The National tribune., 1908-12-17
WORK roR CONGRESS.

"ORA EO1 NVNnHESSs
We can hardly hope for any action
Pr Importance by Congress before the
holidays, but we are going to make
every effort to induce it Immediately
after reassembling to enter upon serious
consideration of additional measures in
the way of justice to veterans and their
widows. There are the strongest Dos
sible reasons based on justice and or
dinary gratitude why Congress should
at last do something for the Ex-Pris-
oners of war, who have been knocking
at its doors for so long and vainly
Every man in the country who is at
all familiar with the history Of tho
war recognizes that the Ex-Prisoners
have been more cruelty neglected than
any other portion Of the men who
fought for the Union. Say what one
pleases, the men who were captured
and endured more tortures than tongne
can tell in Andersonville, Salisbury and
Florence were at the front and near
the enemy They would not have been
captured had they not been. 1t cannot
be said of them that they never saw
an armed rebel. If they had not been
in close touch with the enemy they
would not have been captured and their
mere presence there Is sufficient an
swer to all the objections which have
been made against the bill. The fact
that out of every four men who so
much as set foot in Andersonville one
at least died there, while another one
at least must have died on being trans
ferred to another prison, is ample dem.
onstration of the much greater dam
gers they dared for the cause of their
country. In no part Of the army and
mortality anything like what it was in
the Confederate prisons. This fact
alone, which cannot be obscured or
diminished, gives the prisoners Of war
a powerful claim upon the considera-
tfon of Congress. All that is asked for
them is mere trifie compared with
the immense expenditures the Nation is
making in other directions. and If IL is
given now 1t will do incomparably more
good than any corresponding sum else
where disbursed since It will go to men
who are all aged and broken and need
as much as men ever can the comforts
and soIacs which small allowance Of
money VIII give them.
The next work for Congress IS the
removal Of the cruelty unjust Hmita-
tion upon widows pensions. As long
as this stands on the Statute Books
II ia a reproach to the sacred tie of
marriage, which the United States of
all other Christian countries should be
the last to make. As a matter of NOR
afs IL should not assume that there Is
any difference in the holy tie which
binds men and women together. While
as a matter of justice to the thousands
of good, true women who have married
veterans since 1890, and faithfully
cared for them during their last sad
years, the odious discrimination should
be at once expunged from our Statute
Books. Congress cannot do this too
soon, and we hope that the law will be
promptly amended during the present
session so as to admit every widow of
a veteran to her full rights upon the
pension roll.
There are other matters of justice to
veterans and their widows, which Con-
gress should take into prompt consid-
Grafton in view of the age and wants
of the men and women whose shorten
ing days cry haste to the great govern
ing eody of the country for which they
did so much.