PUCK MAGAZINE ON CIVIL WAR PENSIONS gggff

PUCK MAGAZINE EDITORIALS- September 20, 1893 Commentary on Civil War Pensions under the CARTOONS AND COMMENTS section of Puck magazine.

CONCERNING OUR PENSION LIST Benjamin Harrison of Indianapolis delivered a speech at the G. A. R. Encampment recently held in that city, in which he insulted every man of the organization who loves honor and decency. We still refuse to believe that the Grand Army of the Republic is chiefly composed of men who seek to prostitute their patriotism. Our faith in the integrity of the Order has received some stunning blows, however; and we are forced to believe that it is at least dominated by disloyal men. Indiana lately erected a magnificent monument to her soldiers, and Indianapolis this year subscribed $150,000 for the G. A. R. Encampment. Yet the G. A. R. insisted that the dates of the Mexican War on this monument be moved up to an obscure place on the shaft. Even with this concession, the G. A. R. changed its route and insulted the soldiers' monument by refusing to march past it. There were some Georgia and Mississippi troops in the Mexican War, consequently that war was fought by traitors. After thus shamelessly affronting every instinct of honest loyalty, these men listened to Mr. Harrison say: "Has the moth of avarice, the canker of greed, so eaten into the hearts of this generation that they are unmindful of these men? God forbid!" And in the face of the fact that this generation is paying annually one hundred and sixty million dollars in pensions--nearly one-half of its total revenues--four times as much as the combined pension lists of Europe,--to nearly four hundred thousand more men than ever enlisted in the Confederate service--twenty-eight years after the close of the war--in spite of this, no one in Mr. Harrison's audience had the spirit to get up and hick him hard and repeatedly, or even to resent the insult in a less ostentatious manner. It is hard to realize how the Grand Army of the Republic could have been placed in its present shameless attitude. Is it any wonder that the people should doubt the patriotism of men who seek to join it? Can not the rank and file of the G. A. R. be brought to see that the element which controls it is gradually placing the Order on a par with the women who sell their bodies? This is a page of our national history that began in honor and glory and bids fair to end in disgrace,--if the honest element in the Order does not soon assert itself. As for Benjamin Harrison, the moth of dishonest partisanship, and the canker of demagogism have feasted upon his mind.