A man labeled “Pension Agent” holds a small club labeled “Fraudulent Claims” and shakes his fist at Henry Clay Evans shown as a watchdog wearing a collar labeled “Pension Commissioner Evans,” sitting in front of a building labeled “U.S. Treasury.”
comments and context
Comments and Context
For decades after the Civil War, the Pension Bureau, a necessary agency established to serve the inordinate number of wounded Union veterans, was also a controversial institution that allowed plunder on a large scale. The Grand Army of the Republic, predecessor of subsequent veterans and lobbying organizations, continually fought for greater benefits, fewer tests of legitimate claims, and against reforms and inquests. Politicians “waved the bloody shirt” (the phrase for appealing to veterans and their families) and funded the Pension Bureau extravagantly. President McKinley appointed Henry Clay Evans as commissioner in 1897, and as a reformer he served until 1902, when President Theodore Roosevelt appointed him Consul-General to Great Britain in 1902.