Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 22, Number 11, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 October 1900 — M’KINLEY and pensions. [ARTICLE]

M’KINLEY and pensions.

Tlie President Has AlVvays Been the Karnest Friend of (lid Soldiers. In an interview, Hon. D. I. Murphy, former Comijiiusiouer of Pensions, states that President McKinley, on the morning of Sept. 4, 1899* said to the National Committee on Pensions, G. A. R.: "There is no use denying the fact, gentlemen, that the money power of the country is against any further expansion of tiie pension roll.” The undersigned members, only, of the Pension Committee, called on the President by appointment that morning and in the interest of justice we desire to say that this statement is not true. The President' did not on that occasion, nor at any other time, rngke use of any such words, nor did he make any such suggestion then or at any other time, and we were present at all the conferences between the President and the National Committee on Pensions from July, 1899, until the passage of the bill amending the act of June 27, 1890, in May, 1900.. At each conference he unreservedly approved the amendments proposed by the committee and unanimously adopted by the Philadelphia encampment. More than this, the President freely gave to the committee and the soldiers and sailors and their dependent ones whom we represented his personal aid in securing the passage of the bill. Having satisfied himself of the absolute justice of the measure, he did not hesitate to declare in favor of the amendment of the act of 1890 and the liberal administration of all the pension laws. The President is the earnest and practical friend of the soldiers and sailors of this country. From the very beginning of liis public career he has given expression to a sincere regard for his comrades of the war, and on all proper occasions he has not failed to declare himself earnestly In favor of a liberal administration of the pension laws. In his official capacity as a member of Congress and as the chief executive of the nation, he has evinced the utmost concern for liberalized pension legislation and administration. It is a cruel aud wicked wrong fit) put into the mouth of the President the words ascribed to him in this interview. He does not entertain such sentiments. The chief exefcutlve executes the laws as enacted by Congress, and no President in the history of this republic has performed his duty ipore faithfully iu this regard than our comrade, William McKinley. He was and is in thorough accord with the sentiments of the Grand Army as expressed at Philadelphia and Chicago, in the administration of the pension laws, and of this fact the National Pension Committee has full knowledge. „ It. B. BROWIfI, Chairman, Zanesville, Ohio. JNO. PALMER, Ex-Secretary State of the State of New York; Past Commander in Chief G. A. R., 1892.

J. W. BURST,

Sycamore, 111.

Fatterlee and His Hogs. > Ben Satterlee, one of the prosperous farmers of Seminary township, in Fayette County, Illinois, arrived in Vandalia recently with thirteen wagon loads of hogs, making a procession of no mean Tills was the surplus of Mr. SatterlAe’s hog raising. At the scales he found the weight to bo 13,500 pounds. He sold the hogs to Fred Morrison of Ramsey at 5 cents per pound. Mr. Satterlee netted $075 from the sale. The' St. Louis market reports for the months of May and Including September, 189(1, show tne average price of hogs in the St. Louis market to have been $2.75 per 100 pounds, and the average market price for hogs in the same market on Aug. 22, 1900, was $5.47. The difference between the average price for 1896 and the market price on Aug. 24 of this year was $2.72 per 100 pounds, which, multiplied by the weight, gives Mr. Satterlee $367.20 more for his bogs than he cpuld have got in 1896—another contrast In the prices of farm products between 1896 and 1900, demonstrating that McKinley was the “advance agent of prosperity” in 1896. When Mr. Satterlee presented his check at the bank, he was paid in Mr. Bryan’s 200-eent dollars, and the cashier handed him the money In gold. L. W. Russell, a neighbor, was present exclaimed: “By gosh! Ben! Five cents for hogs, paid in gold, is good enough for us." The facts related apply Just as well iu any Western State a a In Illinois.

'• A- Word to Young Men. It is doubtless within the momory of hundreds of thousands of young men In this country that less .than ten years ago—six or seven years ago, to be more exact—the business world suffe/ed a stagnation and disaster the like of which had never before been seen among us. The panic of ’93 was especially hard upon young men. The elderly, who had made their successes in life fairly secure, those whose natural caution enabled them to look forward to such a terrible consummation and to prepare for It, suffered less. The younger men, having in some cases the enthusiasm of their youth, having in many others, the well-matured plans of middle age before them, found that their best-laid plans, their most loyally superhuman efforts, were insufficient to stem the tide against them. Many failed. Many who did not fail fought on, almost losing heart, but bravely keeping up the struggle, hardly knowing why. Those who failed are mostly on their feet again. Those who did not/ are “doing well enough”, again. All—and we repeat, there are hundreds of thousands of them, take it the country over—have cause to remember the beginning, and, let us hope, the end, of a financial and political policy, or lack of policy,which literally doomed tens of thousands of them to bankruptcy, tens of thousands of others to despair, and ceaseless effort to recover themselves, and yet tens of thousands more to beggery—not hopeless, for that is a word unknown to, the younger business generation. We do not believe that there is a single self-respecting business man of the rising generation who- is going to permit, or whoMs going to help to permit, any such disaster to happen again. It would mean dollars, hi many cases thousands of dollars, out of his pocket. It would mean in many s cases that he conld never recover his financial standing: for it is not always that a man can stand more than one of these attacks. The younger generation, we believe, learned its lesson thoroughly. It will do better this time.

Another Areument Exploded. The United Commercial Travelers’ Association of America has 12,176 rffembers in 1900, and it had 9,533 in 1896, an increase of 28 per cent. , The Travelers’ Protective Association of America has 16,262 members in 1900, and had 11,090 in 1896, a gain of 47 per cent. The Commercial Travelers’ Mutual Accident Association of New York has a membership of 20,860, compared with 16,166 in 1896, a gain of 29 per cent. More travelers are on tlie road to-day than ever before-, despite the calamity howl to the contrary.