Belva Lockwood Washington World article

THE NABHINGTON WORLD, WASHIN!



fo “The U.S. Pension Office—No, 6. | rs

Ed. World:—I still write of the Pen-
sion Office because the subject is a com-
| plicated and vexatious one, and because
itis only by thoroughly understanding
the difficulties that we can approximate
the remedies.

The most fruitful source of complaint
ig the delay attending the settlement of
cases. Now, while delay in some cases
is inevitable and not the fault but the
misfortune of both. Commissioner and
pensioner, it is a fact that, both from
habit and from design, and oftentimes
from pure carelessness, cases are delayed
for years, during which time a large
number of claimants die from want and
despair. See for instance the following
letter in Navy invalid clains No. 5,388:

“Wasy., D. C. Nov. 10,

Madam ;—Relative to the claim of John E Wa
ters fora Navy Inv. pension, I have toi
you that, inasmuch as thee is filed in the ¢
declaration under date of Feb'y 20,1879, all
that the claimant received a fracture of ife
tibia by beivg thrown from his hammock, ifere-
by causing a chronic ulcer, and under date off Lug.
30th, 1879, there is filed in said caseagie; ya uon
alleging an injury to the shin-bone of ihe cla} + ant's
left leg, which has caused an ulcer, Weill ve" neces-
sary for the claimant to furnish this office with a
statement which will reconcile the two declara-
tions. Very Respectfully,

W. W. Depiey, Commissicner.

Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood. ™M.?

Now if there are clerks in the Pension
Office who do not know that the tibia is
the shyp-bone, the bead doctor‘of that
resohition Gineeting-the-Secretarpul the
Tuterior,.to..saspend-action -imedssuing
Office would better organize an ‘evening
school on comparative anatomy, and
give his first lesson from Gray,r 455,
edition of 1870. In the mean timelet
John E. Waters be paid his persion,
pending the education of these clerical
gentlemen.

But more serious difficulties than
this have arisen from other causes
which I will name, and which seriously
threaten to disrupt the whole pension
business. I have written up ina previ-
ous letter some of the ins and juts of
the secret special examinations,
the terrorism thus held over ti}
nesses of every grade who have fhe te-
merity to give honest testimony jm pen-
sion cases pending. Two reputable
physicians in Ohio state that they de-
cline to give further testimony-of any
sort. Ifthey give a complete djagnosis
of the condition of a claimant, tgy are
asked by the officials of the }Govern-
ment why they have told som: 3; and










wagary to be bestowed on a case, except ,
in “the claim of a recently discharged ;
man, where the disability is proved by
the record, or an increase on the disabil-
ity for which the soldier was originally
pensioned, In nearly every case of the
application of a dependent father or
motber,or of a soldier or soldier’s widow,
reaching back to 1861, 62, 63 and ’64,the
labor necessary to prove up a case and
procure this allowance is worth at least
$100. It requires a large amount of
time and skilled labor. That this labor
has been imposed by the Pension Bu-
reau, and might be lessened, we grant;
but I am speaking of the mattersas they
actually exist. Thus has anew disabil-
ity or disadvantage been thrown in the
way of the pensioner, in the raid made
upon the attorneys.

But this is not all. Some of the attor-
neys recently suspended had in their
hands many thousands of cases, in most
of which the fee of $10 bad been paid.
The disbarral of these attorneys would of
course compel their clients to employ
other attorneys, to whom they must also
pay $10, and, in the light of past devel-
opments, pay also in advance.

But this is notall. This change neces-
sitates delay. The first attorney has the
record of thecase. He may not be will-
ing to relinquish the papers, and may
not be called upon to do so. The new
evidence filed is very likely to differ

inextricable maze. So claimants and
attorneys suffer together from a condi-
tion of things forced upon them, and
from which neither class sees the way
out. The claimant suffers if he does
pay, and suffers more if he don’t, while
suspicion rests upon the attorney equally
with or without 4 fee.

acted a law to determine an attorney’s
fee in a pension case, any more than an
attorney’s fee before the Courts, it is
difficult to perceive; or why the fee
should have been made uniform, when
the cases are so various; or why a pen-
sioner has not as much sense ag any
other person inthe making oi a contract.
At all events the law seems to have de-
feated the end it was intended to serve;
for claimants are even more anxious than
attorneys to evade it, and more often
the aggressors. They see clearly that
the Pension Office will epend more time
and money, with its horde of well-fed
and well-paid clerks, to whom time is
nothing, than an attorney can affurd to

: . \

if they confine themselves to , 2 spe-

cific disease’ or wound, they al asked spend for ten dollars. One day spent

‘why they have not given a | uplete by an attorney 1m following through a

diagnosis of the case. They ¢ ot af- special examination, which has now be-
: t com- | Come the rule and not the exception,





ford_to give valuable time with

wat

would be all of the time, after the filing

N, D. C., SATURDAY, JANUARY 19, 18*4.

from the first, and the claim get into an

Why Congress should bave ever en-



. ps
Yolo, Fu

ES:

| delivered. The poor pension attorney
seems to be agoose to be plucked. Con-
gress repealed the Jaw making it incum-
bant on the Agent to pay the attorney’s
fee, and reduced the fee below anything
like an adequate compensation; the
Pension Office has discouraged the pay-
ment of fees to attorneys, by telling
claimants, and encouraging them to
think, that attorneys are not necessary;
and the press has taken up the hue andj.
cry, and denounced them as frauds).
—but why, no one of them can tell. |
The raid has not only been senseless but
inbuman and unjust.

And yet all of thisis on a par with
the recent contempt case of ex-Senator |.
Geo. E. Spencer, which has occupied :
the Criminal Court of Washington for
many days past. Spencer was at-|.
tempted to be subpwenaed as a witness
in the star route trial something like
one year ago; and although the subpi-
na was informal, and the service with-
out authority of law, he voluntarily ap-
peared within the jurisdiction of the
Court, and remained for eight or ten
Jays, and then, not being called to tes-
tify, went about his business. When
wanted, he was not to be found; and
forthwith a bench warrant was issued
for him, as informal as the first pro-
cedure, for there was nothing upon
which to found the warrant. The case
dragged its weary and expensive length
along, and nobody was convicted of any-
thing, except the attorneys, who, with
the regularity of clock-work, drew their
fees until Jie appropriation was so de-
pleted that there was no longer money
to draw.

Months after the case had closed, and
the term of court expired in which a
contempt could have been laid, this):
gentleman, with a coarseness and rude- |!
ness worthy of the Middle Ages, was:
dragged into Court and insulted and
taunted and cross-questioned—one of
the attorneys for the Government ex-
claiming, with fiendish vindictiveness,
“Yer, I will purge him from the crown
of his head to the soles of his feet.”
It turned out that he knew nothing
aboatthe case;t at there had been no cor
tempt; that a reputable citizen had been
pursued, arrested, brought into Court
forcibly on a bench warrant, and put
under bonds, maligned and injured,
without the law in a single particular
having been complied with—not to
maintain the majesty of the Court, for
it wae satisfied; but, so tar as an outsider
is able to draw any conclusion, for ‘the
purpose of allowing these special at-
torneys for the Government to draw
their fees for a few days more—not a
fee of $10, hut of $100 and of $150 per

eloye




pefisation., 0418 COm pensau.
it, as well as the report, beco.

1yuasy
a sub-

ject for special investigation, which
hours and perhaps days are ct .iumed.
Thus the poor soldier who is d ending
upon a physieian’s certificat ior the
allowance of his case, is hedge in and

hampered by a surveillance vever in-
tended for honest men, and perhaps de-
feated altogether,

But I desire to say, for the svecial ex-
aminers, that there is one class of
cases to which they could give their at-
tention with profit, and to nawe a case
in point will best explain my meaning.
In the case of Alexander Sweeny,
original Navy invalid, I have received
the following letter:

“Wasn., D. C., Dec. 19, 188%

Madam:—In responee to inquiry of recent date,
relative to above claim, you are informed that
you have been repeatedly advised of the status
of this claim, and that no further action can be
taken inthe same until the requirements indi-
cated in calls made Sept. 17, 1880, July 5, 1881,
June 27, 1882, and Sept. 18, 1883, are compled
with. Very Respectfully,

W. W. Dubey, Comrpissioner.
i MM.”

To this letter the following response
has been sent:

“Wasi, D.C., Der, 20, 1883.
Hon. Com'r of Pensions:—The above named
claimant is usdoubtedly entitled ta pension,
but 3s feeble-minded, on account of injuries to
his head, without means cf support, and has
been fur years in the Washington asylum. He
has not mental capacity enough -o indicate
where the proofs may be found. I could and
would be to the expense and trouble of procur-
ing the proofs, were I allowed or permitted to
deduct the necessary expenses after the allow-
ance of the case, as IT have hitherto déne in huna-
dreds of cases; butaslam ne longer permitted
to do this, I respectfully refer this cape back to
the Hon. Contr of Pensions, with he request
| that he send out one of his special eximiners, at
the Government expense, to take tha proofs in
this case. and thus serve the ends of pastic .
Respectfully submitted, j
Betva A, LOCK Woop, gtt'y, &.”

For the last eleven years I fave been
in the habit of prosecuting pension
claims without asking fees ig advance,
in many cases paying the no ries’ fces,
and often supplying the app§cant with
smal] sums of money. The ’fecent ac-
tion of the Pension Office in shspending
and prosecuting by wholesa}
attorneys, who, if the newspaper reports
of the’charges are correct, arg@not guilty
of offences that constitute under the law











the possibility of my contin 1
ecute claims in this manner §
The condition has therefore pen forced
upon agents and attorneys to fake fees in
advance or refuse to take the§ cases. If
they do not do this they mgy be sus-
pended for the slightest defliction or

mistake, and disbarred frog practice,
this entailing upon them a lofs of thous-
ands of dollars already earnal,and leav-
ing them without redress ex@pt it be by
a suit for damages. 1

The fees are so small at bq,) that they
are in no wise adequate to tlt Jabor nec-





‘of the’ declaration, “tok. an auusucsy

could afford to spend for ten dollars.
Thus the law either defeats itself
or defeats the case—either of which
is to be deplored. The law and the
facts as they now exist have driven
many reputable attorneys from the field,
and their places have been filled by
shysters without offices, signs, or stand-
ing, who secure if possible a fee and neg-
lect the case. There is a confusion in
the camp, which looks to an ultimate
explosion of the whole business, unless
somebody calls a halt and takes a few

steps backward. It is about as disas- K
‘Washington, D.C.

trous to know too much as too little.
The question is, “where is the blame?
The Pension Office for the past three
years has been trying to run a claim
agency and get up a monopoly of the
business. The result has been a col-
lision, in which several parties have
been hurt; and the end is not yet.

The country has been electrified by
the cry of “dishonest pension claim
agents,” and every penny-a-liner has
joined in the cry, until the public have
been led to suppose that the poor pen-

sion attorney, who receives his ten dol-]-

lars, is the very chief of criminals, and
that the public treasury has been de-
pleted by him. The pensioner receives
anywhere from $500 to $5,000; and for
securing this by the aid of an attorney
who spends months and years of labor,
he pays ten dollars. Often the poor at-
torney is cheated out of this small
stipend. Dear reader, place these pen-
sion attorneys but for a moment beside
the attorneys for the Government who
conducted the star route cases and for
seven mouths received one hundred and
one hundred and fifty dollars per day;
and the steal of even the guilty pension
claim agent, with his perhaps hungry
family, pales into insignificance. But
so far ag any developments have yet

been made public, no one of the pension |

attorneys charged or indicted seems to
have been guiity of defrauding anybody.

The most venal of these offenders, an
attorney who had left the business and
the District of Columbia long ago, has
been indicted for sending a supposed
pension certificate C. O. D.; and yet any
other class of attoraeys could send pa-
pers in this way with perfect impunity,
and be considered honorable and busi-
ness-like; for from time immemorial an
attorney has had a lien*upon the papers
of his client until his fee was paid. The
Treasury Department still recognizes
this lien, and protects the attorneys
practicing before it by sending in every
instance the warrant issued in the claim
to the attorney of record, thus enabling
him to secure a fee. An undertaker, a
grocer, or a dry-goods man, sending his
wares by express, is accustomed to have
his dues collected before the goods are



WAY: eee

Has anybody cried “Fraud!”—has.
anybody attempted te investigate or to
arrest them? And if not, why not?
The Judge from the bench had nerve
enough and sense enough to pro-
nounce their condemnation, and should |
promptiy have fined every one of them
for contempt, and sent the cases to the
Grand Jury, not for an attempt to de-
fraud, but for an actual fraud on the
public treasury.

“Whom the gods would destroy they
first make mad.”

Briva A. Lockwoop,



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