Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/253

Rh large sums of money within the reach of pensioners, excited the greed of many veterans, and served to establish the procuring of pensions in great quantities as a regular industry and one of the most profitable in the country. With their headquarters in Washington and their agencies in every State, these pension-attorney firms flooded the land with their circulars, approaching every veteran personally to persuade him that he could have a pension, whether he had sustained any injury in the war or whether he was able to make a living or not, and that they would help him to it. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of pensioners may therefore truthfully say that while they did not think of applying for pensions, they were urged upon them by the attorneys. Thus torrents of applications poured in, for each of which an attorney had his fee.

As the pension attorneys got richer, they became greedier, more daring and more powerful. They organized a manufactory of public opinion. Through organizations of veterans, and through newspapers established by them for the purpose, they assumed to speak in the name of the soldiers, and to demand of Congress more and more extravagant pension legislation to open to them new fields for booty. In Congress they found little if any resistance. There is no more brilliant illustration of the politicians' abject cowardice than the succession of pension laws asked for by soldiers at the instigation of the attorneys, and obsequiously granted by our Congressmen.

Thus we arrived where we are, not admired by other nations for our generosity, but laughed at for our folly and recklessness. The American people have permitted this preposterous debauch to go on until it not only swallowed up our Treasury surplus, but, however rich this country may be, it actually forces us to borrow money to