The National tribune., 1903-10-01
DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WIDOWS.

| The discrimination against widows OF
veterans was first begun by Commissioner
Lochren, and greatly masnifed and in
tensifed by Commissioner Evans. who
continuously walled over the number of
tunserupnlots and characterless young wo-
men who married foId soldiers for the sake
of their-pensions. This was. to any think
ing man. absolutely degrading and SLAM
derous to the character of American wo-
this country that the young women have
not plenty to select from, with each one
having abundant opportunity to get the
one she thinks will exactly suit her Ger
tainly the young women of the United
States are not yet in that deplOrable con-
dition that will lead them to marry an in
| firm old man and live with him for the rest
of his life for the sake of getting a beg
gerly pittance of So month. There are
! too many avenues by which more profit
able. not to say more pleasant employ
ment can he obtained for our young wO-
men.
On the other hand. tens of thousands of
veterans who since 1890 have lost their
wives We're left with young children sadly
needing a mothers care. These bereaved
widowers have contracted other maria ges.
as honorable, as full of proper feeling, of
love and sentiment. as those which were
contracted earlier in life, and the ones so
married are as true and faithful to them
rs women can be. The percentage of the
other kind of marriages must be so small
as to require decimal fraction to repre-
sent it. and so not worth while considering
in this connection
1t is very bitter thought to a veteran
who has contracted one of these proper
and praiseworthy marriages, that he may
at any time be taken off. leaving the wo-
man to whom lie owes so much entirely
destitute. to the charity of the cod world.
Why should the widow who has now
lived 10 or II years with her husband, and
may live much longer, and has been the
truest of wives. be treated in this fashion?
There is absolutely no precedent for this
discrimination, which has never before APP
peared in the pension laws of the United
States. There are on the rolls this year
two widows of the Revolutionary pension
ers. and in the preceding years there have
been many more, all highly respected and
honored as precious legacies from the men
who gained us our independence. They
take precedence on the roll of honor, and
it is right that they should. OF the very
many Revolutionary widows who have
been on the rolls in the last % years most
must have been very young women, who
married quite old husbands. The same is
true of1the roll Of the War of 1872. There
is yet on it only one survivor of that strug
gle, and Lis widows. Their number has
decreased from 1893 in 1899. They also
must have been quite young women, who
married husbands who were advanced in
life. They are all held in most deserved
esteem. Nor have any questions been
asked Of the widows of the soldiers in the
Indian wars, of whom there are now 3,169
on the rolls, and but !, 565 survivors. No
question was asked as to the date of the
marriage Of Mexican widows, of whom
there are now on the rolls 1910.
Why make this discrimination against
the widows of the veterans of the war Of
the rebellion?
1t is not right and it should not be.