The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-04-05
aorNs, rar LrMIT.

capped the ctlmax Dy posriHb F sion Dill which goes beyond any limit
 heretofore reached As we find the circumstances related in the New York
 Mall one Mrs. yarr was during the war the wife of a man who managed one of the unions wagons. After the close of the struggle he treated her 60 cruelty that she secured divorce from him and married a man who had served in the union army but wae dis honorabiy discharged. Both the hus- bands are dead. but she was not eligi- bIe to a pension on account of either, for she had been divorced from one and the other had dishonorable rec ord
 Under this state of facts it is evident that the woman had no pensionable status whatever. and one would think that no member Of Congress would be found to champion her claims. but those
 who think so are reckoning without the, immortal Crumpacker--tne Crum-
 packer who sheds salty tears because all the negroes in the South are not allowed to be led up to the polls and voted by their Republican beneficiar- ies. The sight of beauty in distress, or something of the kind. was too much for the tender heart of Crummy. so he shied his castor into the ring couched his lance and pranced to the front in support of his bill. Here is part of his speech:
 A~. r>arr x.,as ttas ..,ife of a soldier ana the mother of small children dur fuB the progress of the civil war ana remained at home. and underwent the yesss that every mai would bring tid- ings of the death of the head of the househoid. The. real basis of her claim Is that she was the wife of soldier while he was in the service, ana the law should not have compelled her to have lived with her first husband and withstand his brutality in order claim on the gratitude of the country. There's socratic wisdom for you. and several other varieties. If the woman could have endured the barbarity of her first husband and stuck to him she might have been pensioned on his account. True. there is no record that he ever carried gun or smelled pow der, but he was engineer of wagon and wagons sometimes upset and muss things Besides.i he may have driven Q team of government mules, and all know what mules are. One of them might have Kicked him out of service. and probably she was in hourly dread of receiving box labelled. Re mains of a badly demoralized man who didn't know mules" All this was pos sible. but she lost the chance of a pension by breaking away from him too soon. Then if her late husband had been fortunate enough to be killed by the bullet of q Johnnie she could have drawn on his reputation. As it was she had nothing to fall back on but the fact that she stayed home and nurs- ed the children while hubby was driv- ing a commissary wagon-but that was enough for Crumpacker and a Republi- can Congress If she had only been | able to prove that her husband climb 1 ed a tree and watched the Confeder- | ates pass it would have been enough for | the Crumpacker brand of patriots l Is not this affair shameful and | shameless travesty on justice and a
 still more shameful imposition on the | country? For almost forty years the | people of this country have been pay l ing many millions of dollars in pen-
 sions every year. The Southern peo- | pie have paid full share of 1t, but
 when 1t has gone to those who were justly entitled to pensions they have made no complaint because such are the
 fortunes of war. Wac Victis!" was the
 cry of the North when the South lay
 helpless and ruined and we accept the | verdict, but when it comes to pension
 ing the divorced wife a commissary
 wagoner we should think that the Re-
 publicans themselves ought to be
 ashamed of it-all but Crumpacker. And then we should consider the
 precedent thus established. There are
 now, according to latest accounts, 170,-
 900 war widows on the pension roll, but
 they are assumed to be widows of men
 who actually saw service in the Union
 army, and so are considered proper
 pensioners. If this latest break is to
 be followed where can a limit be plac-
 ed? If woman can prove that the
 sweetheart she intended to marry
 choked himself to death on an army
 beef bone she can find some serviceable
 Crumpacker to help her to a pension
 There is no limit or limitation that we
 can see, as long as gall exists on
 earth.