The National tribune., 1909-03-04
WHAT CONGRESS HAS LEFT UN-
DONE.

left much upon the statute books to it:
| credit and its general Influence upor
shaping the Nations destiny has beer
| ably with that of any previous Con
gress. The veterans of the Union Army
and their widows have very much Il
thank the Congress for in the passage
of the magnificent McCumber bill and
the Widows Pension bill. There We're
however, some measures before Con
gress which it failed to act upon, and
which would have well rounded out its
| splendid record. Among the most inn
portant of these were the repeal ol
the limitation on widows pensions and
the passage of the prisoners of wal
| bill. We find it hard to excuse lack
of action on either of these. The rris-
oners of war bill has been before Con-
gresS for 20 years now, and it's justice
has been repeatedly acknowledged by
both Houses in the most conclusive
manner. No class of soldiers gave
more to the cause of their country than
the men who with unf1inching loyalty
endured imprisonment and all that it
meant. They accepted the hard fate to
which they We're consigned with as
much courage as they ever displayed in
the field, and thousands of them died
under awful tortures without a mur-
muir of complaint against the policy of
the Government. But bravely accept
ing their hard fate, the prisoners kept
from active participation in the final
and decisive campaigns of the war
three or four times their number.
ons in the last months of the war when
Grant and Sherman were delivering the
crushing blows which knocked the life
out of the Southern Confederacy, more
than 200,0 Confederates. If for any
reason the Government had been forced
have at once appeared in front of
Grant and Sherman, and made the issue
of their operations doubtful to say the
least. BY staying in prison the Union
soldiers fought the battles of their
country as effectively as their comrades
saved the lives of tens of thousands of
Union soldiers. All this is knowledge
patent to every one and it should years
ago have influenced Congress to give
the eN-prisoners the scanty mead of
recognition which they have claimed.
1t would have required comparatively
little money to pay every man who was
held for any length OF time in prison,
$500 a day. and this sum would have
been but the meagerest return for all
that he suffered on account of the po-
sition in which he was placed. His
claim for an unusual allowance was a
just one, since he was required to I'M
dergo far more than was contemplated
in accepting the duties of a soldier.
The National Tribune will not cease
its efforts to secure this recognition of
the prisoners of war in the next Con-
gress, and we shall continue to hope for
success.
The unjust discrimination against
widows who have married their hus-
bands since 1890 still remains a blem-
ish upon the statute books, tho It
seemed up until the very last that Con-
gress would take steps to right this
inequity. AS we have repeatedly said,
classes of wives is something immoral
and should not be tolerated on the
statute books of a great Christian ma
tion. There can be but one kind of a
wife, that is a wife in the fullest sense
of the term. Anything that modifies
this or induces a classification is a
stroke at the sacred institution. As a
matter of equity. the woman who mar
ried soldier 19 years ago when he
was already past the prime of life,
took care of him in his declining years,
reared his family of young children up
TO men and women, and finally crowned
her devotion by nursing him on his
long painful descent to the grave, is
entitled TO as much consideration, to
say the least, as the woman who mar
ried him in her youth. If there is any
distinction the later widow is the more
deserving. The absolute fairness and
Justice Of this must appeal to every
man, and we have the fullest
faith that the next Congress will see
Il in the light that we do and amend the |
law so as to place every widow of a
veteran upon exactly the same foot
ing. This has been the policy of the
Government since its beginning, and
there is no reason for departing from
it now.
The bin for placing retired officers
upon the roll at half pay was not, like
the two before mentioned, allowed to
come up for vote. If either of them
had been presented to the House their
passage was more than probable. |
There are many other minor bills, that
IS minof in the sense of affecting only |
a small body of veterans but equally |
important as to justice to them, which |
We would like TO enumerate did space |
permit. The bills to increase the rates /
FOR partial deafness, to equaliZe the
rates for those suffering disabilities
equivalent to the loss of an arm or |
a leg and other measures are in
herently just, and should be made |
part OF the laws They will only
involve a comparatively small expense, |
while they will do exact and needed |
justice to those who will be benefited |
by them. All of these bills will be re- |
introduced into the next Congress when