The Chanute times. [volume] (Chanute, Kan.) 1897-1913, 1906-03-23

| " v" HPPiOPiId ilOnS
are:
1st. That our pension expendi
lures represent by far the greatest
war the world ever knew, with the
greatest number of men actually
engaged; with a longer period of
active hostilities, involving incom-
prohensible numbers of men and
proportionately an equally incom-
prehensible numb .r of disabilities
from the arduous service and of
wounds and death.
I'd. That in comparing the pen
sion roll with those of European
countries it must be kept steadily in
mind that the United States pension
roll represents great deal more
actual, hard, terrific fighting than
all the pension rolls of Europe to
day. To the man who really thinks
and compares this makes our pen
sion roll seem moderate instead of
excessive. Never before in the
history Of the world was a constant
average of about 700, 900 men kept
at the front and continually fighting
during four long years. From April
10. 1861, to about the same date in
1865 the rifle was never silent nor
the cannon idle somewhere upon
farfung line of battle that extended
more than the breadth of Europe
from the Atlantic Ocean to the
prairies beyond the Mississippi
Everywhere and all the time men
were in constant motion against the
enemy, with almost hourly fights
somewhere which ranged from cas-
ual encounters by scouts and recon
noitering parties up to the battles
i'll which more men were killed and
wounded than in all the other wars
of the country put together. Our
pension roll represents more men
actually killed upon the field of
battle than England has lost in the
500 years that she has been Ma
ton. The great wars which have
convulsed Europe in the last 80
years, or since the close of the
Napoleonic period, were not bigger
than single campaigns in our army.
The Crimean War, which was the
only war with civilized people that
England was engaged in from
the time of Waterloo until the cut
break of the Boer war, was no big
ger, rather not SO large, as the cam
paign against Vlcksburg, for ex-
ample. The Franco russian war
was not so destructive of life as
Grants campaign against Rich
mond. We have no exact figures as
to the Russo Turkish war of 1871,
but 1t was probably not as much of
a military operation of Sherman's
campain against Atlanta. The Fran
co Italian-Austrian war of 1850 did
not begin to cost as many lives as
the struggle west of the Mississippi.
The Austro- Prussian war of 1866
had only single battle, which was
easily decided by the Prusslan
needle gun. These are all the real
wars that Europe has had since
Waterloo, and taken altogether,
they do not equal the amount of
fighting done by the Army of the
Potomac alone, to say nothing of
the western armies,
Therefore it is the grossest injus.
tice to the veterans who are on the
pension roll to place them and
their services on equality with what
has been required of the European
soldiers on all the pension lists of
those countries.
There is another thing which The
National Tribune has steadily
insisted upon and has been as stead
|ily ignored by the papers which
have attacked the pension roll.
That is, In all the great countries
the care of the Government for their
soldiers is not at all accurately re-