The National tribune., 1902-09-25
REVISING THE PENSION LIST.

The Associated Press recently sent out
the following dispatch:
NEW YORK, Sept. 16.-The Republi
can party of New York State, according
! to the New York Sun to-day, will take
the initiative this year toward regulating
pensions. 1t is stated that new pen
sion plank to be submitted to the Repub-
| lican State Convention at Saratoga. is to
be carefully considered by n committee
composed of Senator Platt, Senator De-
pew, Representative Serene Z. Payne, of
Auburn, Chairman of the Ways and
Means Committee of the Fifty-seventh
Congress, and Representatives George w.
Kay, of Norwich; James S. Sherman, of
Utica, and James W. Wadsworth, of Gen
eseo.
1.-The idea will be to materially reduce
the pension expenditures of the Govern
ment, which for the fiscal year ending
June 30. 1902, were $13S. .4SS. $40 73
The Sun says: Not since the civil war
days has either of the two great parties,
Republican or Democratic, tackled this
important question of the pensions and
each year the pensions have been in
creased and still further increased until
the forty-eleventh cousins of those who
suffered in the civil war of 35 years ago
have been benefciaries of the American
Government.
!" The committee named propose to sub
init plank to the Republican Conven-
tion Mt Saratoga. which will in effect re-
suit in protecting the Washington Treas
ury and prevent the eighty-eleventh cous-
ins and aunts from deriving a revenue
from the Government which they do not
deserve. and which they cannot in any
way call upon the great American people
to pay.
"'Of course. it was said last night. this
is new departure in politics; it is the
first step of the kind in Republican or
Democratic politics since the war;
How much truth there is in this re-
mains to be seen. The New York Sun,
which is constantly decrying the sensa-
tionalism and indecency of the World and
the Journal, has occasional spells of being
more sensational and indecent than either
of them. 1t may have sprung this as
bit of fake news, for its own purposes
How reckless it can be is shown by its
phrase 'eighty-eleventh cousins and
aunts." Every one who is half-informed
knows how wildly absurd this is. Out
side of widows, there are very few rela-
tives of soldiers on the pension rolls
There is a provision for dependent fathers
and mothers, but in the course of nature
there can be but a scanty number of these
on the rolls 81 years after the close of the
war. There is also the provision for de-
ceased veterans children until they reach
the age of 16, and for those who are per-
helpless after that age. The
number of these must also be necessarily
small, and rapidly decreasing. Beyond
this the law does not go, and the practice
IF the Pension Bureau is narrower than
The laws provide. When the Sun, there
fore, talks about "eighty-eleventh cous-
ms and aunts," it writes itself down as
malicious and ignorant.
Except these two small classes, every
nan on the pension roll has had to prove
BY q greater weight of evidence than
would suffice to hang him were he on trial |
,or his life, that he honorably served the |
Government in wartime, and that he is |
low disabled in a pensionable degree. |
The women on the roll have had to prove |
With equal certainty that their deceased |
husbands service, and their own reputa-
lie marriage with him.
If Messrs. Platt, Depew, and others,
any such action as is i'm
'uted to them by the Sun, we respectfully
tut earnestly urge that they take little
ime to study up the pension laws, and
vhO are benefited by them, and confer
With the Commissioner of Pensions, so
hat they shall not make themselves as
IbSurd as the Sun has