Post by ephriam on Nov 17, 2006 19:20:29 GMT -6
From: New York Herald, Aug. 4, 1876:
The bill granting a pension to the widow of General Custer and his aged parents is still before the Senate. This bill gave Mrs. Custer fifty dollars a month and the parents a hundred dollars a month. A "Confederate" House passed this bill, but a republican Senate proposes to cut down the pension to the widow to thirty dollars a month and to limit that to the parents to the life of the mother. Probably no more humiliating proposition ever went before the Senate. The parents of Custer lost three sons, a son-in-law and a grand nephew in this action. A blow so terrible has rarely fallen upon a household. It was natural that the House should think of this in awarding its pensions, and we do not envy the feelings which prompted Senator Ingalls adn the Committee on Pensions to cut it down. We are now afraid that the bill, small as it is, will not pass. The Senate is near the end of the session. As is always the case at the end of a session there are a hundred jobs ready to rush through. The jobbers block the way to all useful legislation. A small matter like the Custer pension is apt to be lost. Who cares for the widow and the hcildless; who cares for the mourning widow, father and mother, when Indian rings and railway rings are to be served? Unless two or three resolute Senators, like Morton, Bayard and Conkling, take hold of this bill and push it through it will fail. We trust that the leaders of the Senate, without regard to party, will take up the Custer bill, restore the House provisions and pass it. The whole thing can be done in the morning hour. Let us show the world that a Republic can do a handsome thing. the sum voted by the House is small enough. Do not let the Senate cut it down.
The Custer Pension.
The bill granting a pension to the widow of General Custer and his aged parents is still before the Senate. This bill gave Mrs. Custer fifty dollars a month and the parents a hundred dollars a month. A "Confederate" House passed this bill, but a republican Senate proposes to cut down the pension to the widow to thirty dollars a month and to limit that to the parents to the life of the mother. Probably no more humiliating proposition ever went before the Senate. The parents of Custer lost three sons, a son-in-law and a grand nephew in this action. A blow so terrible has rarely fallen upon a household. It was natural that the House should think of this in awarding its pensions, and we do not envy the feelings which prompted Senator Ingalls adn the Committee on Pensions to cut it down. We are now afraid that the bill, small as it is, will not pass. The Senate is near the end of the session. As is always the case at the end of a session there are a hundred jobs ready to rush through. The jobbers block the way to all useful legislation. A small matter like the Custer pension is apt to be lost. Who cares for the widow and the hcildless; who cares for the mourning widow, father and mother, when Indian rings and railway rings are to be served? Unless two or three resolute Senators, like Morton, Bayard and Conkling, take hold of this bill and push it through it will fail. We trust that the leaders of the Senate, without regard to party, will take up the Custer bill, restore the House provisions and pass it. The whole thing can be done in the morning hour. Let us show the world that a Republic can do a handsome thing. the sum voted by the House is small enough. Do not let the Senate cut it down.
