The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1904-09-16
mGTON MESSENGERS, FRIDAY. Is, 1904.

which requires the Executive to make
regulations to govern the subordirates
of the Pension office in determining
who are entitled to pensions. Presi-
dent Cleveland had already exercised
this power by a regulation which de-
clared that seventy-five should be set
as the age at which total disability
should be co~nclusively presumed. Sim
ilarly President Mckinley established
sixty-hve as the e at which halt dis
ability should be conclusively presumed.
The regulation now in question is the
exercise of the same power. supple
mented these regulations made under
Presidents Cleveland and Mckinley.
The men who fought for union and
TOT liberty in the years from 1861 to
1850 not only saved this nation from
ruin, but rendered an inestimable ser
vice to all mankind. We OF the United
states owe the fact that today We have
a country TO what they did: and the
nation 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 a mat
ter Of gratitude, but as a matter of
Justice. 1t is the policy OF the republic
can party, steadily continued through
many years. to treat the veterans Of
the civil war in a spirit OF broad liber-
atty. The order in question carried out
this policy, and is justified not merely
on legal grounds, but also on grounds
OF public morality 1t is a matter of
common knowledge that when the ay-
erase man who depends for 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 his prime; and that
by the time he has reached the z Of
seventy he has probably lost all earn
ing ability. II there is doubt upon
this point let the doubter examine the
employees doing manual labor in any
great mandatory or on any great
railroad, and find out how large is the
proportion of men between the ages Of
sixty-two and seventy. n whether
these men are still employed at the
highly paid tasks which they did in
their prime. AS a matter OF fact many
railroads pension their employees when
they AVE reached 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 rev
ocable at pleasure of the Executive. II
our opponents come into power they
can revoke this order n announce
that they will treat the veterans of
Sixty-two to seventy as presumably in
full. bodily vigor and not entitled to
pensions. Will they now authoratively
state thai they intend to do this? If
so, we accept the, issue. If not, then
we have the right to ask why they
raise an issue which, when raised, they
do not venture to meet.
In addition to those acts of the Ad-
m~inistration which they venture to as
sail only after misrepresenting them,
there are others which they dare not
overly or officially attack, and yet
which they covertly bring forward as
reasons for the overthrow of the party.
In certain great centers and with GER
tain great interests our opponents make
every effort to show nat the settle
ment of the Anthracite GAL strike b.
the individual act of the president, and
the successful suit against the Northern
Securities company-the Merger suit
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 man.
Ger say that in either case wrong was
Done or error committed in method of
action, or in the choice of instruments
for putting that action into effect. But
what they dare not manfully assert in
open day, they seek to use furtively
civ hLOe0h pSILa oSShNo. - 10 pSl-
hapS natural that an attack SO con-
Quoted should be made sometimes on
the ground that 100 much, sometimes
on the ground that too little, has been
done. Some of our opponents complain
because under the antitrust and in
terstate commerce laws suits were un-
dertaken which hav been successful;
others, because suits were not under
taken which would have been unsuc-
caccfnl Tho lanpnnraf rio ctofa cnnyon-
ton in New York dealt with the An
thracite coal strike by demanding in
deliberate n formal fashion that the
national government should, take pos
session of the coal fields; yet cham
pions of that conventions cause now
condemn the fact hat there was any
action by the president at although
they must know that it was only this
action by the president which prevent
ed the movement for national owner
ship of the coal fields from gaining
lat might we'll have been an irresist-
BILE impetus. Such mutually destruc-
tive criticisms furnish an adequate
measure of the chance for coherent ac-
ton or constructive legislation if our
opponents should be given power.
So much for what our opponents
openly or covertly advance in the way
of an attack on the acts of the admin
VIC Jill ~ SOliSldCi
the policies for which they profess to
stand we are met with the difficulty
always arising when statements of
policy are so made that they a be
interpreted in different ways On
some of the vital questions that have
confronted the American people in the
last decade our opponents take the po-
sition that silence is the best possible
way to convey their views. They con-
tend that their lukewarm attitude Of
partial acquiescence in what others
have accomplished entities them to be
made the c~ustodians of the financial
honor and commercial interests which
they have but recently sought to ruin.
Being unable to agree among them
selves as to whether the gold standard
is a curse or a blessing, and as TO
whether we ought or ought not to ave
free n unlimited coinage of silver,
they have apparently thought it expedi-
ent to avoid and committal on these sub
jects, and Individually each to follow his
D~articular bent Their nearest aDDrOach