The National tribune., 1910-11-24
BENEFIT OF PENSIONS.

| BENEFIT OF PENSIONS.
We have already replied TO the
Worlds Works assertions that it costs
the people of this country 81 head to
pay pensions to veterans. Even if it did
cost this much, the country is receiving
SO much more benefit from the services
and sacrifices of the veterans than
would be represented by 81 per-capita
that this assertion does not count. In
the next place, the pension expenditure
last year was s15S,000,000. The popu-
lation of the country is more than 9O,-
100000, which at 50 head would
make in excess of s1S0,000.000, or ap-
proximately S25,000,000 a year more
than the Worlds Works estimate. Still,
mistake of s25,000,000 year Is no
obstacle in the way Of the Worlds
Works carnival of misstatement." In
the next place, we have shown that not
a dollar of money paid out for pensions
| is collected for that purpose. The
Worlds Work grudgingly admits the
| truth and its own bias in an unguarded
fling at the tariff system. 1t recognizes
that the money collected by the imposi-
ton of protective duties must be ex-
pended. The writer's of the article are
free traders and inveterate in their hos
tility to the protective system, and this
hostility extends to the pension system,
because ii helps furnish a reason for
the imposition of protective duties.
When the tariff bill was under consid-
Grafton not a single advocate of the
pension system appeared in the discus
sion of any schedule. nor was there at
any time any assertion that the tariff
was necessary in order to provide means
to pay pensions. Every item in the
schedule was placed there upon urgent
representations by delegates from the
various portions of the country and rep
resentatives of our great industries that
the ratings desired were absolutely nee
essary for the protection of our farm
ers and manufacturers against the
cheap labor of Europe and elsewhere.
For example, the Maine farmers want
protection on their hay and potatoes,
which are the chief agricultural prod
ucts of the State, against the cheaper
labor and cheaper lands in Canada.
What was done with the money derived
from these duties was matter of in
difference to them so long as it was ap-
piled to any proper purpose. They
wanted 81 ton duty on their hay and
|25 cents a bushel on their potatoes just
the same if there was not a pensioner
in existence and. the Pension Bureau at
Ia, 1,yfA ba int IN ctr
for obsolete public accounts. 1t was
precisely the same with every other
item in the schedule. The pineapples
i'm Florida; the wool in Texas, Ohio and
Montana; the peanuts in Virginia and
Tennessee; the tobacco, hemp and mules
in Virginia, Kentucky, South Carolina
and Missouri; the cattle on the Western
ranges; barley of New York, Montana
and California; the rice of South Caro-
lima and Louisiana; the maple sugar of
Vermont and Ohio; the beet sugar of
Nebraska, Utah and California, and SO
on thru scores of other items, all de-
manded protection.
Having taken in this money for these
very proper purposes, the next impor-
tant question was how It can be redis-
tributed to the people in the most equa-
BILE manner. Nothing does this SO WELL
SO justly and with such benefit to the
entire people as the pension system.
The pensioners are represented at near
ly every post Office i'm the United States
in fairly equal numbers. They get their
money in small amounts. and proceed
at once to expend it among their imme-
diate neighbors so that everyone gets
the full benefit The ingenuity of man
has not heretofore developed any other
means SO prompt, so general and so
equabie as this. The money goes in
proper ratio to every little community
and neighborhood, and there does the
work of many times the sum disbursed
in quickening the circulation of ready
money in the community, in stimulating
the activity of trade and preventing the
stringency which comes from conges-
ton of the money in great centers.
When Comrade William Jones gets his
quarterly s36 he does not hoard il up,
but Immediately puts it in circulation,
paying the butcher a few dollars, the
baker a few dollars, the physician a
small amount and so on among all of
his nelghbors. These in turn pay of
their debts with it. and the money they
receive from the other veterans, and the
money passes from hand to hand many
| times before it is finally gathered up in
the country bank and sent East to help
fill the vaults of the money centers. Be-
fore this is done probably every 800
has in passing from hand to hand paid
several thousands of Indebtedness in the
community and quickened the pulses of
trade more than many times that
amount in the hands of some big oper-
ator or the vaults OF country bank.
There is no question that the quarterly
payments Of pensions have several times
prevented business panic and greatly