Sunday Washington globe., 1902-05-25

The 14th of May was gala day in the
Bureau of Pensions. 1t witnessed the pass
ing Of Evans and installation of the new
Commissioner Ware. What will the harvest
be? Will the President and the Hanna anti
pension syndicate compel Commissioner
Ware 70 follow Evans numerous systems
Of fraud against the pension laws, and to
stultfy himself by praising Evans in his
annual report June 80, in imitation Of Hitch-
cock s false and fraudulent praises of Evans
last June} (See GLOBE, December and 49,
The White House bulletin, when the
President was forced by the G. A. r. to call
for Evans resignation, gave out that the
President so Evans announced) would in
struct the new Commissioner to continue
all Of Evans frauds against The pension
laws The veterans believe the announce
ment by the President was only an angry
bluff at being called down. No one is thin
enough to believe that Evans frauds were
not fathered aud mothered by the President
and Hanna. II would have been impossi-
bic for Evans for five years to continue his
numerous fraudulent schemes, for the pc
riods he did, without the protection of the
President aud the Congressional leaders
who knew all the details of each scheme.
Do you suppose that the Interior Depart
ment without the collusion of the Presi-
dent could accidentally refrain for two
years from constituting the important new
act of Mayo, 1900 as to widows property,
and permit Evans in violation of the posi-
tive language of law to pension rich
widows worth from S., 200 to $50, 600 in un-
productive property (See GLOBE, March
10 and May 49, This is only one Of many
equally bold frauds practiced by Evans
from two TO four years under the "let" of
the administration.
From the very start Evans began work
ing to prevent the fling Of claims, and to
prevent the allowance of meritorious
claims. Delay was the scheme. In his re-
port of 1893, page 2, he touched upon his
favorite scheme TO delay claimants in fling
claims Of all kinds by making It. difficult to
prepare applics tions. An application for
pension has no more weight than so much
blank paper, as far as proving up the claim
goes. It is merely q request for pension.
It may be amended and changed according
to proof later One of Evans schemes was
to make claimant withhold the application
until he had collected part of his proofs re-
lating to his service. This would have de-
layed thousands of claims, almost all
claims, from six months to two years, in
many cases longer, and, in some cases,
would almost defeat filing the claim His
scheme was to discourage claimants by re-
quiring such proof of identity 70 accompany
the claim, that he could throw out a
majority Of claims on this proof as a part
of the application, and prevent the fling of
the application for a long time by this
trick. The pension does not begin until
date of filing an application Now, by
changing the order Of proof, and instead of
having the proof filed after the application
is filed, he wanted to make the claimant
file the proof at the moment Of fling the
application. Withhold the application
You can see how the scheme would work.
Evans could save" millions Of dollars
every year by delaying the fling of each
claim from six months to a year as he did
by delaying the issuing Of medical exami-
nation orders in invalid increased claims.
(See GLOBE, February q
The rules now are, and for years past
have been, that an application is good to
start claim without any witness 20 claim
ants identity Proof of identity can be
made by affidavit later. The bureau has
ample power TO call for proof Of identity
hlAGI the ADpNNdAlQu Is uAEQs 1uNM ERlQEuEE
is part OF the proof of the claim. In this
scheme, Evans ran ahead of the Hanna
syndicate. The syndicate would not in
dorse that fraud.
Commissioner Evans came surprisingly
near getting through Congress a scheme for
delaying medical examinations similar TO
that which he was after for delaying the
filing Of applications for pension. Evans
proposed in his last annual report that all
county medical examining boards be abol-
ished, and few travelling boards sent out
from the bureau 10 counties twice each
year with a stenographer to take the evil
dence and make the medical examination
On an average not half the claims could be
completed in that way in the life of the
claimant. (See GLOBE Nov II. and Jam 60;
and Congressional Record of Jan. I3, 1902
page 5oo.) 1t was not cost of present sys-
tenn that Evans was in fact objecting to-
although he pretended that il now costs
more than his plan. Such travelling board
would cost at least S2S for every examina-
tion, instead of the SO now paid the local
boards 1t was a scheme to block of al
lowances, by delay and by ignoring diseases
and cutting of means of preparing proofs
in each claim 1t compares, on principle,
identically with the scheme to require
proofs of service contemporaneously with,
and as part of, the application, to cut off
applications. 1t was delay, not proof of
identity of service that Evans wanted; for
he can exact and does exact evidence after
the claim is filed, to his hearts content, as
part of the proof of the merit of the
claim. He was lying
In Evans report Of 1893 you will see that
one Of his bold lies stands out couspicu-
ously, If you will take up the many deci-
sions of Assistant Secretary Davis which
overTule Evans and radically reverse his
practice in the bureau. Evans in that re-
port said to the Secretary of Interior
There were I2,o57 notices of appeal taken
by claimants none by the Government)
from the decisions Of former Commissioners
and those Of the present Commissioner. Il
will be seen that the bureau re-exanined,
reconsidered, and readiudieated sixty-seven
Of these on legal grounds, and 433 on medi-
cal grounds, making a total Of 500 cases.
The remaining II,557 on re-examiuatiou,
could not be reconsidered by this bureau,
and were therefore carried to the Honorable
Secretary on appeal" IL affords me
pleasure to say that you sustained the action