The county record. [volume] (Kingstree, S.C.) 1885-1975, 1915-02-25
SOME LIGHT THROWN
ON PENSION GRAB.
DEMOCRATS ACCUSED OF BEING
WORSE THAN REPUBLICANS
ACQUIESCENCE.

or ,U0U, alIecC Siiioii iiiinoi''J
less than 100000 of the American
people. This minority, however, is
the most persistent and successful
private interest in the United States.
They are chiefly the survivors of a
Civil war that ended fifty years ago.
By the aid of their 20, 900 bills, they
annually take about sl74,ooo'ooo
out of the Federal treasury. A SIM
gle measure, passed two years ago.
increased our pension expenditures
s25. 900, 600, and the legislative CAL
endar is constantly choked with bills
that would add still more to the
pension budget. The veterans OF the
Civil war are dying at the rate OF
$4,000 a year; one hundred pass
away every day; of the more than
two million men on the Union slde'
fewer than 100000 now survive. Ihe
amazing thing about our pension
system is this rapidly decreasing
Civil war army and the still more
RAPIDLY increasing pension expendl-
ture. We are spending more tor
nons;ons now than we have ever
spent before.
The historian Lecky, in his De-
mocracy and Liberty" argues
AGAINST democracy on the ground
that. under this system OF govern
ment. it is the inevitable tendency
for one section of society to insert
it's hands into the pockets OF the
others. He draws one Illustration
for his favorite thesis from the
American pension system. What
ever we may think of his political
philosophy, there can be no question
that his illustration is an apt one'
For nearly fiftyyears the Repubfcan
narty has fostered this pension hab-
it,reducing it to regular system OF
E<r
exchanging the old soldiers vote Tor
a free franking privilege on the
Federal treasury.
Until 1912, all the vicious pension
laws have been Republican laws.
Grover Cleveland's was the only ad-
ministration that had set itself
against this abuse. When the Dem
ocrats again secured possession of
the House in 1912. therefore, the
country expected something in the
way of areform. In fact the Dem.
ocratic party has so far out-d'stanced
the Republican record in pension
debauchery. 1t has passed outrage
ous laws that the Republicans had
actually refused to put upon the
statute book. Only Republican op-
position has prevented even more
shame.faced raids upon the Federal
treasury. In Isaac R Sherwood the
Democrats have produced pension
fanatic who has no counterpart IN
the long list of Republican war
horses. Congressman Sherwoods
pension ideas are so extreme that
even the Grand Army of the Repub-
lie has denounced them, and publicly
raped Mr. Sherwood down when ne
has tried TO explain them to their
gatherings. A single circumstance
shows the spirit in which ne ap-
proaches this problem. When some
one asked Mr. Sherwood where ne
was to get the money to pay pen
sions provided for by his bill, ne
formulated this scheme: To reduce
greatly appropriations for the pres
ent standing army; to muster out
the larger part of it; to stop build
ing battleships and scrap those that
we have, and to end all construction
work on the Panama canal. If these
economies" did not furnish money
enough to pay the old fellows,
then Mr. Sherwood and his assocl-
ates advocated bond issues for this
patriotic purpose.
Four years ago the Worlds Work
published a series of articles on tins
great National scandal. Since then