Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 30, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 March 1894 — THE CAMPAIGN. [ARTICLE]

THE CAMPAIGN.

Democratic Infamy and Duplicity. Extracts from Frets Opinions on the Questions of the Hoar. ' Republican Defenders Only. Indianapolis Journal. While the bill appropriating $150,000.000 for pensions—a cut down of over $15,000,000 from the first estimates —was under consideration in House the past week the discussion turned upon the present administration of the Pension Bureau. Here in Indiana Democratic soldiers denoupce the Cleveland-Hoke-Smithr' Lochren policy as bitterly as do Republicans, but not a Democratic Representative from Indiana had a word to say against the pension policy which Deputy Commissioner Ball says- will cut down pension disbursements about $25,000,000 the next fiscal year and down to SIOO,000 000 before the close, of the ClevelandacTministratidn, instead of $l6O.-

000,000 the last fiscal year. No pensioners were hit harder than were the Democratic soldiers in Indiana whcTWre pensioners under the act of 1890 until Lochren was called off. Indiana soldiers will suffer their full share in the contemplated reduction of one-third of the aggregate expenditureJor pensions. Every Indiana Democratic Representative, by his silence, approved this policy’. Every one, of them is a Cleveland-Hoke-Smith “cuckoo.” On theother hand, the two Republican Representatives, Johnson and Waugh, were in the front line of the men denouncing this policy of hostility to the Union soldiers, standing with such soldiers as General Henderson/ Hepburn and Pickier, and assailed the official conspiracy against pensioners. Judge Waugh, in his remarks last Saturday,"Showed that durjng the six months ending last November the Pension Bureau issued 35,7d5 certificatesand rejected 67,283 applications, while during the corresponding period of 1892, under the Harrison administration, 118,954 Jensron certificates Were issued.' udge Waugh went on to say: • Since the Pension Office went-into Democratic hands there have been over 16,000 pensioners dropped and suspended from the roll; over 12,000 by the action of the pension office, and over 4,000 by the operation of the law passed by the Eifty-second Congress: and during the same time

the roll has diminished about 25.000 by death, and about 8,000 more from other causes. It seems that death and Hoke Smith have been busy getting their work in on the boys, and tn many instances death has dealt more gently with them than Hoke Smith. This administration came into power with a libel upon the pension roll by its official utterance that ‘‘there were thousands of neighborhoods throughout the country that had their wellknown pension frauds. ” The administration has been in power a year and has been, as we must believe, more vigilant in hunting fraud than in granting pensions, and it has found just three neighborhoods, Norfolk, New Mexico and lowa. The frauds in one of these neighborhoods were, as I am informed, discovered curing the Republican administration.”

When Judge Waugh-said-that there were far less frauds with pension claims than any other Congress had undertaken to deal with he made an allusion to the Southern war claims, both allowed and pending, which was so well understood that applause followed. Referring to the silence of Indiana Democratic Senators and Representatives, Judge. Waugh said: ■‘‘Some time ago it was heralded to the country through the public press that certain Democrats, notably from Indiana, were going to commence a war on the administration’s pension policy. I have been listening ever since, but I have faiV?d up to this time to hear the opening guns of the conflict. Have they come to the conclusion that they cannot deceive the old soldiet - any longer 2 When the old soldier and the pension roll are assaulted, as is so often done on this floor, why is it that we .scarcely ever see a Northern Democrat rise to his feet to rebuke it? If he does he speaks in tones so low that he cannot be heard outside his Congressional district; PLaugbtfcr.] Have they come to the conclusion that they cannot fool the old soldier any longer; or have the assaulting forces surrendered to the seductive influences of the pie counter?”