The National tribune., 1910-10-13
THE VETERANS ON THE PENSION
ROLL

The cruelest, the most malignant and
the most shameful piece of work done
lin any publication of late years has
been that of the Worlds Work in its
much -trumpeted Pension Carnival
1t has gone over more than 100000
names on the pension roll to single out
a very few whom it claims were de-
serters or otherwise not entitled to pen
sion. We have not yet had time to
run down all these names and see how
much truth there is in the Worlds
stances were true and just as bad as
the Worlds Work alleges, it would
have little bearing upon the pension
Question.
AS we have said before, the Provost
Marshal General of the United States
Army reported that there We're 129, 900
actual deserters from the Army. This
should be put in comparison with the
,. 2.S59, 900 enlistments from the various
States. and a little ANALYSIS will show
that only four out of every 100 really
deserted. Many of these So-called de-
serters were men who had served thru
the entire war bravely and faithfully,
and who when the war was over felt
that they had done their duty and full
filed their contract, and went home
without waiting for their discharges
There were some thousands probably
who resented having their regiments
sent out West to fight the Indians in
N-in1 Of hot hol; ho
their contract, and went off home.
Others were taken prisoners and wrong
fully reported as deserters, but even as
suming the whole humber of 10000
actual deserters, what small proper
ton they make, after all, to the men
who gave the country long and faithful
service in the most terrible war that
the world ever saw. Yet such papers
as the Worlds Work will take up the
four deserters and make them obscure
entirely the 90 men who served their
country faithfully. Can anything be
more unfair, more malignant and more
injurious to the American character?
The man who does this thing deliber-
ately insults American manhood and
does his best to degrade it in the eyes
of the world. 1t is an ineffable injus-
tice to the 96 men in every 100 who
endured, dared and sacrificed everything
in order to save the Nations life The
same man would make Judas Iscariot
typical of the II Apostles and conceal
from the world that there were IL men
who were faithful to the end and gave
their lives for the Truth.
The Worlds Work has no words of
praise for the great mass of Union vet
Grams who threw aside the pleasant life |
at home and the prospects for advance
ment to give two, three or four of the |
best years of their lives to the country, |
who braved everything, who suffered
in order that the people !
might enjoy all that they have to-day. 4
It cannot see those 96 men standing up
with unfiinching courage in the hell of |
fire and death at the Wilderness. MAX
ng the desperate assaults at Freder-
cksburg, Cold Harbor and the Crater, |
where three out of every four fell be- |
fore the deadly missiles of the enemy. |
It can only see the four skulkers from |
he company who were in the shameful |
,ut attractive rear.
Such malicious and disgraceful finn
iams as that of the Worlds Work |
would at once destroy all public spirit |
md patriotism. Men would not go into
he Army: they would not respond on
my occasion of desperate public need,
{ they felt that men far in the rear
we're to belittle and decry them and |
lold up the cowardly and skulking to
he public gaze as types of the whole |
,ody of devoted men.
We make the challenge to the
Work that we have repeatedly |
made to other papers and magazines
Who have been engaged in defaming
eterans. Let them send a representa-
i've to any pension agency in the coun-
ry on any pension day and make a
areful examination of the men and
women who receive pensions and the
by which they became
untitled to them. This is eminently
air, and we risk nothing in saying that
my fair-minded man who will study |
he pensioners at any one of the agen-
les for a single day will go away con-
-inced that not only is every pension
plendidly earned, but that few of those
vhom he shall meet and examine have
eceived anything like as much as
rould in ordinary justice be given them
or what they have done for the coun-