Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/250

226 that element will grow less; and that in the same measure as the influence of the mercenary element dwindles, municipal government will again become an attractive field of endeavor and honor to men of self-respect, of enlightened public spirit and of noble ambition. 



Our pension system is like a biting satire on democratic government. Never has there been anything like it in point of extravagance and barefaced dishonesty. Everybody knows this; but the number of men in public life who have courage enough to admit that they know it is ludicrously small. Whenever the general assertion is put forth that, in view of the immense size of the pension roll and the notorious laxity that has long prevailed in the administration of the law, a large number of the pensions paid must be fraudulent, the answer is: “Vague assertions prove nothing. Give us specific cases.” The New York Times has done the American people an excellent service by furnishing the thing thus demanded. It has, indeed, not undertaken the gigantic task of overhauling the whole pension roll, but it has laid before the public a demonstration sufficiently conclusive. It has sent its reporters to several inland towns in this State to inquire into the cases of individual pensioners living there, and thus it has been able to spread before the public an array of evidence, the representative character of which no fairminded man will deny. Here we have lots of men drawing pensions for “disabilities incurred in the service and in the line of duty,” who have given no evidence of the existence of the disabilities alleged—men who were for twenty years after