Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1912-09-23
THE OLD SOLDIER.

no longer control the government.
However, by many both Roosevelt
and Wilson are looked upon as fair
representatives of the progressive
spirit. Taft will secure few votes.
He will carry but few, if any, of the
states. The fight lays between
Roosevelt and Wilson. The veterans
of the Civil War therefore have to
choose between these two.
Patrick Henry, in one of his i'm
mortal speeches, said
The only lamp by which my feet
are guided is experience. | can only
Judge the future by the past"
The veterans need not go back far
in their memories to recall the terri
BILE ordeal through which they had
to pass when Grover Cleveland was
elected president Governor Wilson
represents practically the same class
that elected Grover Cleveland; the
same issues are uppermost. The
same people that elected Grover
Cleveland are lined up in support of
Governor Wilson, and their utter
ances are singularly like those which
ushered in the calamity upon the
veterans following Cleveland's cleo
tion. Born in the south, of rabidly
Confederate parents, spending his
boyhood days among those who hat
ed the Union soldiers with a consum-
ing hatred, with all his earlier and
lifelong impressions fiercely against
the men of the Union army, he can
not help being even more hostile to
the pensioners than Cleveland was,
who came to manhood in a loyal
community.
All of Governor Wilson's utter
ances have been distinctly unfriend-
I ly to the claims of Union veterans,
and he undoubtedly shares the belief
proclaimed by every prominent news
paper and public man who has sup
ported him that the Union veterans
are a singularly undeserving class
that is pillaging the national treas
ury. He probably has this view much
more strongly even than Grover
Cleveland had.
If we can judge from the past, his
election will be followed by great
er persecution of veterans and their
widows than that which followed
. Grover Cleveland's entrance into of.
flee. Then tens of thousands of vet.
Grams and their widows were arbi
! trarily dropped from the pension
roll. Tens of thousands more hat
' their pensions reduced, and were pu
, to the greatest inconvenience anC
e distress of mind to prove again thei
= claims to place on the pension roll
Grover Cleveland spent more thai
$4,000, 900 in covering the land witt
spies, who visited every neighbor
hood listened to all the mean, Sian
: derous gossip, subjected every vet
e eran and veterans widow to a dis
), tressful inquisition, and went so ia
5, in this harassing that congress ha
t, to interfere and pass laws restrain
+ ing him.
D These facts do not rest at all upo
v our assertion of them, but are mat
IS ters of bitter memory to the vetel
s ans and their dependent ones, VIII
3 were subjected to the cruel harryin
of Cleveland, his commissioner G
d pensions, his secretary of the il
q terror and his horde of pestiferou
It spies.
II Not only did the interior depar,
s. ment and the pension bureau tur
o from the legitimate work of grant
Is ing pensions to manufacture reason
4 why pensioners should be dropped c
5. reduced, but the whole administrt
@. ton engaged in the work. The a
is torney-generals office, the posto
ID flee department and other depar
e. ments were called in to help the PEI
V. sion bureau harass the veterans.
rt Cleveland came in after the bene
,g icent act of June 81, 1890, WI
ne passed. He lacked the boldness
". directly repeal the act, but he al
" his satellites eXerted themselves
ce take all the virtue out of it. If Go
ut ernor Wilson should come in,
would undoubtedly take the sar
course with the act of May, Il, 191
"A That is, he would not dare to repe
de the act, but he would try to evisct
re ate it and make it of the least pos
he BILE benefit to the veterans
,ot We know that this would be t
is case from the bitter calumnies vi
ed which the Wilson papers and [
ct. speeches of his supporters in cC
wn gress were filled during the cons
he Grafton of the act of May II, 10.
a The veterans and their widows