The National tribune., 1910-12-15

FRAUD IN THE PENSION ROLL.

| FRAUD IN IHE FEN SION fOluI.
The Buffalo Evening News receives
the statements of the Worlds Work
with well-founded doubt. and says very
pertinently:
These statements of Mr.. Hale are as
definite as could be asked. The thing
that remains for him to do is to submit
| his proof to the Department or TO lay it
| before Congress. The people do not
understand how carefully the pension
rolls are considered and what precau-
tions are taken to keep them free from
taint. What has happened in years
| long gone by may occasionally happen
again. The kinds of cases mentioned
by Mr.. Hale are such as in the main
have long since disappeared from the
| records.
| Many citizens have forgotten that in
Mr.. Cleveland's first Administration he
! set men to work to show the frauds
and cases of perjury with which the
pension roll was said to be honey
combed in that day, and after spending
very large sum of money the net re-
suit of that close inquiry, prolonged for
half a year. covering the entire coun-I
try. was to find less than five cases sub
sion laws.
Since that is the case, it is as the
News holds. the duty of anyone charg-
ing fraud in the pensions now to make
good on the charge. 1t is misleading
and useless to complain of what mayi
have occurred in distant years. The
people have decided upon the pension |
policy, and they are going to carry it'll
thru to the end no matter what may be /
said about that policy. but they have no
patience with fraud nor are they will
ing to have money paid to those who
would receive it illegally.
1t is one thing to charge fraud. It is
another to submit the evidence of it,
and clearly it is up to Mr. Hale and the
Worlds Work to submit proof Of the
ground on which their articles are
based.
The News seems to be one Of the
papers that has a perception of the mis-
leading quality OF the Worlds Works
statements. The pension system has
been in operation now nearly half a
century, and has dealt with several
million people. No other Department.
of the Government has had such close
relations with such Il vast number Of
people It is the easiest thing in the
world to go over such an exceedingly
large number Of cases and pick out oc-
casionaily instances of mistakes and
wrongdoing. 1t is slander OF the worst
kind, however. to assume that these few
isolated cases are in any way charac-
al
Bureau for nearly half 4 century. We
risk nothing in saying that no. other
Department of the Governments ex-
penditurcs could successfully bear such
scrutiny as has been given the Pension
Bureau. We challenge any fair-mindcd /
man to make q comparison OF the Pen
sion Bureaus disbursements with those
of the War Department. the Navy or
any Of the Treasury Departments nu-
merous activities. He will find there a
hundred instances of wrongful pay
ments and actual frauds upon the Cow
ernment to where he will find one in
the Pension Bureau. This has been
thoroly demonstrated by Cleveland's eX-
haustiVe and excessively cruel investi
CATION of the Pension Bureau, where he
spent between $2,00Q.0O0 and $1,000
900 in an inquiry lasting four years to
find Jess than 200 frauds a year. Even
these frauds would have been detected
by the Pension Bureaus own machinery
had not Mr. Cleveland intervened at all.