Editor Wisconsin: The statement in your article on publishing the pension list that "the influence of the Loyal Legion and of many members of the Grand Army of the Republic is said to be back of the measure," may or may not be true. But it is true that there seems to be considerable agitation in the minds of many as to the propriety of granting pensions to those who periled their lives and lost their health and limb and received wounds that shadow the light and intellect, that otherwise might have shone forth in its splendor and glory. The loss of a man's health, whether it be caused by wounds or other disabilities, is a very sad affair to the good soldier, who bears his sufferings in quiet; and, like everything else, the older the soldiers get the more reason they have to complain, and the less sympathy there is for them. The fact is, Mr. Editor, every soldier that went through active field service ought to have a pension. There is not one man in a thousand in that class of soldiery but is physically disabled in some way or other.

Think of it—an army wading rivers up to their breast in water at sundown in the months of December and January, and lying down in their wet clothes on the bare ground, with an allowance of one-quarter rations, already eaten up the day before! Think of the Battle of Chickamauga, when, hemmed in in the Valley of Chattanooga, for two months and four days with railroad and river communications cut off by rebel forces, men forced by hunger ate horses and mules that had actually died for the want of food. Think of the many good men and soldiers that lost their health in rebel prisons. And then ask yourself if it is right to post them up in printed form for the public gaze and the calumny of men who would rather sympathize with a rebel than to give a Union soldier a pension. Look at the generous pension bill passed some few years ago under a Democratic administration—a sweeping pension bill giving every soldier that served in the Mexican war a pension of twelve dollars a month—no proof required only proof of service; no examining board—just send in your discharge with proof that you are the man, and you got your pension without further trouble. But to please the calamity-howlers and the rebel cause sympathizers you must post your good men and true that saved your country for you. They must be posted up for public inspection. You say the pensions are paid by taxation. I pay a few dollars taxes. I never saw anything in my receipt for pension taxes. Your Washington correspondent says a pension is a badge of honor. It ain't much honor for a soldier to get a pension and have his name published to be unjustly criticised by men who have no knowledge of the fact of his being worthy to receive a pension or not. With my experience in getting a pension I don't see how there could be one single impostor on the pension rolls; and if there is it is the duty of the government to hunt them up and prosecute them for falsifying, forgery and perjury, as any citizen should be prosecuted for such a crime, and not be harassing and annoying your good old boys who wore the blue to save this country and protect our country's flag for you.

I heard Paul Vandervoort, ex-Commander-in-Chief of the G. A. R., say that the pension pay roll was the purest pay roll in the United States to-day, and I believe him, and I also believe that they got the least pay for the work done of any men that were ever or are now in the United States employment. And now they must be posted up because they get a few dollars pension.

Let Congress hunt up the deficiency in other branches of government business and employes and not be tantalizing the old warriors with publishing documents. Be more liberal with the pensions and if you want to economize cut off 10 per cent. of the big salaries of all our high officials, and if you do that you will come more in line with justice and honor than by publishing the pension list. Yours,

Thomas J. Ford.