The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-09-17
HIS FATAL MISTAKE.
Got His Insurance Application and His Request for Larger Pension Mixed.

Got His Insurance Application and His
 Request. for Larger Pension Mixed.
 'One of the strangest mistakes I ever heard Of" said man who keeps an eye open for the curious and the odd in life, was the one made by the man who got his insurance application and his pen sion papers mixed and as result of the mistake he lost out at both ends of the line. I might remark here that 1t would be a good thing for the govern
 ment and the country generally if few hundred thousand men in the United States Woud make the same mistake. If the pension authorities could get hold of the insurance policies, or rather the applications which are made for insur- ance by many of the men who are drawing pensions, they would find that they are carrying a rather vigorous set Of fellows on the roll The case I have in mind simply illustrates the point.
 '"The man lived in the mountainous regions of one of the central western states, and having fought for the Union in the eos, he concluded that he would get in on the pension deal. He got in all right and had been drawing a pen sion for years when he made the mis- take to which I have referred. He made an application for an increase in his allowance. My recollection is that he had been getting about eight dollars a month, or twenty-four dollars every quarter. He wanted to raise the allow ance to twelve dollars a month. He fixed up the papers. He set forth in ex
 tenso the condition of his health, recited all the ailments which had swooped down upon him as a result of exposure during the war, and when he had fin ished his application for an increase in the pension allowance his life did not look like it waa worth anything. He was simply a physical wreck, had con- stitutional troubles and all that sort of thing, and was simply dragging his feet through the world. It was all caused by the game fight he put up for his country, of course.
 About the same time he was dicker- ing with an insurance company and had filled out an application blank for a policy of three thousand dollars. The facts set forth in his application for in- surance made him one of the healthiest men in the world. There was not a bemish any where in his makeup. He was hefty. vigorous and rosy-cheeked picture of health generally. He had no kind of ailment, was perfectly sound and really there hadn't been any weak, sickly folks in his family as far back as he could trace them. So far, so good. When the poor fellow got ready to send his papers on he made the horri- ble and disastrous mistake Of sending his pension papers to the insurance company, and his application for insur- ance went to the pension office You can. guess the result. The insurance company was inclined to make sport of l the blunder, and they told the applicant | plainly that they had not yet started into the business of insuring men who were practically on their way to the ] graveyard. They simply turned him down with a few curt and cutting re- marks. The pension authorities at Washington. while little more digni- 1 fled in what they had to say about the l lIloil appllCdLlUll lDT dU llCiSdSc III | pension, yet took occasion to congratu- late him on the splendid state of his health, and remarked in passing that the government would be glad to see all 1 the old soldiers recover so completely from the wars hardships. They not only refused the increase which he made an effort to get, but an investiga- tion was made and the mans name was stricken from the pension roll. The ] blunder cost him the pension he had
 been getting for years, and the insr- ance people decided that they would
 rather not take the risk. The fellow
 lost both ways. The moral of the tale
 is that it never pays to pshu a good thing too far.-NeW Orleans Times \ Democrat.