People's Pilot, Volume 3, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 September 1893 — HOKE COMPLAINS. [ARTICLE]

HOKE COMPLAINS.

The Secretary taji Be Ha* Been Woe* folly Misrepresented—He Is Not Opposed to Pensions, Bat Is Determined to Parse the List of Fraudulent Claimants. Washington, Sept 25. Secretary Hoke Smith has made a'statement regarding his position upon the pension question. He says he has often been grossly misrepresented in this matter and held responsible for acts about which he knew nothing until they had been committed; and he makes particular mention of the case of Charles T. Bennett, a private in Company F, Thirteenth Indiana volunteers, upon which an important order was issued and about which so mnch has been said.

Mr. Smith says it is wrong to suppose he is a common enemy to pensions. He conscientiously believes there have crept .upon the pension rolls, through one avenue or another, the names of an enormous number of persons who are not entitled to pensions. “These are the ones lam after,” declared the secretary, “and they are the ones I intend to weed out of the pension list, if they reduce the total number of pensioners one-half.” Referring to the order of Commissioner Lochren, that pensioners whose claims were not good upon the presentation made should be dropped from the rolls for a period of sixty days, when they must make their claims good or suffer permanent suspension. feecretarySmith says that this action was taken when he was absent from Washington, and that it did not meet his approval. He believed that a pensioner, after being once placed upon the rolls, should have notice before being dropped. Secretary Smith states that his original idea in having the list cf “suspects” prepared was to have stricken from the rolls those who had failed to present priura facie evidence that they were entitled to pensions, lie believes that investigation into all these cases will lead to the discovery of much fraud, and that fully half of those who have not made prima facie cases will fail in their efforts to show that they were entitled to pensions. Many of those who were being notified that they must furnish new evidence had so little to stand upon that they would make no effort whatever. The secretary says it is a great mistake to suppose that he intended to decrease pension expenditures by depriving those who were entitled to pensions under the law of their just rewards. Referring to the fact that quite a number of pensioners who were dropped from the rolls were being reinstated, the secretary said that all of them had furnished the required evidence.