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But mischief of this kind produced by the selfishness, greed, or thoughtlessness of a comparatively small minority could be checked if the majority were sound in its views and scrupulous in its conduct. Since 1879, however, there have been many symptoms of tendencies in the national mind which indicate neither lethargy nor happy-go-lucky good-nature, but point to a thorough reversal of old and tried opinions as to the essentials of American life. Some facts which justify such a fear are clear. See how tolerant we have been of inequality in taxation and the creation of privileged classes. Many illustrations might be given, but we confine ourselves to pensions.

During the last war there were enlisted into the Union armies 2,778,304 men, of whom 2,418,082 survived. There were 489,000 on the pension rolls at the beginning of last year, and about 1,100,000 are still living. The inception of this process of inflation in expenditure dates back to 1879, fourteen years after the war, when under the operation of a reasonable but humane pension system a diminution in the number of pensioners and in the expenditure for benefactions to disabled soldiers and their families had been constant for six years. The theory up to 1868 had been that five years of pension arrears was more than enough, in other words that within that period any disability contracted in service would show itself. But in 1879 all such limitations were discarded and Congress passed a bill, the notorious Arrears act, which became a law, granting to every successful claimant of the nation's bounty the amount of his monthly dole dating from his discharge from the service. This statute withdrew no less than $500,000,000 from the national treasury. The deed was the more flagrant because previous bills of the same nature had failed under the scathing denunciations of the great leaders in the war, and one of them had actually been vetoed by President Grant. He declared it to be "needlessly extravagant, uncalled for as offering the most dangerous inducements to fraud, as not demanded by the soldiers themselves, and as likely to benefit them less than the pension and claim agents who were the real authors of the measure." The act of 1879 was a victory not for the honest pension agent, but for the "pension shark."

Since that date there has been a steady succession of similar measures varying from the stealthy private bill to the most monstrous proposals for service pensions on a scale of extravagance hitherto unheard of. President Cleveland said in one of his vetoes: "Every relaxation of principle in the granting of pensions invites applications without merit and encourages those who for gain urge honest men to become dishonest." If to those weighty words he had added by saying: those who for gain or for partisan purposes urge honest men to become dishonest -- he would have exactly portrayed the next stage of development in the disastrous agitation. The great accumulations in the national treasury were a standing menace to honest government and a clear indication of a dangerous and unscientific system of taxation. They furnished therefore an irresistible argument against the conditions under which we were living. Hence some means must be contrived to distribute the surplus and empty the treasury. Adroit and unscrupulous managers were quick to take advantage of the fealty of one great party to the economic system now in vogue, and enlist its representatives in the plan of indiscriminate pensioning. They speciously represented that it was either that or the over-throw of protection. Other attacks on the surplus had been made and had failed. This was the last resort and it succeeded. Public opinion was swept from its old moorings and the second stage to the end was passed. We now have a law granting a pension to every man who served for ninety days, and was honorably discharged; if he suffer under a permanent disability not caused by his own vicious habits "which incapacitates him from the performance of manual labor in such a degree as to render him unable to earn a support." The nation maintains every soldier who cannot maintain himself, without regard to his services, to his sufferings for his country, or the reason of his disability. The hero covered with honorable wounds, the faithful and courageous soldier who served long and bore the brunt of battle, is now no better than the deserter, the straggler, the bounty-jumper, and the coward. Could the true military spirit of any people bear up and survive such a blow? Already within the year (2) more than 600,000 applications have been made under the measure; $30,000,000 have been added to the pension appropriation; if the demands are favorably considered next year $80,000,000 will be needed, and the grand total expenditure will be something like $200,000,000.

The next step, that to a service pension law, is easy. If more than two-fifths of the total cost of national administration is to be taken from the earnings of one set of men for the support of another, why not say three-fifths or even four, and swell the annual outlay of the Federal government to seven or eight hundred millions? Words like these have actually been used in the Senate of the United States. It is as easy to say one sum as another. They tell us this is not a cheap nation; and advise us "to be noble"! Yet we must face the facts and the direction in which they point. A most striking historical parallel could be drawn. Rome won her great and early wars, in contrast with Carthage and other nations, by the valor of her own citizens. But no reward was too great for the generosity of the nation to bestow on her victorious legions. Expectation and performance finally laid such a burden on her that mercenaries had to be employed for economy's sake, until at last the professional soldier realized his power and became the arbiter of her sinking destinies. Since then the tale has been more than twice told. Can we too, like the great and unsuccessful Austrian premier Prince Schwarzenberg, learn nothing from history? If we were really paying pensions instead of indulging in the dangerous trifling with the eighth commandment which is called in these days by various euphemisms we would abide in practice by the standard meaning of that word. Prussia under Frederick the Great distributed annually to disabled veterans less than one week's expenditure in the United States at present, and the total German pension appropriation today after three great wars fought within thirty years is about nine millions of our money. France gives somewhat more. Grant thought that $27,000,000 annually was not only an ample but a lavish provision for those who had suffered in the last war, barring all schemes of back-pay, service and dependent pensions which he denounced as highway robbery. Garfield in 1872 said that nothing but unwarrantable extravagance would increase the pension list above $29,000,000 a year. But we have changed all that, and the great surplus being annihilated at one stroke, by the next the utmost resources of this rich land will be taxed beyond endurance, unless we come to our senses and retrace our steps. (3)