The National tribune., 1910-11-10
..THE PENSION CARNIVAL"

leading presentation of comparisons
that do not compare and facts that arr
lout of place. For example, it puts il
Iitalics as its text:
THE people of the United States are
having out i'm pensions every six months
lmore than enough to have paid tht
whole pension bill of the war of inde-
lpendencc. The total pension payments
Imade by the Government previous t.
the outbreak of the civil war would
Ibarelv last the Pension Bureau to-day
thru two quarterly payments due pen
ISionerS under the gigantic system Whlch
has grown out of the civil war.
! "We have lately added a Revolution
ary pensioner to the roll: we are still
lpaying 400 pensions on account of the
war of 1872: 900 pensions for the Mex
| ican war: $500 pensions for the lndlal
wars; but to benefciaries from the civil
war alone we have paid the enormous
total of S3.6S6, ,461. S40-forty times as
much as has been paid pensioners OF
lall the previous wars combined
This would be startling if the wal
of the rebellion, or war of the States, "
as the Worlds Work persistently puts
it. was comparable in any way to the
War of the Revolution. Great as its
consequences were the actual fighting,
the number of men engaged, the break
ing hardships they experienced, We're
altogether less than in some of the
smaller and aforementioned opera
tions of the Union army. Tho the War
of the Revolution lasted seven years
and there were at times as many as
SO, 900 men said to be in service, the
all a
13,477. and these were mainly employed
guarding points remote from the actual
scene of action. where there was pos
sibility of danger. For example. at
Monmouth, which was one of the Sc
verest battles of the Revolution, there
were less than 10000 Americans en-
gagged and their loss was SO killed and
$50 wounded At Yorktown, which was
the decisive event of the war. there
were 1000 Americans and 1000 French.
The British force was 7,247 regular
troops and $40 sailors. The French
lost in killed and wounded nearly 100,
while the Americans lost much less
Such small casualties as these would not
have been regarded as severe for a
brigade during the civil war.
At Saratoga, which Greasy numbers
among his Fifteen Decisive Battles of
the World" there were probably at
one time 1900 or $4,000 Americans,
including the militia, which had been
gathered up from the surrounding
farms. but il is usually estimated that
there were 10,817 American effectives.
and they captured $500 British, with
AZ brass guns and 4,647 muskets. The
American loss was in the neighborhood
of 1000 killed and wounded.
The total number of considerable
and engagements during the
Revolution was 40, as against more
than 2,000 during the Worlds Works
WAR of the States" In many of the
minor campaigns during the war of the
and dismissed in the histories with a
few paragraphs, there was more hard
fighting. more arduous service, than
during the whole War Of the RevoIu-
ton.
How much, for example. does the
the war of the rebellion as Curtis's
march thru Missouri, the battle of Pea
Ridge, Blunt and Herron's campaign,
including Prairie Grove and Cane Hol-
low; -Steele's expedition ito the Red
River. the operations of the Army of
the Gulf, the operations OF the Army
Of the South, the history of the Army
of the Mississippi, the history of the
Army of the Ohio, and other chapters
which have small place in even the
most compendious works. and still less
in the minds of the present genera
ton? Yet each of these was bigger
in its fighting and casualties than the
Probably there were not 1000 men
killed in battle in the War of the Revo-
luton, or no more than were killed in
such minor battles as Shiloh and Stone
River. where there were about $4,000
men engaged. In the entire War of
1912 there were 1877 men killed. or
about as many as in one days bloody
work in the Wilderness. In the whole
Mexican war there were 1857 men kill
ed, or about half as many as were
slain in one day at Antietam, or two
days at Chickamauga
The frantic exclamation of the
Work that 40 times as much
has been paid pensioners of the civil
war than all previous wars, loses all
It's point when it is shown that there
were far more than 40 times as many
men engaged in the war of the rebel
lion; that they did far more than 40
times as much marching and fighting
and lost vastly more than 40 times as
many killed and wounded.
The Worlds Work next takes Com
missioner Evans's favorite theme of the
utter wickedness of the pension attor-
neys. We have no intention of being
drawn into a discussion of pension at
as a whole. There are and
have been as many of them who at
tanned staSding in their profession
as reputable, honest and patriotic men
as there are in any other profession in
the country. There are many thou
sands of them as good, honest, straight
forward comrades as could be found in |
the country. A large portion of these
we're Justices of the Peace and men
Of similar standing in the community, |
who took up the work with the view
of helping their comrades and adding
L little to their small incomes.