" Practically this provision is not
important. The attempt of the Government to escape the payment of a
pension on such a plea would of course in a very large majority of
instances, and regardless of the merits of the case, prove a failure.
There would be that strange but nearly universal willingness to help the
individual as between him and the public Treasury which goes very far to
insure a state of proof in favor of the claimant.
The disability of applicants must be such as to "incapacitate them for
the performance of labor in such a degree as to render them unable to
earn a support."
It will be observed that there is no limitation or definition of the
incapacitating injury or ailment itself. It need only be such a degree
of disability from any cause as renders the claimant unable to earn a
support by labor. It seems to me that the "support" here mentioned as
one which can not be earned is a complete and entire support, with no
diminution on account of the least impairment of physical or mental
condition. If it had been intended to embrace only those who by disease
or injury were totally unable to labor, it would have been very easy to
express that idea, instead of recognizing, as is done, a "degree" of
such inability.
What is a support? Who is to determine whether a man earns it, or has
it, or has it not? Is the Government to enter the homes of claimants for
pension and after an examination of their surroundings and circumstances
settle those questions? Shall the Government say to one man that his
manner of subsistence by his earnings is a support and to another that
the things his earnings furnish are not a support? Any attempt, however
honest, to administer this law in such a manner would necessarily
produce more unfairness and unjust discrimination and give more scope
for partisan partiality, and would result in more perversion of the
Government's benevolent intentions, than the execution of any statute
ought to permit.
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