The National tribune., 1911-03-30
MUCH TRUTH.

1t Is hard for even a yellow" writer
and muekraker to write without, mad
vertently it may be, saying something
truthful and striking. This is the case
with the following editorial from
Hamptons Magazine for April:
With a mighty unanimity the safe
and sane press denounced the House OF
Representatives for passing a new gen.
eraI pension bill which will add an es-
timated s45,000,000 to our already
swollen pension roll. 1t was a terrible
thing, they said. to take s45,000,0O0 out
of the Treasury and give it away in
pensions. especially right after Presi-
dent Taft and Assistant President Nor
ton had succeeded by herculean efforts
in cutting down the estimated expenses
of the Government by something like
s., 000,0 eco. What shall il profit an Ad-
rninistration to save three millions il
Congress at the same time forces it to
spend an extra rs millions? And while
some sad and serious souls asked that
question the cynics whispered that it
was done to saddle an unrepealable ex-
travagance on the new Democratic
House. Tongues wagged, pens splut-
tered and typewriters ratified about the
new pension bill, but never once did
anyone seem to have any true sense OF
proportion In the discussion. As for the
S45 200, 900, nearly all of it will go to-
ward increasing monthly pensions of
old soldiers from $12 to SIS.
Enthusiastically our whole pension
scheme is full of error and fraud, but
many other things in our Government
are so much worse that we strain at a
gnat when we shrek at raising an old
soldiers pension SO and swallow q cam
ell when we allow the tariff barons to
escape with millions and millions of
\.
to be used for private purposes the peo-
pie of the United States gave Andrew
Carnegie something like half billion
dollars, the interest on his steel COR
poration bonds being the annual pen
sion we pay the Lord of Skibo for his
patriotic services in laying the founda-
| ton for the steel monopoly Mr.. Car
| negie was good enough to admit to the
Ways and Means Committee that he
| had got his by the tariff, and, having
got his, that he could no longer see any
particular need for protection for steel.
The annual pension bill has been
staying around $150, 100000 for a long
the largest slice of it that goes to any
one man is s72 a month for total dis
ability.
Since the Dingley bill was passed in
| 1897 we have pensioned the steel own
ers until we have poured more of our
| money into Pittsburg alone for the
making of mushroom millionaires than
| has been disbursed thru the Pension
Office in all its history, to say nothing
of the several thousand -tariff-made
| wooden, cotton, rubber, sugar and other
| millionaires.
The Pension Office is a fit candidate
| for rigid, honest investigation, but as a
| matter of economy we should make
more money by taking the graft OUT of
| the tariff.
The undeniable historic truth is that
when our country was in Commercial
| and economic subserviency to Europe
| the veterans voted solidly for protec-
tion. They did this as a. patriotic duty:
1. To render the country financially
and industrially independent
2. To keep the money at home which
| went abroad as tribute to Europe and
especially England
3. To provide work and wages for
American citizens.
i The protective policy could not have
| been inaugurated and maintained ex-
| cepr for the solid vote of the veterans.
i In this they incurred the bitter vim
dictive hatred not only of the powerful
! ring of importers and free traders in
4 New York and other seaboard cities,
| but of the whole South, which had been
| for generations educated in free trade
as political faith. The whole subsi-
died press was arrayed against them
The then modest and enterprising
makers Of tin. iron. steel. shoes, cloth,
tools, machinery, were most glad and
| grateful for the help OF the OLE soldiers.