e been or now
are in receipt of pensions.

The American people, with a patriotic and grateful regard for our
ex-soldiers, too broad and too sacred to be monopolized by any special
advocates, are not only willing but anxious that equal and exact justice
should be done to all honest claimants for pensions. In their sight the
friendless and destitute soldier, dependent on public charity, if
otherwise entitled, has precisely the same right to share in the
provision made for those who fought their country's battles as those
better able, through friends and influence, to push their claims. Every
pension that is granted under our present plan upon any other grounds
than actual service and injury or disease incurred in such service, and
every instance of the many in which pensions are increased on other
grounds than the merits of the claim, work an injustice to the brave and
crippled, but poor and friendless, soldier, who is entirely neglected or
who must be content with the smallest sum allowed under general laws.

There are far too many neighborhoods in which are found glaring cases of
inequality of treatment in the matter of pensions, and they are largely
due to a yielding in the Pension Bureau to importunity on the part of
those, other than the pensioner, who are especially interested, or they
arise from special acts passed for the benefit of individuals.

The men who fought side by side should stand side by side when they
participate in a grateful nation's kind remembrance.

Every consideration of fairness and justice to our ex-soldiers and the
protection of the patriotic instinct of our citizens from perversion and
violation point to the adoption of a pension system broad and
comprehensive enough to cover every contingency, and which shall make
unnecessary an objectionable volume of special legislation.

As long as we adhere to the principle of granting pensions for service,
and disability as the result of the service, the allowance of pensions
should be restricted to cases presenting these features.

Every patriotic heart responds to a tender consideration for those who,
having served their country long and well, are reduced to destitution
and dependence, not as an incident of their service, but with advancing
age or through sickness or misfortune. We are all tempted by the
contemplation of such a condition to supply relief, and are often
impatient of the limitations of public duty. Yielding to no one in the
desire