Sunday Washington globe., 1902-01-12

great moment 10 the insane and to minors.
The widows have had their experience. Ask
them. We may be certain that Evans will
limit each minor TO $40 income for its sup
port (the amount he allowed the widow for
each child J and that he will compel the
guardian TO draw in all investments and
exhaust them in the support Of the wards,
before Evans will approve the guardian
requisition for stipend of the accrued
pension" illegally held in the Treasury.
There is great inducement TO a man of
Evans brgandage to do %; for he can thus
practically convert the wards whole estate
into the treasury funds. Take an insane
veteran with family. Evans has foreseen
such cases and provided against them, by
holding that no alowanc in excess of his
individual expenses will be made. (II p.
D., 3S3; Annual Report TeoI)
Evans and Hitchcock required the board
of appeals in Hitchcock's Office to make a
pretended ruling that the guardian is an
officer of the bureau, a Suspension agent
of the United States. The Government has
legal pension agents whose checks are pay
ment This decision was devised as a basis
for attaching, by construction, Evans law
of dependence against the insane and the
minor pensioners. II is the most rdicul-
Gus decision of all the ridiculous decisions
that board has been compelled to render
from one administration to another The
board changes ITS principal decision each
administration by the junto's order See
Commissioner" II P. D., page 35I, case
IoI, leaAet.)
Evans gives the whole scheme away in
his annual report, 1901, page 3S where he
says Under this decision il has been de-
termined to pay further pension to guar
dians only as the needs of their wards shall
require, the pension so withheld to be paid
the guardian. Upon their return to co11bos
BseHti5 or majority, the residue is to be paid
to them, or upon their death, to 90 under
act of March 2, 1906. Annual Report
1901, page 3d.
This plan of withholding payment from
guardians was conceived to circumvent the
decision which the Comptroller might land
finally did render to the effect that Evans
could not rehandle money collected back
from guardians: and that when once col
lected back and turned into the Treasury. il
could be drawn out again only on authority
of Congress. Evans proposes not to make
payment. This gets away with the Comp
troller's decision, to which we referred in
last issue of GLOBE The Comptroller
can only reach one branch of Evans
scheme, that Of being receiving and
paying teller" Evans can still confscate
and turn into the Treasury, but can
not thereafter check it out. but he
can check out in dribs the unpaid pension
as slowly as ne may wish. So the Comp
troller's decision really helps Evans in
holding on to what he coBfscates The
Comptroller has no jurisdiction beyond
prohibiting the checking back to the
guardian.
In all business by guardians OF others,
there is always per cent of loss and bad
management. Evans by years work with
a large and expensive force has found, out
of $4,000 guaTdianships only a few such,
which he cites.
Evans found when the clerks had com
piled all the reports from the guardians
(there are about $4,000 guardians on the
pension rolls) that some IS or 20 insane
pensioners were rich, and did not use all
their funds for a support, and that a very
few of the IS, 900 guardians we're under light
bonds, and that in a few cases the guard
ians had been improvident (he cites
half dozen) Evans found the most salts
factory condition that can be imagined in
so large a number of guardianship. No per
son can believe that he found more than
he cites.
His work should have been referred to the
Census Bureau for making the calls and
tabulating the statistics, without taking up
time Of the clerks paid and assigned for
pension adudications. IF any guardian
deserves prosecuting, both the state laws
and the pension laws provide ample penal
ties, and Evans could have referred the
cases to the Attorney General, or could have
called the attention of the local courts to
the few cases. His object was not reform
or punishment but bold steal by depriving
the wards of legal rights 1t is a case of
pure brigandage,
He cited the fewirTegularities which he
found and las is his WON'T raised a hue and
cry to the effect that all the guardianships
were honeyCombed with fraud and must be
taken out Of the jurisdiction of the local
judges Guardianships have always been
in the hands OF the local judges, and these
had been under the eye of these judges
since the guardians were appointed; and
that is the reason he found them as a
whole, so clean. After citing his few cases
he charged wholesale corruption. (See his
annual report; and Commissioner" II p.
! D., page 35I, case IoI, and GLOBE Of Janu-
airy 81
He had the Board of Appeals in Hitch
cocks office hold in said decision, that the
state courts had no jurisdiction Ia bold lie)
that payment to these guardians by the
United States pension agent is not pay
ment; and that the guardians are the agents
Of the United States, not the agents of the
wards and that Evans has the direction of
the expenditures and guardians both before
and after the deaths Of the wards Section
400, which the Board Of Appeals cited says
in plain English The payment to persons
laboring under legal disabilities may be
made to the guardian" Payment is man
datory if not made to the ward it must be
made to the guardian, Payment" is a
well-known legal word of definite meaning
AS held by the Comptroller, it ends the OBJ
legation Of the United States to the wards
(See GLOBE January 81.
Evans knows all this too but he is trav.
cling around it, pretending to construe the
laws to circumvent them. and using the
circuit for the purpose Of preventing this
very payment II he can prevent payment
TO the guardian his trick would succeed, no
difference by what fraud he circumveuts
nd