Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 April 1880 — PENSIONS. [ARTICLE]

PENSIONS.

Reflo w . A.tonip s to ? ension Msx - c* i Wai’Vete’.’asAn Able Kjicer i b. Sen? or Voorim r.e o -c me Lniieil Slates Se.tale- April 1”. iSIO Mr, Voorhees su mitted the following resolution, which was read: Resolved, That the ComtniEce on Pensions be, and is hc.fcby, ins-.Tci-ed to report, without unnecessary delay, a bill authorizing Tie Commissioner of Pensions to place on the pension roll of Tvs Government the names of the surviving soldiers and sailors of the war between the United States and Mexico: Provided, That this resolution shall not apply to such as are now on any account drawing pensions, or »re laboring under polit ical disability: Mr. Voorhees—Mr. President, in presenting this resolution I hope I may be pardoned a few words in explanation. lam fully aware or the obstacles -o be encountered. An impression itus been created in certain quarters that we are already paying pensions in too lavish a manner, A note of alarm is raised on this floor whenever the subject is discussed.— We heaid it a few days ago in connection with a private bill to pension a disabled scout from West Vi’-ginie. The Senator from Kansas (Mr. Ingalls) drew a vivid picture of the dangers to which our growing pension list was subjecting the country. He announced that we were paying more money in pensions to disabled soldiers and sailors, their widowsand orphans, than any other government in the world. This is true, and in my judgment it is greatly to our credit. While the Governments of Europe pour out enormous sums in annuities ami pensions on their royal families, ami on their nobility, we are left free to expend similar sums, if we choose, on far worthier objects, on the citizen soldiery of the Republic, in grateful recognition of the fact that but for them the Union would not now exist, nor would foreign nations salute the American flag with respect. I can not consent that the policy of other Governments on this subject •shall be held up to us for adoption or imitation. ThereJ is nothing in the pension system of Great Britain for us to consider except as an exam pie to be avoided. It is true that there is comparatively a small sum paid in pensions to her soldiers and sailors, but she has a pension list that is truly amazing to the eye of an American. Under the heads of hereditary pensions, political pensions, special pensions, annuities, compensation allowances, compassionate al lowances, retiring allowances, and su perannuation allowances, she pays more than $10,000,000a year—in part to such ns have r tired from the different bran -h<s of her public service, and in part to a worthless nobility which has fastened itself by inheritance on the tax-paying toil of that Kingdom.

I have examined that pension roll. It is full of curious things. One man was pensioned for the sum of £7,191 on the excise, and for £3,384 on the Postoffice revenue, making the annual sum of $52,875, because he was descended from an illegitimate son of Charles 11, His base but high born ancestor had been pensioned, and the pension descended to those who came after him. In 1857 Ins Government redeemed, as it is called, its excise and postoffice revenues from this anntud charge, by paying the pensioner J-255,777 13s 2d; counted in our money $1,278,885, in round numbers. The old Duke of Schomberg fell at the battle of the Boyne, in IG9O, and a pension of £4,000, or $20,000, per annum was settled upon his heirs. They have drawn more than $2,000,000 from the English treasury. The private purse of the Queen of England and her household expenses paid bv the people amount to over $2,000,000 a year; aad the annual allowances granted to her children reach the sum of $5.000,000 and upward; while adding marriage portions to their other al lownnces these favored youths have drawn .from the revenues of tneir Government the sum of $62,790,095 up to the year 1877.

Facts like these, it sterns to me, ought to have a strong tendency to reconcile the most dissatisfied American citizen to the policy of his own Government, even if we do pay our scarred and veteran soldiers liberal pensions, and even if, for the time being, at least, we are deprived of the blessings of royalts and the economy oi the royal family. For my part, it does not alarm me at all that we are paying many times as much in pensions to our soldiers as Great Britain pays to hers; nor do I ever wish to see them deprived of their pensions, or cut short in their rates, in order to bestow them on the favorites of an Empire, as is done in that country. bir, in addition, however, to what we have already done for the American soldier, there remains, in my judg. ment, an imperative duty yet to be discharged. The soldier of the war with Mexico has not yet had justice. The life-time of a generation has passed by since he obeyed the call of his country and upheld Its honor in a foreign war. Thirty-four years ago he moved with the elastic step of youth to battle and to victory. He is now old and waits from year to year for that recognition which, though it may be small in amount, is always dear to a soldier’s heart.

There L but little difficulty in making a correct estimate of the number of soldiers and sailors who would be entitled to a pension for having participated in the Mexican war. The muster rolls contain 101,000, all told, in the military and naval service against Mexico. Of these, however, 17.224 were re-enlistments, showing that there were in fact but 83.776 men in that service. From this number must be deducted the dead who died in Mexico, 16,000, and 11,000 hereto fore pensioned for wounds and disabilities incurred in the line of duty. I regret to note the fact that 7,225 are marked as disertcis. This leaves a body of 49,551 men to the accidents of time and the assaults of disease during a peiiod of nearly thirty-three years of intense activity, and stupendous scenes of excitement danger and death. It is known to all that the survivors of the Mexican war were among the foremost to take part in the war of the rebellion They had been trained as soldiers, and (hey snuffed the approach of bat’le. Many of them died on the field or in the hospitals during the four bloody years. Others survive crippled, and drawing pensions for their services in the cause of the Union. AV these circumstances, added to the natural death rate since the close of (he war with Mexico, have reduced the numbei of soldier* and sailors now surviving, ami who would be entitled to pensions according to the most intelligent and careful cal eolations, to perhaps less than 10.000. Very competent judges who have spent much time in gathering statistics on this sub eet put the survivorship er titled to pensionsjas low as 7,000. It is said that the following facts are well authenticated:

Of the two Pennsylvania regiments mustered in with 2,503 officers and men but 181 survive. Of the second Mississippi, 1,035 officers and men. 47 survive. Of the Palmetto regiment, 1.077 officers and men, only 34 are now living. According to these melancholy illustrations no one need be alarmed at I (lie increase of our pension roll, even if the veterans of Mexico are added : to it. A million a year will pay what remains of them at $8 per month. A million a year! A single manufacturing in rhe city of Teri e Haute, where I live, pays more revenue annually into the Treasury of the United States I han it would require to pension every survivor of the Mexican war; and yet we are met with a sort of panic in rega’-d to the increased expenditures of the Government whenever this subject is mentioned. Sir, what we shall pay them is a mere atom compared with the mighty acquisitions of wealth and National power achieved by their courage and endurance. The veterans ot the Mexican war are not asking charity; they are not pleading for support out of the hard earnings of others; they simply desire an inflnitesmal per cent., a per cent, so small that it can not be designated, of that vast domain and inexhaustible treasure which they secured to their Government by their own exertions. Such a conquest of far-reaching boundaries, and of present and future wealth, power and glory as was made by their arms has perhaps no parallel in human history The ephemeral conquests of Alexander the Gr» a at in the East, the snbjugati n of extensive portions of Europe by Caesar, ami afterward by Napeleon, the Norman conquest of England by William the Conqueror, none of these conouests were equal in their effects upon the progress of the world to those which were accomplished by the war between the United States and Mexico. Does this statement ap pear extravagant? Let the cold facts of history speak for themselves, A condition precedent to the war was the annexation of Texas, a State larger in extent, more fertile in natural resources, and capable of sustaining a more numerous population than many of the leading powers of Europe. A settlement of the proper boundary between that State and Mexico followed the war, and secured ths disputed territory between the Nueces and the Rio Grande, a territo ry as lage ml as rich as the State of Ohio. The Union was composed of twenty nine States when the war closed, and by the treaty of peace a more extensive country than them all put together was Drought under the authority of the American flag, and under the protection of American law. The boundaries of the American Republic were more than doubled, and fountains of wealth were secured which have revolutionized the commerce of the seas and the traffic of the civilized parts of the earth. California, the Queen of the Pacific, with her dower of gold, marks a new era in the activity and advancement of the human race. Enough of the I recio.us metals have been taken from her mines alone, coined in this country and taken to Europe for coinage, .to pay our National debt. She has caused this continent to be spanned by an iron thoroughfare for the travel and transportation created by her wonderful products. The customs duties.received by the Federal Gov eminent at her ports, in any period of five yeais since her admission into the Union, has been sufficient to defray the entire cost of the war with Mexico. Nevada, Utah, Colorado, a portion of Wyoming, Arizona, and New Mexico, with their tremendous capacities for future development, also stand to the credit of those who fought at Cerro Gordo, and in the Valley of Mexico under Scott, and at Monterey and Buena Vista under Taylor.

The Imagination of man can hardly grasp the reality of these vast regions fifty years hence. If a statue of the precious metals was erected to-day to each surviving veteran of the Mexican war, instead of the enactment of a law giving them $8 a month, for their lives and their widows after ihem, the expense would be but a bavien pittance in comparison with what this Government has received as the proceeds of their privations and their valor. Sir, why further delay this act of justice? It has already been far too long delayed for the honor of this Government. There is but a remnant of these heroes left. Their, ranks are growing thinner from year to year, like the gray locks on their honored heads. Those, battlefields on which they startled the world with the constancy and daring of American volunteers are beginning to be seen through the haze of long intervening time. Let us not wait until all who made these fields illustrious have gone to their graves before we recognize, in some slight degree, the debt we owe them. Congress is far in the rear of a grateful public opinion on this subject. When we last considered it on this floor, less than a year ago, the Legislatures of twenty States had instructed their Senators and requested their Representatives in Congress to pension the veterans of the war with Mexico. Now. the Legislatures of twenty-five States have made similar instructions and preferred similar re-

quests. There are fifty Senators instructed, and more than 200 members of the House requested by their States to pension these surviving veterans without further postponement Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, California,Minnesota, Wisconsin, Oregon, Nevada. Kentucky, Tennessee, Texas, Alabama, Arkansas. Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Georgia, Flor ida, M ssouri, New Jersey and Massachusetts have joined their potent voices in this dpmand. Will they Hot be respected and obeyed? Who will presume to say so? And why deer action another day? The step is to be taken, the American people have so willed it; why not take it now? > There is nothing sectional in this question. All the' States in this Union have shared in the increased greatness of our common country. E”ery section has alike reaped the fruits of the fortitude and wisdom display) d in the field and in the National conn cils in the conduct and in the conclusions of the war. American enterprise and intelligence, from the hardy regions of New England to the Pacific coast, and from the Northern lak< s to the warm waters of the Gulf, have found new and boundless fields for their restle.-s activity and their alu.ost fabulous achievements. I cannot believe that there will be anv f irther reluctance in any quarter to the small recognition and reward which I ask for those who proved themselves the benefactors of every portion of the American people, and in fact of the whole commercial and civilized world. I ask that (he resolution which I have offen d mav be brinted and lie upon the table; and I give notice that I shall call it up at an early day for the action of the Senate.