The Helena Independent

Noble, Tanner & Bussey Airing Their Little Row For the Public Benefit.

The Secretary Issues a Statement Showing Why He Reversed the Corporal.

The Commissioner Comes Back and Virtually Charges Noble and Bussey With Deliberate Falsehood.

Washington, Oct. 16.-A statement prepared at the interior department in support of the action of Secretary Noble, rescinding Commissioner Tanner's order advancing pensions from $2 to $4 per month in certain cases, was given out to-night. It calls attention to section 4,698 revised statutes, providing that in cases of permanent and special disabilities, no increase of pension be allowed to commence prior to the date of the examining surgeon's certificate, and enters at length into a consideration of the various degrees of disability and the reason for having allowed a $2 pension.

"If now, by order of the commissioner," says the statement, "without regard to a medical examination, a man who has been receiving $2 is advanced to 4, without the man who was more disabled and has been rated at $4 being himself advanced, it is obvious an injustice is being done to the higher graded man. If, however, the allowance is made after an examination by a surgeon, everything has been done in due order and according to the law. If the arbitrary orders of the commissioner are the basis, it must result that a few are made favorites and the great mass, who have to depend upon a medical examination, are put at a great disadvantage; therefore it was decided that there is no authority in law for the order arbitrarily increasing a great mass of pensions in the face of the statute, and which order is not extended to all cases."

Quotations are then made from Tanner's recent letter to Dalzell, in which Tanner says he issued the order with the view to pulling these $2 men up to at least $4 or drop them off the rolls, and in which he said he ordered them for examination before their home board. The statement says: "The order as made was arbitrary, unqualified, and required an advance without examination to the amounts specified, $4 per month; it did not propose to drop any one, as the letter pretended it did, and it did not order any one for examination as the letter pretended it did. It was an unauthorized, unqualified and illegal order for every pensioner to be advanced to $4 who are receiving less; it was made April 25, and it was proposed to have it take effect March 27.

"Slight consideration of this matter will show that to give away $66,000 a month of public moneys, such an order as this would, will be the beginning of a system by which millions could be expended, uncontrolled by law as it was unauthorized by precedent. There would be more harm in giving to Senator Manderson $14,000 or more, than there would be in giving 33,000 men $66,000. In either case it would be an unauthorized distribution of public moneys and the doors of the treasury might as well be open to actual invasion as to have such warrants drawn upon it and forced upon it without question. "It is also obvious such a course as this would not benefit the soldiers ultimately, as it is intended only to benefit those who are the least disabled. There is no intention, no disposition to prevent any deserving soldier from acquiring all the pension his disability entitles him to, either by original application or application for an increase; all that is being done is to maintain the law, which is to be liberally construed, but by no means disregarded, and to allow each in his turn, without partiality, all he is entitled to."

Pension Commissioner Tanner was seen this evening regarding the above statement and made a lengthy reply, in which he sharply criticizes Assistant Secretary Bussey and alleges that the judicial reasons of the latter are emanations from the mind of a member of the pension board of appeals who was appointed under the Cleveland administration, after having failed to pass a civil service examination. Tanner arraigns Bussey for undertaking to put him in a false position before the public. The order in question, he says, refers to cases allowed on and after the date he took office, March 27. He had determined he would not issue certificates for less than 4 per month, if he had the power to prevent it. He looked into the law and found he had that power, as it is broadly stated that ratings fixed by medical boards are subject to revision by the commissioner. He saved a vast amount of time and trouble by issuing that order. Then, said he, I gave verbal orders that those pensioned at less than $4, who had applications on file for the increase, accompanied by a certificate of the medical examination held within a year, should have their application on that "examination and go up to $4 on the roll. I also ordered verbally that all others should be sent an order for medical examination and abide the result on a like basis. Tanner contends there is plenty of law for his action.