230 MAJOR JOHN F. LACEY 



he is a lawyer or a doctor or a preacher, receiving in- 

 come from his profession, the gentleman would exclude 

 him. We had one case where the question came up as to 

 whether a judge of the Supreme Court of one of the 

 states could draw pension. He had been injured in such 

 a way that his wound still required to be dressed every 

 day. Twenty-five or thirty years after the war, and un- 

 der the late administration, it was then held that inas- 

 much as he was drawing salary as judge of the Supreme 

 Court and able to live without the aid of the federal gov- 

 ernment, he should not receive a pension. But such is 

 not the policy on which our pension laws have ever been 

 framed. The pauper idea has never gone into our pen- 

 sion legislation; and it never ought to go there. 



The pensions granted in the earlier history of the gov- 

 ernment were usually granted by direct act of Congress. 

 If you will turn to the statute books of that period you 

 will find page after page reciting the names of soldiers 

 of the War of the Revolution to whom pensions were 

 granted by special act. Congress at that time settled 

 those questions directly, and the simple question was as 

 to the character of service. As to the Mexican War, the 

 length of service entitling a man to a pension was very 

 short, much shorter than the act of 1890. 



Service pensions were allowed to soldiers of the Mex- 

 ican War without reference to disability, the only limita- 

 tion being one of age. The law referred to [mentioned 

 by Representative Sayers] did not require the Mexican 

 soldier to show disability contracted in the service. But 

 such pensions were found inadequate in many instances, 

 and special pensions in particular cases were granted by 

 Congress to increase the amount, the original amount be- 

 ing $8 a month. The original pension was not predicated 

 upon the idea of poverty, but upon the idea of helpless- 

 ness and poverty additional pensions were allowed in 



