Debts to the Veterans

[gunny]

It was an issue of huge importance then too.

 

[Drew]

I can't quite make out the date, but it looks like this was published in the early 1900's. There was controversy over Union veterans' pensions, who should get them and why.

I've attached here a NY Times article from 1894 that challenges how the whole thing was organized.

 

[gunny]

Actually I believe the date was 1894 or 1895. I'll check later. But, I found it interesting the similarities in veteran affairs of then and now. Seems the government oft wanted to forget the sacrifices if those who served.

 

[TinCan]

My great-great-grandmother received $13 dollars a month from 1896 until her death in 1913 that was for her husbands service in the 14th Kansas Cavalry.

 

[Drew]

I've got Confederate pension files on several family members whose service was not in doubt. All of their applications were initially denied. Kind of makes me boil a bit.

The pensions were means tested and so little old men whom I know to have been running around on canes had to prove to officialdom they were broke. Proving we don't have any money is an absurd endeavor, as shown in the primary sources.

That $13 figure is about what my great great grandmother got. She lived until 1938 and it kept starvation from her door, no question about it.

 

[damYankee]

One of George Washington's greatest struggles was not the British, but getting pay for his men. It has always been so.

 

[huskerblitz]

One of George Washington's greatest struggles was not the British, but getting pay for his men. It has always been so.

Yep, luckily Washington got the men off the ledge or it could have been ugly for the Continental Congress.

 

[sflickinger]

The idea of pensions was initially vetoed by Grover Cleveland. Generally, I liked him as a president, but I think he dropped the ball on this one. He lost the 1888 election to Benjamin Harrison, a CW veteran, who then signed the Dependent and Disability Pension Act in 1890 for his fellow veterans. Harrison, who was the grandson of William Henry who was the shortest serving president at about one month, had an interesting presidency with a lot of issues. Cleveland, who didn't serve, having hired a substitute, vetoed it as he felt that it would bust the budget and he fundamentally didn't see the government as an entity of support for the people. In other words, there was no "social safety net." Harrison additionally saw the pensions as a way to eat up the embarrassing surplus in the national treasury, as many felt the people had been overtaxed and the surplus proved it. Cleveland won the 1892 election to become the only president to serve two non-consecutive terms. Different times.