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Show II A 7 j e TTt DETAILED BY HIMSELF I Adventures ot a New Congressman m;.;;f I It 1 i Washington. D. C. March. 12. j Mv Dear Bill 1 don't know of any- i filing half so annoying as a legacy fl' unless it bc the lack of one. .T don't j. mean the kind of legacies you read about in the novels, or that crop out J. in tho melodramas at the theaters.' I ! , mean a real, good, old-fashioned politi-i politi-i '' 'cal legacy. Well, you know thnt, L in-i in-i hcritcd one when 1 went to congress. " ! It was the Bates pension claim. The !. claim has been an issue in our congrcs-siousl congrcs-siousl district ever since the war. When ' j; old man Bates died it was bequeathed . j! to his widow, Sallie. and the way she has pushed lliat claim is enough to jl make an able-bodied man ashamed of j! himself. The Grand Army post in jij the town indorsed the claim, aud it bc-, bc-, ; came a real, live public issue. Jiij Six different administrations at fjj "Washington rejected the claim. Four ;ij of the congressmen in our district have .'jj been defeated for not winning the . claim. The editor of a paper that . ,1 sneered at it had to leave town. You probably remember when I was a can-':;' can-':;' didale that one of the promises I made 1 Ti'as thai I would get a pension for Sal-;i Sal-;i lie Bates. She did not seem very im-j im-j portant at that time, but yon know that 1 work 011 the principle that there ij are no persons so insignificant that they may not. be cf tust to you at some time or other. Sallie Bates was at the sla-l- lion vhen L lefl for Washington, and !'( 1 told her that I would get her pen- I- fcion or die in Hie attempt. As soon as 1 reached Washington 1 'jj presented Sallie Bates' claim to the hj commissioner of pensions. Tt was all li; -very nicely prepared, and the envelope ;i that I handed the commissioner con-jU con-jU 1 aiiicd documents giving a complete his-i:j his-i:j rory of the case. I asked him for a '.! ypecdv decision. Jt got it. all right. In a week the claim was rejected for lack !jj of evidence. 1 told Colonel Bob Moure about it. and he laughed and said it .'j "was perfectly natural. He taid the jl' pension office had gotten so used to jfj rejecting that claim that they 'did it , lj. automatical! v. It was second nature to m! tiii'in. 1 felt prettv sore at the rejection of my claim, and my first thought was to get even with thy commissioner of pensions pen-sions in some way, but after mature consideration I abandoned thai because I have conic to the conclusion that, it costs more to revenge injuries than to bear them. Ho I went at it in another way. I. asked for a rehearing of the case, and J got it. It. seems that old man Bates enlisted in one of the companies com-panies that left our town and served only thirteen davs. He never got in a battle or even n skirmish during that time, but he did the next best thing. His company accidentallv got in a neighborhood where aunt her regiment was- fighting a battle, and the shock of the thing upset Bates' nervous system, sys-tem, and. as they say in his papers applying for the pension, " he was never the same man afterwards." Not being a physician, T can't pass judgment on that phase of the case, but. I do know from actual knowledge that from the time Bates returned front the war he- never did a stroke of work. Somebody had lo keep the wolf from the, door, so Sallie Bates took in washing, wash-ing, and told her friends that old man Bates was a wreck as the result of defending de-fending his country. As she put it in her ingenious way, it. was the "first, time that Bates ever went to war. and (lie novelty of it upset his stomach and deranged his whole system." It reminded 1110 of a storv T once heard of a Hungarian who came to this country fo better his conditiou. He tripped over one of our many laws one day and was arrested and given thirty davs in the county prison. !Now. the first thing thev do fo a inan commit fed to that institution is to give him a bath. So the Hungarian wns falcon to Ihc washroom and they turned the hose on him. He was the dirtiest man that ever registered at that public hostelry. One of the attendants said to him: "Sav, how long has it been since vou had a bath?" The Hungarian shrugged his shoulders and spread out his arms. "Mister." he said, in drawling tones, "this is the first lime I was ever arrested." ar-rested." Anvhow, to ffct back fo shop again, the Bates's claim was rejected for the second time by the commissioner of pen sions. 1 talked to him a good deal, but. "Then I gathered together a lot of loyal fellows who had stood by mo." i( didn't seem lo have any effect. 1 told Colonel Bob Moore no v." eloquently I had pleaded llie ou60 before tho commissioner, com-missioner, but lie only smiled and said it was a. wasle of eood wind. lie said Ci'cat talkers were like leaky pitchers that cvcrvlhincr van out of them, and that lonij conversations were usuall3' a waste of time. 1 knew, though, that if L didn't get tliu Bates's clnim through f might a.-j well quit congress. I carried it to a member of the cabinet next. 1 appealed In tho secretary of the interior, who is the superior of "the commissioner of pensions. pen-sions. He inliinalcd tlitit my claim might have been stronger if Bates had only served a little longer than lliiiteen days, hut J thought that this was mere quibbling. 1 said that it didn't, make any difference whether Bates served lliirleen days or thirteen months; his usefulness was destroyed after the war because the only thing that ho was able lo do was to tell nerve-racking stories of the experiences he had undergone while wearing the uniform of these great Tinted States. In this way X sought lo prove that while the war jnight. have been a very benelicient thing in many ways, it had (horoug"hIv demoralized the Bates's household. T said that, if the Bates family hadn't, a good claim for damages against Uncle Sam I'd eat my shirt, but the secretary of the interior calmly rejected the claim, and saved me from imitating a goat. Between you and me and Ihe gate post, E was beginning to gof a little weak-kneed on the claim myself, but the thought of Sallie Bates wailing for me at I lie station on my refurn home, backed up by the Grand Army posr of i the town, and the indignant populace, spurred me on to further action. A I: the suggestion of Colonel Bob Moore, T. introduced in-troduced a special bill in the house, granting a pension of $C a month to Sallie Bates as a mark of recognition of the distinguished services rendered by her illustrious and lately deceased husband. The bill was referred to the committee on pensions, but through a conspiracy of some kind or oilier, ifc was reported negatively bv that committee. II. made mo sad at, first, but after all, there's nothing like getting used to mis-tortune. mis-tortune. Ir. reminded mo of a man who caiiio here on one of those Southern railroads. He had been traveling for four days and four nights on a train which sometimes ran on the track and sometimes didn't, lie wont, to ouo of the hotels and after registering, said to the clerk: "T want you to send two colored porters por-ters to snend the night in the room with me." "Why?" was the astonished rcpl'. "What do you want them for?" ITe smiled grimly. "1 want one of them to rock Die bed ami flic other to blow cinders in my eyes. ' ' Well, Bill, T was prettv mad by this time, and T felt like fighting. Colonel Bob Moore, who is somewhat of a diplomat, dip-lomat, said that the wav to win out was to get on the good sido of the members mem-bers of the committee. Tie said to smile, and smile and be a villiau still, but 3 couldn't see it that way. T have always believed thai, a deceitful deceit-ful peace was more hurtful than open war, so I introduced a second bill in another form, and had it referred back to the committee. I appeared before the members and mado a speech thai would have brought the tears to your eyes if .you had heurd it. One of the members said it wns .iust'as good as going to a minstrel show, and while they were in that humor they passed the bill with a favorable recommendation. Then it got. into tho house, and I pitched into those fellows right and lefl. Uncle .loe happened lo be in the cloakroom cloak-room taking a nap at the time, nnd sonic fellow from Oklahoma was temporarily in the chair. That gave me a great deal of liberty and T can tell vou that T used it for all it was worth. ' said thnt the house had .just passed a bill appropriating appropriat-ing $10,000,000 for new battleships: 1 said thai was grand; T said it was magnificent, mag-nificent, .but X continued: "Can you have the house appropriate a fortune for the defense of vouv country, coun-try, and in the next breath refuse to do simple just ice to the widow of 0110 of our country s most gallant defenders'?" borne fellow next, to me said it would be worse than simple, if would he silly, but I ignored him aud spoke of old Bales 's grave in the village churchyard. church-yard. T pointed out the fact that it was unmarked, except by a plain, little headstone, head-stone, when it, should have been the site for a magnificent, mausoleum ivliiuli should be the Mecca for all loved the brave, the galls courageous. I tell vou, Bil through I wns spitting co as pugnacious as the Trishrt instead of opening the pr congress with prayer they ,1 it with a fist fighl. At ai house passed the bill unani the senate shot it through I ternoou. T rushed out and.1 grain to Sallie Bates, infor; our glorious victory. g Then I gathered logofh loyal follows who had stool took them out to a permai back of the congressional li we could all sit around bijs and adequately celebrate achievement. Colonel Bob! there, and. of course, as ienced in these things, I t9 ihc ordering for the crowcH up brown, all right. Wlr9 gaged a little German band . with music, and fhev. playiH Bc a Hot Time in tho 0M night" and other tunes tS indorsement of the VitiveroH ety. When 1 got the hillfl bration it amounted to $41.9 really a shock to me, be9 tention had .been to onlc9 rounds of 5-ccnt beers witl9 lunch on the side. Horet9 sion was a big one, aud JB any tears over the expeiujH Bill, when T get back toJB found a telegram fronLH from one of flic InwvexsJB and this is what if said: ,9 "Sorry, but Sallie Bstitm night. She left no childH How is that for a botfcdM ter in the face of a nftwH the heat of victory? Ttl of it is that all the .P?P9 trict have been roastinj;lH They say that l was S(9 Ho died before T got H9 and they talk of trottinH date against me at Ibc Give my love to all, 'H YOUR US P. S. Say. Bill, dou'i 0 and if you do please aIT!9" vou won 't leave a widow bB: the milk of human kmunH, |
