The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1889-10-02
PRIVATE oALzsLL ON PENSIONS.
He Wants No More Laws Psssed-Soms
Figures or Great Interest.

Figures or Great Interest.
Private Dalzell has written the following
letter to the Pittsburg Dispatch, which will be
found Of great interest by all applicants for pen
sions:
| have been barking up the wrong tree for
years. My eyer are opened at last j take
back every word and syllable / have ever
uttered on the subject of further pension legis-
lation, and with a full knowledge OF all the
consequences Of such statement fearlessly an-
nounce TO my comrades throughout the United
States that we have too many pension laws
already and want no more. All we want is the
enforcement Of those already on the statute
books.
II is folly 10 pile up more laws and so pro-
vide for the presentation OF more claims, when
the pension Office is simply overwhelmed and
gutted with pension claims now, sleeping in
the files Of Office the sleep that knows no
waking.
At Milwaukee the national encampment
never thought of this tremendous and startling
fact In all my advocacy of other and future
legislation this idea never once crossed my
brains No man ever took this view Of the
matter before.
This is the only true view. All others are a
snare and delusion. My eyes are opened TO
see il at last, and l will hammer away at il un-
I'll / get all the soldiers 10 see it, and then
pound it through the thick skulls of our CON
gressmen, if il takes all winter. To be sure, if
the politicians could have their way Of it they
would keep up this fraud till the end of time
Keep promising and promising more pen
sion legislation until the last comrade lays
down in his grave unpensioned! 1t isl glitter
ing fraud!
Our twenty-third national encampment at
Milwaukee declared for further legislation in
the shape of disability bill. Some of us wanted
service pension TO all soldiers. That was
always my plan. We were all wrong.
Let me prove it. IL will take but minute,
and no man can answer me-
BY the report of the commissioner of pen
sions for 1888 am enabled to clinch my reasons
for all have said above.
By that report il appears that the total num-
Der of pensions granted up TO July l, 1888, was
452.557 This was the net result of twenty
seven years work in the pension office, begin
ming in 1861. Now the number of cases on file
then was 600, 800, since then increased 10 over
S00l000 not one of which has yet been passed
upon. The highest number of cases passed
upon by the pension office was $1,000 cases. So
that following the ratio of the average progress
of the work of adjudication in the pension Of
fee it will require over forty years TO reach the
last of the claims already on file there, and by
the ratio of Blacks best year, still il would
take at least thirteen years to clean the docket
OF the accumulated cases. Now, alongside this
please place two other statements, that the
death loss of pensioners for 1883 was 1870
and the death loss OF the applicants for the
same period before pension was granted was
p, S3l; the total death loss for 1888 1851.
This will increase by an accelerated ratio by
and by, and that very soon running into geo.
metrical ratio in a few years will make blank
both OF the pension roll proper and Of the roll
of claimants, too. The average death age of
the soldier is ffty-six, and most of the nppli-
cants have already exhausted their limit and
are due TO die any day.
How about their claims?
They must live, say, thirty years yet, 20 know
whether they are accepted or rejected.
Most Of them cannot live five years. What is
TO become of their claims? If they die before
allowance, the law provides that their widows
or orphans under sixteen years may mot get
pension, no, sir, } present and prosecute claims
for pensions. That doubles the number OF
claims, but brings us no nearer the practical
end than the soldiers were in life themselves.
But il they leave no widow or minor child un-
der sixteen, then that is the end of IL, and the
government retains the pension in its treasury.
IL can in no event 60 TO the administrator or
heir. 1t dies with him.
For every soldier that dies with an unpaid
pension case pending, the government makes
$1,000 clear money on an average, or at most
and at best it tacks on another claim TO be
added to the mighty pile already studied away
on its files.
Even il a widow or minor child has claim,
the widows death or re-marriage ends her case,
and the child's case only survives as the third
new case TO be commenced, dilly-dallied with
and prosecuted, like any other claim, until the
child is sixteen, then the thing goes out like the
rest
This system OF delays, this cold-blooded policy
of retarding and obstructing and procrastinating
the settlement Of pension claims, dishonest and
cruel as it is, is very effectual, practically in
diminishing the volume of cases before the
office and in reducing the money charge of the
pension rolls.
pity :he poor comrades who are daily
| pecting pensions that never comet l under
take 10 say Of the 100000 claims now pending
not 100000 ever can be reached during the
lives of the claimants. They cannot, it is well
| to remember, afford to wait as long as the APP
plicants who fled their claims in the sixties
or seventies. They had a probability of life
reaching on till 1880, yes, to 1890, while the I'M
fortunate claimants who are now on the anx-
ious seat and daily looking for a pension they
will never see, have not three years left; in
deed. no insurance company would take the
! risk for one year, simply because they have
already consumed the full prospect of life.
They can't wait so long. have known men
TO wait fifteen years and then get their pen
sions. They had time TO spare to wait in. But
those now claiming have no such time left.
And yet the fool remedy proposed is more
pension laws, forsooth! What internal non
sense TO 60 on heaping up cases upon cases in
the pension Office that never can be passed in
the world Better apply the toe OF the execu-
tive boot TO the pension Office. Better hurry
up the cases already there then roll in more
1t would be easy 10 do, very. / could, with
slight change in the rules and regulations Of
the pension Office, settle and pay every valid
claim there in three months. Yet they will
never be settled. They will never be paid. The
policy is one of buncombe and fraud. But
thank God for one thing, we don't want any
more pension laws, but we do want more PEN
sions or they get less votes.
PRIVATE DALZELL.