The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1904-09-08
CRUEL INJUSTICE TO WORTHY woHxx.

1890. against women who might marry
| veterans after the passage Of the act, and
| become widows, was an act of cruel in
justice.
1t was a sop to a sentiment aroused
by meretricious clamor, raised by the
pension haters. as to young women snap
ping up old veterans and marrying them
| for the sake of pensions.
The clamor was raised and kept up by
men who by the very utterance confessed
themselves grovelings, with the basest
ideas of American manhood and woman
hood.
All the same. the clamor had its
pernicious effect. The friends of the vet
Grams were so anxious to get the Act of
June - passed. that they were willing
to make any reasonable concessions. and
at that time the provision against widows
did not seem to have the harsh import
ance it has since assumed.
The Act of June %, 1890. was passed
a years ago. Since that time tens of
thousands of veterans have lost the
wives of their youth. who have passed
away. leaving them families of children
varying from infants to half grown, and
all needing sorely and constantly low
ing mothers care. Duty to them. if no
other reason. demanded that the bereaved
father marry again. to make such home
for them as could be given in no other
way. The woman who married him. and
accepted the responsibilities of this posi-
ton, must have been one of high char
acter. imbued with deep sense of the
duties of womanhood. A fine sense of
finding her true vocation and calling in
raising those children into proper men and
women must have united with her affec-
ton for the father to induce her to ac-
cept the arduous role of step-mother. Yet
after she has fulfilled her work, and
reared the children. after she has sacri-
feed herself for them through all the
years. and after she has nursed the father
through his last illness. caring for him
as no other would. the Government
brands her as something less than wife.
by denying her wife's full rights and
prerogatives.
This is something monstrOus in this
Christian country, where every possible
sanctity is thrown around the marriage
relation and but one and the highest form
Of wifehood can be recognized by law and
social usage. Any hint Of discrimination
or difference i'm classes of wives is step
backward toward the barbarisms of con-
cubinage and polygamy. If woman is
a wife, she is all that is implied by that
sacred designation. ANY dimnution of
her rights and prerogatives is unworthy
of our Christian Government, and dan
gerOus to our social morality. 1t is the
first time in our history that ever such
a discrimination was ventured upon. All
the earlier pension laws recognize that
when man legally married a woman
she was his wife in every respect, and
entitled to all that that implied. The
Government did not presume to lay down
any rule when a veteran of previous wars
should marry, and to punish him and wife
for marriage after a given date and to
stamp such a union as wanting in some
way the essentials of regular marriage.
Women who must have been quite
young when they married the elderly vet
Grams of the Revolution and the war Of
1912 were for a long term of years the
most honored and venerated names upon
the pension roll. They were regarded
with peculiar affection and esteem, as
precious leSaces from the men who won
our National independence-which it
took both wars TO firmly establish. There
never was the slightest question of their
right to be on the roll. No one was ever
base enough to asperse their motives in
marrying their husbands, or to insinuate
that they were different from other Amer
lean women entering into the holy state
of matrimony. They were sincerely
mourned when death removed them from
the roll.
Is there any real reason why the
widows of men who fought for the Union
should be treated differently?
. Is a woman who married veteran af-
ter 1880 to be put in lower class of
wifehood, while the women who married
veterans of the Revolution and 1872 quite
as long after the close Of the struggles
were held in conspicuous honor!
This is something that the American
people will not tolerate, when it is fairly
brought to their attention.