The Savannah morning news., 1902-08-23
Pushed a Good Thing Too Far.

zone of the strangest mistakes
ever heard Of" said a man who keeps
an eye open for the curious and the
odd in life, according to the New Or
leans Times-Democrat, was the one
made by the man who got his insur-
apce application and his pension pa
pers mixed, and as a result of the mis-
line. / might remark here that it
would be a good thing for the govern
ment and the country generally If a
few hundred thousand men in the
United States would make the same
mistake. If the pension authorities
could get hold of the insurance poll
cies, or rather the applications which
are made for insurance 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 1 have in mind amply
illustrates the point.
The man lived in the mountainous
regions of one of the central western
states, and having fought for the I'm
ion in the COS, he concluded that he
would get in on the pension deal. He
got in all right and had been drawing
pension for years when he made the
mistake to which 1 have referred. He
made an application for an increase in
his allowance. My recollection is that
he had been getting about So month,
or $24 every quarter. He wanted to
raise the allowance to $12 month. He
fixed up the papers. He set forth in
extenso 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 finished his application for an
Increase in the pension allowance his
life did not look like it was. worth
anything. He was simply a physical
wreck, had constitutional troubles,
and all that sort of thing, and was
simply dragging his feet through the
world. 1t 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 $4,000. The facts set forth
in his application for insurance made
him one of the healthiest men in the
world. There was not a blemish any,
where in his makeup. He was hefty,
vigorous and a rosy-cheeked picture of
health generally. He had no kind of
ailment, was perfectly sound and real
ly 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 hor-
rible and disastrous mistake of send
ing his pension papers to the insurance
company, ana his application for in
surance went to the pension office. You
can guess the result. The insurance
company was inclined to make sport
of the blunder and they told the ap-
plicant 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 few curt and cutting
remarks. The pension authorities at
Washington, while a little more dig
nified in what they had to say about
the mans application for an increase
in pension, yet took occasion to con-
graduate him on the splendid state of
his health, and remarked in passing
that the government would be glad
to see all 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 investigation 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 insurance people de-
cided that they would rather not take
the risk. The fellow lost both ways.
The moral of the tale is that it never
pays to push a good thing too far"