The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1883-06-04

first payment, that amount found due for
each year back to the discharge of the invalid
pensionersor death of soldier if a widows
claim. Thus it happens that a pension
granted to day at IS per month, and at So
per month since discharge. will carry 500
for 1882, $9e for 1881. $96 for 1880, and so on
back to 1865 or date of discharge making a
first paying of about $1700, no part OF
which belongs to the annual value of the
pension roll, which next year will be in
creased by 500 by reason of this new ad-
judicatiou. So it comes that the annual pay
ment for pensions consists OF the regular
annual roll and the first pay
ments of arrears, and accounts for
the fact that while the annual value OF the
roll of 1880. 1881. 1882 and 1888 is as
above stated the annual payment for pen
sious for 1880 was $37 o46, 1875; for 1881, was
S49 723, 147 for 1882, was $53, 9e4, $50 and will
probably be for 1888 about $83. 500 900, andin
1884 will probably reach $loO 1909, 900, while
the annual value of the roll will, perhaps,
reach $36 600 000-the remainder in each of
the above years, after deducting the annual
value of roll representing the first payment
for newly-adjudicuted claims involving ar
rears.''
when will these large annual payments
ceasey'
Not until the claims entitled to arrears
are settled; then the business will shrink to
its normal condition, and hence the neces-
sity for their speedy adjudication and the
justification for the employment of even
larger force of examiners and clerks than
now employed. The annual value of the roll
will increase until its maximum is reached
(about $50 600, 0o0G but while this is increas
ing the annual payments will be decreasing
as the adjudication of the arrears cases falls
off, so that after 1884 the annual pay
ments may be prognosticated about as
follows: For 1885. SsS5 900, 600; for 1886, SO,
Co.. o. M .DN OOO
OOO,000 and so on, after the highest point OF
the annual value is reached, after which
droppings from all causes will exceed addi-
lions from new pensions, and the roll gradu-
ally but surely diminish. In Dec, 1881, the
Presidents message contained an estimate of
the number of cases involving arrears. with
the probable amount involved in the pay
ment of such as would be admitted in all
probability, The aggregated was stated at
S235, 000, 900. Since that time and up to the
close of the present fiscal year there will have
been paid out of this sum about $50 600, 900;
next year, $50 DOC, 900; the next $4,000, 900
the next about $50 o0o, 900, and so en- until all
are paid off. OF course, all representations
on this subject are, to large extent, guesses
as to how much or how many Judicial
judgments a certain number of men. not
all trained in the law or acquainted with the
rules of evidence, can render-how many
claimants will either be able or willing to
furnish the proofs reQulred--aH matters OF
great uncertainty and involved in doubt 1t
is also important to be borne in mind that
the claims now filed and unsettled are largely
of the class requiring much proof, and that
of a peculiarly difficult character, 10 be found
after SO many years. The easy-record cases
of injuries and wounds have been almost en-
tirely settled, leaving those cases for which
pension is asked for disability arising from
obscure diseszz the origin of which in the
service and line of duty, and continuance OF
which since discharge up to the present, are
hard to prove by competent and sufficient
evidence; and. generally, pensions are granted
in such cases only after long and pa
tient waiting and much laboring with
claimants, and much expense and
time spent in finding the necessary
proofs, and after several medical examine
tions to harmonize conflicting opinions as to
character and extent of the disabilities.
Really the hard part of the pension work has
just begun, and on the one hand there is
more call for careful, sorutinizing work on
the part of the Pension Office, and more
cheerful and patient compliance on the part
of the claimants than there ever was
The above Information is valuable, and
will give the general reader a good idea of
the pension business. 1t is not thought that
the present pension payments will ever ex-
pire, and it is the best opinion that within
the next twenty years a pension will be
granted to every maa who carried a sword or
a musket in the Union army from 1861 to
12S5