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PUCK MAGAZINE ON CIVIL WAR PENSIONS gggff |
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| I am a battle-scared veteran.
Don't look it, eh? Neither do you. But I am. No, I wasn't in any of the principal engagements of the War; and I did rather neglect the minor ones. A man fritters away his time fooling with these little matters. But I was there —oh, I was there. You don't believe it? Why not? Isn't my name there on the list? Ain't I down on the record as a drafted man? Who says I settled down temporarily in Canada during the operation of the draft act? Here, I don't want t go raking up old issues. The War is over. Let there be no more rancor. Has a man got to die for his country to get a pension? I'm on the list anyway. * * * I am a soldier's widow. Now, you wouldn't doubt the word of a poor woman, the mother of eleven children, all of them dead, would you? Just think of the anguish of mind that I suffered when my beloved helpmate was torn from my arms by the rude hands of War! Why, it's worth twice the money. But my husband wasn't a soldier. Well, yes, he was–a soldier once removed. Didn't I marry a man whose first wife was a soldier's widow? And isn't he dead? Well, yes, he is. But that doesn't make me a soldier's widow? Oh, how can you be guilty of such heartlessness! I not a soldier's widow! Why, I'm drawing his pension, anyhow, and that's widow enough for me. * * * I am a pension agent. Yes, and I am proud of it. A disreputable business? What! to succor the distressed, to get justice for the faithful servants of the government–that a disreputable business? But I'm not obtaining justice for the faithful servants of the government, I'm getting fat pension for people who never earned them? Well, now, don't you judge my business too lightly. When you take into consideration the trouble of mind, the wear and tear of intellect that is required to hunt up cases of neglected vets and impoverished widows–when you consider the labor I have in teaching them what to say–why then you'll admit that I'm earning my money. * * * Now, the man may take his choice between being considered a fool or a hog, who denies that it is just and wise to pay fair pensions to men who have fought for the preservation of the Union, and to their unsupported families. But the three preceding paragraphs give an honest idea of the way in which many thousands of dishonest claimants would talk, were they forced to talk, about their dealings with government. It is no justice to real veterans of the Civil War to pay millions to men who never shouldered a gun, to women who make a profession of playing the part of the soldier's widow. The cry for reform has been raised under the windows of the Pension Office, and it is eminently advisable that some one should raise the sash and listen. |
