"'NEW YORK, March 29, 1869'"
But Officer McWatters' labor for the soldier and his family, in regard
to the laws regulating payments thereto, did not stop here. In 1870, in
conjunction with others (he being the proposer of the same, we believe,
as he was surely the most active mover thereto), obtained a change to
be made in the time and frequency of the payment of pensions; the same
theretofore being paid only semi-annually. There were evils attending
these semi-annual payments. Some recipients getting so much of their
dues at a time, were led to improvidence, spending the same more freely
than they would have done smaller sums; and their families often
complained about the matter. Officer McWatters urged the proposition of
monthly payments, but was unable to secure his object; but the law was
changed, making the pensions payable in quarterly instalments. This was
a great improvement over the old law. Officer McWatters received
numerous letters of gratitude on the passage of the law. We clip the
following in relation thereto, from the Tribune of December 9, 1870:--
"The first payment of pensions under the new law making the
payments quarterly instead of semi-annual, began last Monday,
and many grateful letters, illustrating the beneficial working
of the new plan, have already been received by Mr. G. S.
McWatters, who was instrumental, in conjunction with the
Ladies' Union Relief Association, in procuring the passage of
the bill."
The payments were made formerly in March and September; and how the
pensioner welcomed a quarterly payment coming on the first Monday of
December, is perhaps as feelingly told, in its own homely way, as it
well could be, in the following extract from one of those letters to
which the Tribune refers. A pensioner, writing to McWatters, says:
"Nobody but a poor man can appreciate the feelings a poor man enjoys in
the consciousness of having a clean rent bill, a ton of coal, and a
barrel of flour, in the first month of winter."
Ay! there _is_ an eloquence in those words--an eloquence which touches
the softer chords of the heart,--"The poor man enjoys"! Nobody more
than Officer McWatters, the philanthropist, could appreciate the poor
pensioner's letter. But is there not in that letter that which touches
other chords than those of sympathy--the chords of justice in all
decent souls? a sense of justice which regards with horror, and burns
with indignation over, the wretched order of things, or disorder the
rather, which creates these suffering poor? Very likely that pensioner,
who tells us so touchingly of "a poor man's feelings," has done more
for the world, created more for the good of his fellow-men, through his
labor, in the form of agricultural products, necessary work of one kind
or another, etc., etc., than all the millionnaires of New York
together,--the mere cormorants, who fatten upon the toil of the
laboring classes. Is it not a shame to our common humanity that a
barrel of flour should, in any family, become a subject for their
rejoicing? "How a poor man feels!"--in this world of wealth! in this
age of Christian teaching! in this era of churches! Bah! it is enough,
one would think, to make the apostles of the Nazarene arise from their
graves, and seize the sword of Peter, to put an end to the villany
which still enslaves the masses and keeps them poor. But we do not hear
that they are disturbed, nor do we learn that there is pity anywhere in
the universe for the poor, save in the souls of the poor themselves,
and in those of a few philanthropists here and there. But that is well,
for it is not pity which is to work the good reformation which must
some time be wrought; it is justice, the justice which shall yet demand
_rights_, and banish even the name of _privileges_; justice, with
science as its means. All else has signally failed to achieve any great
good.
Froude and other great writers admit that but little real progress has
been made under our social institutions. Changes have come along the
line of the centuries, it is true, but the "poor man" (and the term
generically comprehends the vast majority of the race), the poor man
suffers as much in these days as in those of Moses, or in Caligula's,
or in the dark ages, or any period of feudal times; and yet we boast of
"progress." In no period of the world's history has anything more
reprehensible than the suffering of the Irish people at home, in these
days, occurred; and there is no reason found in the organic structure
of our government why our own poor suffer less, or shall suffer less in
the future, than the Irish people now, save that there is a little more
mercy in the laws which the tyrant or governing classes of this country
make for the laboring classes, in the matter of certain household
goods, for example, exempt from levy of attachment or execution; (but
this is true only of the laws of certain States, not of the national
laws). And this very hour, as we write, the National Congress is
contemplating putting millions of acres of the public domain into the
hands of the tyrant forces, thus robbing the future millions who will
need the soil to live upon.
"The poor man's feelings"! But we dismiss the subject here, with the
simple words,--eloquent enough to stir every decent soul to indignation
over the wrongs of the laboring classes,--"The feelings of a poor man"!
But more work for the soldier and his family remained for McWatters to
do, and he is at this writing (February, 1871) attempting, with the
support of the ever noble and active Ladies' Union Relief Association,
to get an act passed by Congress, by which an honorably discharged
soldier, too poor to buy his own grave, may console himself, in his
last moments, that his family will not be obliged to follow him to a
pauper's last resting-place. Now, only such soldiers as die in actual
service have a right to be buried in the National Cemeteries. The
veriest villain may have enlisted in the service yesterday, and died,
and be buried to-day in the National Cemeteries. But the honorably
discharged soldier, who served through the war bravely and nobly, is
not entitled to be buried therein, and if he dies poor, goes to the
potter's field. Such is the nation's gratitude!
There's an awful sarcasm in this last work of McWatters. We do not know
whether, in the overflowing kindness of his soul, he sees it or not.
Memorializing "The Honorable the Senators and Members of the House of
Representatives in Congress assembled" to provide a place to bury the
nation's heroes in, by a sort of legal fiction, which, while they do
fill paupers' graves, technically, obscures a little the fact of their
abject poverty, by giving them graves "free of cost." Poor fellows!
After death they get more rights than they had when living! The
government takes away the soil from the living man, robs him of his
right to it,--a right, the true title to which is in the fact of his
existence,--his being born, if you please,--and makes restitution with
six feet of subsoil to the dead man!
But the merit of Officer McWatters' work is not decreased by this
consideration. He does the very best thing he can do under the
circumstances. But the nation--the community--civilization--what of
them?