The daily morning journal and courier., 1904-09-12


 in seamanship, as individual units and as component parts of squadrons and fleets2 If they object to any or all of these things. We join issue with them. Our foreign policy has been not only highly advantageous to the United States, but hardly less advantageous to the world as whole. Peace and good will have followed in it's footsteps. The government has shown itself no less anxious to respect the rights of others than insistent that the rights of Americans be respected in return. As for the navy. it has been and is now the most potent guarantee of peace; and 1t is such chiefly because it is for. midable, and ready for use.
 President and Congress-Pensions.
 When our opponents speak of -.en- croachments" by the executive upon. the authority of congress or the judiei- ary, apparently the act they ordinarily have in view is Pension Order Nc. IS, issued under the authority of existing law. This order directed that hereaf- ter any veteran, of the civil war who had reached the age of sixty-two should be presumptively entitled to the pension of six dollars month, given under the dependent pension law to lthGse whose capacity to earn their live lihood by manual labor has been de- creased fifty per cent, and that by the time the age of seventy was reached the presumption should be that the. physical disability was complete; the age being treated as an eyidential fact in each case. This order was made in 1.-the performance of duty imposed upon the President by an act of con- gress, which requires the executive to make regulations to govern the subor- dinates of the pension office in deter mining who are entitled to pensions. President Cleveland had already exer- cised this power by a regulation which declared that seventy-five should be set as the age at which total disability. should be conclusively presumed. Sinlr lilarly President Mckinley established sixty-five as the age at which half disa- Utility should be conclusiyely presumed. The regulation now in question, in the exercise of the same power, supplement lted these regulations made under Pres idents Cleveland and Mckinley.
 The men who fought for union and for liberty in the years from 1861 to 1865 mot only saved this nation from ruin, tbut rendered an inestimable service to EaIl mankind. We of the United States lowe the fact that to-day we have q lcountry to what they did; and the na- Ition has decreed by law that no one of them, if disabled from earning his own Livelihood, shall lack the pension to which he is entitled, not only as mat Iter of gratitude but as matter of jus ltice. It is the policy of the republican party, steadily continued through many 5lyears, to treat the veterans of the civil I war in a spirit of broad liberality. The order in question carried out this policy, land is justified not merely on legal grounds, but also on grounds of public H morality. It is a matter of common knowledge that when the average man EWho depends for his wages upon bodily labor has reached the age of sixty-tWo his earning ability is in all probability less by half than it was when he was in This prime; and that by the time he has 4reached the age of seventy he has prob ably lost all earning ability. If there is Edoubt upon this point let the doubter examine the employees doing manual la Dor in any great manufactory or on any great railroad, and find out how large lis the proportion of men between the lages of sixty-two and seventy, and whether these men are still employed at the highly paid tasks which they ldid in their prime. As a matter of fact, many railroads pension their employees IWhen they have reached these ages, and lin nations where old age pensions pre- Ivail they always begin somewhere be- tween the two limits thus set. It is Ieasy to test our opponents sincerity in #Ithis matter. The order in question is
 reyocable at the pleasure of the execu- tive If our opponents come into power
 they can revoke this order and an lnounce that they will treat the yete- Trans of sixty-two to seventy as presum- lably in full bodily yigor and not enti- tiled to pensions, Will they now au- lthoritatively state that they intend to Ido this? If so, we accept the issue. If Inot, then we have the right to ask why they raise an issue which, when lraised, they do not venture to meet.
 In addition to those acts of the ad- lministration which they venture to as
 sail only after misrepresenting them there are others which they dare not
 overtly or officially attack, and yet
 which they covertly bring forward as reasons for the overthrow of the party
 In certain great centers and with cer- tain great interests our opponents
 make every effort to show that the set. ltlement of the anthracite coal strike by
 the individual act of the president, ant lthe successful suit against the North Tern Securities cornpany-the Merger lsuit-undertaken by the department oi Justice, were acts because of which the
 present administration should be thrown from power. Yet they dare moi
 openly condemn either act. They dar mot in any authoritative or formal man lner say that in either case wrong wa ldone or error committed in the method tof action, or in the choice of instru- Iments for putting that action into effect But what they dare not manfully asser lin open day, they seek to use furtively land through special agents. It is per
 haps natural that an attack so conduc lted should be made sometimes on tn lground that too much, sometimes ol Ithe ground that too little, has beer