eded in
securing a pension as the widow of Daniel Dougherty through fraudulent
testimony and much false swearing on her part.

The police records of the precinct in which she has lived for years show
that she is a woman of very bad character, and that she has been under
arrest nine times for drunkenness, larceny, creating disturbance, and
misdemeanors of that sort.

It happens that this claimant, by reason of her residence here, has been
easily traced and her character and untruthfulness discovered. But there
is much reason to fear that this case will find its parallel, in many
that have reached a successful conclusion.

I can not spell out any principle upon which the bounty of the
Government is bestowed through the instrumentality of the flood of
private pension bills that reach me. The theory seems to have been
adopted that no man who served in the Army can be the subject of death
or impaired health except they are chargeable to his service. Medical
theories are set at naught and the most startling relation is claimed
between alleged incidents of military service and disability or death.
Fatal apoplexy is admitted as the result of quite insignificant wounds,
heart disease is attributed to chronic diarrhea, consumption to hernia,
and suicide is traced to army service in a wonderfully devious and
curious way.

Adjudications of the Pension Bureau are overruled in the most peremptory
fashion by these special acts of Congress, since nearly all the
beneficiaries named in these bills have unsuccessfully applied to that
Bureau for relief.

This course of special legislation operates very unfairly.

Those with certain influence or friends to push their claims procure
pensions, and those who have neither friends nor influence must be
content with their fate under general laws. It operates unfairly by
increasing in numerous instances the pensions of those already on the
rolls, while many other more deserving cases, from the lack of fortunate
advocacy, are obliged to be content with the sum provided by general
laws.

The apprehension may well be entertained that the freedom with which
these private pension bills are passed furnishes an inducement to fraud
and imposition, while it certainly teaches the vicious lesson to our
people that the Treasury of the National Government invites the approach
of private need.

None of us should be in the least wanting in regard for the veteran
soldier, and I will yield to no man in