Extracted from The Times-Democrat (New Orleans, LA)
Friday, January 17, 1913

EFFORTS TO GET PENSION.

Grand Saline, Tex., Jan. 10, 1913.

To the Editor of The Times-Democrat:

I ask through your columns, do the poor of Louisiana have any thought in the minds of the Democrats in power? If not, I wish to let the Confederate veterans and the white voters know how their poor widows fare when they are gone. Mrs. Louisiana W. Slocum of St. Landry parish made application for a pension in 1903. She proved she was the wife of James S. Slocum, who served in the First Louisiana Cavalry, Capt. Jack Blanks and Lieut. Fluilt. In the administrations of Govs. Blanchard and Sanders the boards demanded a receipt from the Secretary of War at Washington that the names were on file. She could not get satisfaction until 1908, when Luke E. Wright of Tennessee became Secretary of War. He promptly let her know there were no records there of the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Louisiana Cavalry. I sent the letter to the secretary of the Pension Board. I appealed to Gov. Luther E. Hall. He turned it over to the same party, who wrote me that he is anxious to help her. I let him know that I sent him in 1910 the affidavits of Dudley Dunn, W. T. Whitten and Wiley Mixon, all of Caldwell parish, and comrades of James S. Slocum during the war, and told him I could get more if he demanded them. Mrs. L. W. Slocum is in destitute circumstances, has been for five years. Still the Pension Board of Louisiana refuses to help her. In conclusion, I voted the Democratic ticket straight, from F. T. Nicholls in 1876 until N. C. Blanchard, when I left Louisiana, in 1903. And now I am like thousands of others -- is it worth the while when we see poor old widows denied relief by officeholders.

WILEY H. ELLIOTT.