensioner and the claimant
for pensions. We saw recently the AS
sistant Secretary of the Interior rebuking
| of drunken rascal against an old wom-
ans chastity, and refusing to listen to the
testimony in her behalf of the neighbors
who had known her every incoming and
outgoing for a quarter of century. This
is a type OF the inquisition to which the
pensioners have been subjected for eight
years, and yet Mr. Evans continues to
fill every paper he can get access to with
calumnies against pensioners and claim
ants.
1t is an exhibition of most astounding
effrontery, not to speak Of the crime of
systematically blackening the characters
Of all who served their country and of
their poor old widows.
THE Department of Indiana hold its