The National tribune., 1909-06-10
THE BURDEN OF PENSION PAY
MENTS.

l
/. MENTS.
The Worlds Work is usually very ably
edited and care is taken to see that moth
ing false and misleading appears in its
pages, but as accidents will happen in the
best regulated families, SO there are syn
copes, and very remarkable ones, in the
| intellectual department of the Worlds
Work, and one of the most notable of
these appeared in the May number un-
| der the head of pensions. 1t says:
"There is no hope, or danger, of any
sweeping change in the tariff till the
people wake up again, as they woke up at
Mr.. Cleyeiands call. to the moral, or i'm
moral quality of uneven taxation And,
| when the people wake again, they may ask
not only about the Governments income,
but also about the Governments expendi-
| lures.
I "If we were not incomparably rich and
prosperous, and consequently immodcrate-
| ly patriotic and Indifferent, we should ask
for instance, why We are spending $50
millions a year IN pensions.
| But who is there to ask such a ques-
ton? Not the party in power surely.
And the party out of power has lost its
courage and has no leadership. For this
| reelSOn, we 90 on uiSCusSiHp Only FuTlOuS
ways of increasing the revenue and say
! ing nothing serious about decreasing the
expenditures, even when everybody knows
that a large part of the pension fund is
a fraud and nothing else. Even the gen.
tie party of the olive-branch. which cries
out loudly against the building of every
new battle-sliip. lacks the courage to
say that the pension waste is a crime
worse than war. War merely kills men,
Fraud sapS their character"
We wish the editor of the Worlds
Work would take some of the most ordi-
nary means of satisfying himself as to the
integrity of the pension roll and the abb
.solute falsity Of what he says TO the eff
feet that Everybody knows that large
part of the pension roll is a fraud and
nothing else?" As we have repeatedly
said, no less n person than President
Cleveland made such an assertion once
and spent millions of dollars directly and
indirectly TO substantiate his words, with
a most disheartening failure as a result.
The pension expenditures were subjected
to a far more severe investigation and
scrutiny than any department of public
expenditures ever endured. The cleo
tric light of investigation was turned
upon the Bureau in Washington and upon
every beneficiary of the Bureau. Every
name on the pension roll was subjected
to thoro investigation by a special agent I
sent out with the instruction to find rea-
sons why the pension should be cut off. |
The result was the astonishment and con- |
fusion of the men who had so loudly pro-
claimed that the pension roll was honey
combed with fraud.
We challenge the editor of the World;
Work. as we have repeatedly challenged
other reputable papers who have without
knowledge inveighed against the pension
roll, to select somewhere or anywhere
group of pensioners and give them the
most rigid scrutiny possible, taking up
every man and woman's history, every
connection with the war, and
the service he rendered while he was in
the army, and the present justice of his
pension. We will agree to abide by the
results discovered in any group of pen
sioners that the editor may select If he
can find evidence that will at all substan-
tate his sweeping assertion we shall ac-
cept it, and apologize for anything that
we may have said against him. We do
not think that in fairness he should refuse
10 make the examination we have suggest
I'd. 1t can be easily done. He can take
any group of pensioners that is near him,
and from studying them can get an accu-
rate knowledge of the whole body. What
they are in one place they are in every {
,ther place in the United States. There I
S no difference in them. Our good COM =
aides. Gen Salom0n and Col. Alberger, of :
San Francisco, write this pithy letter to ,
he editor of the Worlds Work:
Editor of The Worlds Work: We live '
way out in California. We are veterans {
II the Union Army who fought for the ,
of our country from 1861 to v
$50 r
We read your remarkable editorial on a
Pensions" in your May number We hope I
'Ou will excuse us for living and that we a
we're not merely killed." though some ,
Il US have been cripples ever since the =
var. Why did you not go into the army f
nd get merely killed?' IL you had done r
o you would have saved yourself the hu- e
niliation of being looked upon as a heart y
sss and unpatriotic American, if you are r
n American. lU
Perhaps you were too young at the +,
ime, but we feel assured if you had been a
Id enough you would not have been anx- v
ous to be merely killed. Git would have i
cen too good for you anyhow. o
The half million veterans still alive will n
emember you as one of the descendants, y
ot of honest and brave, fighting Confed- h
rates, but Of the sneaking Copperheads
t the North.-Edwd. s. Salomon, Brevet :,
U. S. "; VIM. C. AL q
erger, Breyet Colonel, U. S. w., San =.
francisco, Cal a.
il
Served in Florida in 1864. fl
"