Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1904-09-13

President Cleveland had already exer-
clsed this power by a regulation which
declared that seventy-fye should be
set as the age at which total disability
should be conclusively presumed. Sim
ilarly President Mckinley established
sixty-fiye as the age at which half dis
ability should be conclusiyely presum-
ed. The regulation now in question
in the exercise of the same power,
supplemented these regulations made
under Presidents Cleveland and Nc
Kinley.
"The men who fought for union and
liberty in the years from 1851 to 1866
not only saved this nation from ruin,
but rendered an inestimable service to
all mankind. We of the United States
owe the fact that today we have
, country to what they did; and the ma
ton has decreed by law that no one of
them. if disabled from earning his own
living, shall lack the pension to which
he is entitled not only as matter of
gratitude but as matter of justice. 1t
is the policy of the republican party,
steadily continued through many years
to treat the veterans of the civil war
in spirit of broad liberality. The or
der in question carried out this policy,
and is justified not merely on legal
grounds, but also on grounds of public
morality. 1t is matter of common
! knowledge that when the average man
who depends for his wages upon bod
lily labor has reached the age of sixty
two, his earning ability is in all prob
ability less by half than it was when
Z he ia, =, tr,
time he has reached the age of seventy
h sr.s probably lost all earning abil-
..asSy if there is doubt upon this point,
ie. the doubter examine the employees
doing manual labor in any great man
ufactory or, on any great railroad, and
/ find out how large is the proportion of
men between the ages of sixty.two and
seventy. and whether these men are
still employed at the highly paid tasks
which they did in their prime. AS q
matter Of fact, many railroads pension
their employees when they have reach
ed these ages, and in nations where
old age pensions prevail they always
begin somewhere between the two
| limits thus set. 1t is easy to test our
opponents sincerity in this matter. The
/ order in question is reyocable at the
pleasure Of the executive. If our OPP
| ponents come into power they can re-
woke this order and announce that
| they will treat the veterans of sixty
two to seventy as presumably in full
bodily yigor and not entitled to pen
sions. Will they now authoritatively
state that they intend to do this? If
/ so, we accept the issue. If not. then
xIrn hoy no y.iey ht fr, nr.y, Il,
! raise an issue which, when raised they
4 do not venture to meet.
The Administrations Work.
I'm addition to those acts of the ad.
ministration which they venture to as
sail only after misrepresenting them,
there are others which they dare not
overtly or officially attack and vet,
which they covertly bring forward as
reasons for the overthrow Of the par
4 ty. In certain great centers and with
certain great interests our opponents
make every effort to show that the set.
! Element of the anthracite coal strike by
| the individual act of the president and
the successful suit against the North
ern Securities Co.,-the merger suit
i undertaken by the department of jus.
/ tice. were acts because of which the
/ present administration should be
thrown from power Yet they dare not
openly condemn either act. They dare
| not in any authoritative or formal
4 manner say that in either case wrong
was done or error committed in the
method of action, or in the choice of
instruments for putting that action in
to effect. But what they dare not man.
/ fully assert in open day they seek to
use furtively and through special
agents. 1t is perhaps natural that an
4 attack so conducted should be
! made sometimes on the ground that
too little. has been done. Some of our
opponents complain because under the
antitrust and interstate commerce
laws suits We're undertaken which
have been successful others because
suits were not undertaken which would
I have been unsuccessful. The democrat
lie state convention in New York dealt
with the anthracite coal strike by de
manding in deliberate and formal
fashion that the national government
should take possession of the Goa
fields; yet champions OF that conven
tons cause now condemn the fac,
' that there was any action by the presi
dent at although they must know
that it was only this action by the
president which prevented the move
ment for national ownership of the
coal fields from gaining what NIGH
; well have been an irresistible impet
us. Such mutually destructive criti
cisms furnish an adequate measure o
the chance for coherent action or con
structive legislation if our opponents
should be given power.
Democratic Policies.
so much for what our opponents
openly or covertly advance in the wa,
of an attack on the acts of administra
ton. When we come to consider tn,
policies for which they profess tt
island we are met with the difficulty al
ways arising when statements of poll
cy are SO made that they can be in
| ~,