certain persons could get pensions by irregular means, while others with meritorious claims had to wait. So bold had they become that the Republican pension agent at Topeka, Kansas, said in a campaign speech, at a meeting of old soldiers in the fall of 1892, that "if they (the soldiers) voted the Populist ticket they would lose their pensions, and they ought to do so."

PENSION OFFICE CLERKS RERATING THEIR OWN PENSIONS.

Pension office clerks rerated their own pensions, and Commissioner Lochren, on assuming the duties of his position, discovered that many of the employees of the bureau, whose pensions were increased and rerated by their fellow-clerks during Corporal Tanner's regine, and without any warrant of law, had never had their pensions reduced, and the orders requiring such reduction were pigeon-holed by Tanner and Raum.

So great was the scandal caused by this collusion that many of the clerks who had no political "pull" were dismissed " upon con ideration appertaining to a correct public service," and Hiram Smith, Jr., Republican first deputy commissioner, who had his own pension rerated in violation of law, resigned "in compliance with request."

WHOLESALE FRAUDS.

First in point of numbers come what are known as the W. Bowen Moore cases, Buffalo, New York. It has been shown that many of the affidavits filed by him were not sworn to and others were materially added to. About 6,000 of his cases have been submitted for investigation. Out of 229 of these cases 137 declarations were filed which are entirely invalid; 87 affidavits were found false in fact; 456 false in execution and in fact; 527 false in execution, making a total of 1,070 false and fraudulent papers. $10,498 would be due up to date on the inva id declarations in pending claims. $19,415 have been paid out to date on illegal declarations, and $13,169 paid out in claims shown to be wholly without merit. $22,495 have been saved from claims which would have been allowed, had not the investigation been instituted, and $2,263 în illegal ees have been collected by Moore in claims in which he was the attorney. This gives a total of $66,577, which has been illegally paid out in consequence of these frauds.

Second, New Mexico cases. About 1,700 of these cases are under investigation. One Marcellino, notary public and pension atto ney, manufactured claimants as well as evidence to support claims. He forged signatures and endorsements to checks and vouchers, converted the money to his own use, plead guilty on 27 counts, and is now undergoing a seven years' sentence. Out of 240 of these New Mexico claims, ten were found to be deserters, 44 were never on the muster rolls, eight had no service, two were never discharged, one was cashiered, making 65 in all, and 43 per c nt showed treat.nent in the service for venereal disease. The amount of actual saving in these New Mexican cases is $1,130,259.06, and the future annual saving will exceed another million.

Third, Indian Territory cases. About 1,400 have been referred for investigation. In these cases an untutored child of the forest (a Creek Indian) Thomas Deer, by manufacturing declarations and affidavits by the wholesale, defrauded the Government of the United States out of tens of thousands of dollars.

Fourth, Van Leuven of Iowa cases. About 1,200 in number. It was part of

Van Leuven's plan to corrupt boards of examining surgeons, and he was able to have such examinations and ratings as he desired, and even had the original certificates of the examining board submitted to him before they were sent to the Pension Bureau.

Fifth, Norfolk, Va., cases, of which there are about 550, filed mostly by W. R. Drury, at present serving a term of imprisonment, and who manufactured alike elaimants, declarations and evidence. In 167 of his cases recommended to be dropped from the roll there were paid to the pensioners under the act of June 27, 1890, the sum of $54,074.43, and the future saving will be about $343,260.39. Ineluding all cases in which Drury figured it is estimated that the Government has been robbed to the extent of at least $650,000.

In addition to the foregoing, to show the universality of these fraudulent practices, there have been referred for investigation about 300 cases, in which one C. W. Lewis, of Tennessee, has violated many of the pension laws, and who is now serving an extended term in the penitentiary.

About 100 claims filed by T. A. Dunlap, of Nashville, Tenn., in which many frauds have been found, and nearly 800 claims of persons residing in various portions of Louisiana, in which frauds have been discovered. Scarcely a day passes but that the name of some person is reported to the Bureau as having been guilty of a violation of the penal statutes.

THE REPUBLICAN RECORD.

Under the act of June 27. 1890

Numbe less names were put upon the pension roll regardless of the requirement of at least 90 days' service.

Dishonorably discharged soldiers and bounty-jumpers were pensioned.

Many who draw the maximum amount ($12 per month) are earning a living at manual labor as they have always done, and some are rated the richest men in the towns in which they 1 ve.

Pension jumpers of both sexes have been allowed two or more pensions.

Under Order 164, inability to perform manual labor was never taken into consideration, and in consequence more than 100,000 pensioners, with no legal right, were put upon the rolls, an 1 the Treasury depleted in the soldier's name.

Many of the least meritorious claims under this act of those who were soldiers only in name were preferred to the crippled heroes whose claims under the general laws remained unsettled. Though only three years in operation more pensioners are receiving $8 or $12 per month under this law than under all former laws. In some cities the number of pensioners under this act is as large as the number who draw under all acts enacted during the previous twenty-five years.

Under the last Admin stration

Republican clerks and officials high in the Pension Bureau rerated their own pensions, filching thousands of dollars from the Treasury.

A Republican Commissioner (Tanner) declared it to be his intention to raid the public Treasury with "steam-shovel and gravel-tra n," and "God help the surplus when he got up steam enough."

Public place in the Pension Office was given for bribe.

Orders 149 and 151, known as the "Completed Files" orders, it was openly charged, were issued at the instance of George E. Lemon, a millionaire Washington claim agent.

All sorts of incongruous ratings grew out of lax procedure and those with like disabilities received different ratings.

Machinery was made accessible to pension attorneys for procuring discharges for men who left their companies and went to Canadɩ during the war.

The Pension Office was used for partisan pu poses. It was called upon to help the Republican party to power by granting pensions as fast as possible in doubtful States and districts.

Pensions were promised for votes, and pensioners threatened if they did not vote the Republican ticket.

Cases by the thousand were made special for certain pension attorneys, and ●ften allowed upon insufficient testimony, while no attention was paid to the poor soldiers who were g tting small pensions for woun 's or diseases actually incurred in the se vice. Because they had no "pull" they could not get a hearing under Tanner or Rium. In open violation of the law employees of the Pension Office were put upon the track of certain Democratic members of Congress, in order, if possible, to encompass their defeat at the polls.

This is the Republican record.

CONCLUSION.

When the Democratic administration took charge of the Bureau of Pens ons it was resolved to inaugurate an era of administrative reform to the end that (1) there shall be equality and not discrimination as to the meritorious so.diers in the measure of the nation's bounty; that their cases, long in the pigeon-holes of the Pension Office under the Republican party's control, shall have been disposed of and the least expensive and most expeditious mode to obtain a certificate vouchsafed them; (2) that the name of every pen ioner on the pension roll to whom pensions should not be granted who have been placed thereon because of fraud, crime, error, or laxity, shall, without hazar ing the just rights of others, betricken therefrom. The pension roll was purged, and distinction made between brave men who loyail served their country and those who skulked.

Corrupt examining boards and attorneys were punished, machine affidavits were put an end to. There will be no more wholesale making of cli us special in the interest of a favored pens:on attorney. Peculation in every form will be put a stop to. The "completed files ' was discontinued. Claim agents frequently reported cases complete where the necessary ev dence had not been filed, retarding the work of the Bureau--one of two things had to be done, either settle claims finally when the agents said they were complete, rejecting those where evid nce was lacking, as would be done in a case at law called for tri 1, or abolish the system altogether; the latter course was considered more favorable to the claimant—a salutary reform.

The making out of " s atistic 1 cards" has been discontinued, and fifty- wo lerks, formerly employed upon this unnecessary work, were put upon the legitimate work of the office-adjudicating claims.

The "canary-slip" form of report from the War Department has been done away with, and in its stead a proper military history of the soldier must be given. Presedence is no longer given to cases under the act of June 27, 1890, but claims for pension under all laws are settled in their order in accordance with the law and the evidence.

A majority of the cases where the claim has been rejected since the advent of the Democratic administration are cases which were in the office before its advent, and

had been neglected by the preceding administration in the hurry and skurry of skinning out the files, selecting cases easiest adjudicated before the Democratic administration came in.

This in brief is the Democaatic record, upon which it is proposed to appeal to the duty soldier, who fought the battles of his country, has a record to be proud of, and courts investigation, that it might go down to future generations of his countrymen that he was a REAL soldier.

Fraudulent pensioners can be relied upon to support the party that would shield them from investigation and exposure, and above all from the danger of losing the gains of their perfidy.

It is believed that the time has come when the real soldiers and taxpayers of the land will sustain the men whose courage and honesty impelled them to the patriotic effort to save the pension roll from dishonor and the taxpayer from pillage.

The Dangers of Populism.

SPEECH

OF

HON. JAMES P. PIGOTT,

OF CONNECTICUT,

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

Monday, August 13, 1894.

Mr. Speaker, the high-water mark of profligacy was reached by the Republican party during the last Administration, when Government appropriations exceeded a bilLion of dollars for a Congress, when a tariff bill was passed upon the avowed principle of revenue for monopolies only, ard a desperate attemp was made to perpetuate the spoilers in power through the instrumentality of a Federal election law and a Congressional returning board.. In the last year of its existence the Fifty-first Congress appropriated an amount exceeding $520,000,000, and the registrar of the decrees of the trust and monopolies, whose name was properly given to the McKinley bill, vauntingly exclaimed that expenditures would increase, for this was a "billiondollar country."

Now, notwithstanding the large incre se for pensions, postal deficiencies, and other necessary expenditures, including a very large amount for rivers and harbors, the appropriations made by the present Congress are some $40.000,000 less than those of the last year of the late Republican Congress, $29,000,000 below those of the last session of the Fifty-second Congress, and by legislative reforms having the sanction and active co-operation of the Ixecutive Departments, once more in the hands of Democratic officials, still further reductions will be made, while at the same time the public service will be improved.

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We have returned once more, as I have shown, to the good old Democratic policy of economy in expenditures, a policy enunciated in the first D mocratic platform adopted in a national convention, and adhered to under all circumstances. It is, indeed, a fundamental Democratic principle, as much so as home rule, taxation for revenue, strict construction of the powers granted in the Constitution, or any of the great pillars upon which Jefferson founded the only political party that was born with the Constitution and continued its existence to the resent time, renewing its youth in the fountain of the people's welfare as new problems are proposed for solution.

Sir, as we reflect upon the history of our country since the close of the civil war we have good reason for concluding that the people have pronounced finally against the kind of paternal governm nt that culminated in the McKinley tariff and the fraud and force bill. But, sir, we are now confronted with paternalism in a more insidio s form.

Taking opportunity of the distressed condition into which Republican policy has plunged the country, the attempt is made to drive the people from the support of the only people's party-the Democratic party-and array them under the banners of paternalism, under a new name and under a new form. What do the people want? Is it economy in Government expenditures? They will secure that under