Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-09-16
DALZELL A CONVERT.
The Noted Private, Wants No More
Pension Legislation.
EXTREME ENFORCEMENT A MOTTO
Under Which He Hopes to See 100000 Pen
sioners Get There.
HIS CONCLUSIONS FROM TIE FIGURES


the Government, owing to Corporal Tanner
! retirement, and since Private Dalzell ha
pronounced that retirement iniquitous, tn,
following communication from the latter
written to this paper from Caldwell, O., {
day or two before the climax alluded to
will be of greater interest than ever:
To the Editor of The Dispatch:
have been barking up the wrong tret
for years. My eyes are opened at last.
take back every word and syllable I hav,
ever uttered on the subject of further pen
sion legislation, and with full knowledge
Of all the consequences of such a statement
fearlessly announce tony comrades through
out the United States that we have too many
pension laws already and want no more
| All we need is the enforcement of those al
ready on the statute books.
1t is all folly to pile up more laws and SC
provide for the presentation of more claims
when the Pension Off ce is simply over.
whelmed and glutted 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 start
ling fact In all my advocacy of other and
further legislation this idea never once
crossed my brains. No man ever took this
view of the matter before.
his EYE OPENER.
This is the only true view. All others
are snare and delusion. My eyes are
opened to see it at last, and will hammer
away at it until get all the soldiers to see
it, and then pound it through the thick
skulls of our Congressman, if it 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 prom
ising and promising us more pension legis-
lation until the last comrade lays down in
his grave unpensioned! It is glittering
fraudl
Our Twenty-third National Encampment
at Milwaukee declared for further legisla-
tion in the shape of disability bill. Some
of US wanted a service pension to all sol
diers. That was always my plan. We
were all wrong.
Let me prove it. 1t will take but min
ute, and no man can answer me.
By the report of the Commissioner Of
Pensions for 1888 1 am enabled to clinch my
reasons for all 1 have said above.
DOWN TO THE FIGURES.
By that report it appears that the total
number of pensions granted up to July l,
1888, was 452, ,557. This was the net result
OF q years work in the Pension Office, be-
ginning in 1861. Now the number of cases
on file then was COS, 500, since then increased
to over 10000, not one of which has yet
been passed upon. The highest number of
cases passed upon BY the Pension Office was
10000 cases. So that following the ratio Of
the average progress of the work of adiudi-
cation in the Pension Office it will require
over 40 years to reach the last of the claims
already on file there, and by the ratio of
Blacks best year, still it would take at
least 13 years to clean the docket of the ac-
accumulated cases. Now, alongside this
please place two other statements, that the
death loss of pensioners for 1888 was Is. 730,
and the death loss of the applicants for the
same period before pension was granted was
q, S31; the total death loss for 1888 was
81, S,561.
THIS WILL INCREASE
by an accelerated ratio by and by, and that
very soon running into a geometrical ratio
in few years will make blank both of the
pension roll proper and of the roll of claim
ants tool The average death age of the soldier
is 56, and most of the applicants have already
exhausted their limit and are due to die any
day.
How about their claims?
They must live, say, 80 years vet, to
know whether they are accepted or re-
jected.
Most of them cannot live five wears.
What is to become of their claims? If they
die before allowance, the law provides that
their widows Or orphans under 16 years NAV
(not get pension, no, sir,O present and
prosecute claims for pensions. That doubles
the number of claims, but brings us no nearer
the practical end than the soldiers were Ii
life themselves But if they leave no
widow or minor child under 16, then that is
the end of it, and the Government retains
the pension in its treasury. 1t can in no
event go to the administrator or heir. 1t |
dies with him.
IT PAYS UNCLE SAM.
For every soldier that dies with an un-
paid pension case pending the Government |
makes s., 600 clear money on an average, or |
at most and at best it tacks on another claim |
to be added to the mighty pile already
stuffed away on its files.
Even if a widow or minor child has a
claim, the widows death or remarriage ends
her case, and the child's case only survives
IS third new case to be commenced. dilly-
1allied with and prosecuted like anv other
claim, until the child is 16, then the thing
goes out like the rest.
This system of delays, this cold-blooded
policy of retarding and obstructing and pro-
the settlement of pension
claims, dishonest and cruel as it is, is yery
,fectual practically in diminishing Che
Iolume of cases before the office and in re-
lucing the money charge of the pension
oils.
ONLY A HALF MILLION.
l pity the poor comrades who are dailv
Expecting pensions that never comel Inn
Iertake to say of the 800, 900 claims now
,eDding not 500,0 ever can be reached
Turing the lives of the claimants. They
annot, it is well to remember, afford to wait
S long as the applicants who filed their
laims in the sixties or seventies. Tbev had
probability of life reaching on till 1880. yes
0 1890, while the unfortunate claimants
rho are now on the anxious seat, and daily
boxing for pension they will never see
ave not three years left; indeed, no insur.
nee company would take the risk for one
ear, simply because they have already
the full prospect of life,
They can't wait so long. I have known
len to wait Is years and then get their
ensions. They had time to spare to wait
4! But those now claiming have no such
me leftI
FOOLISH REMEDY.
And yet the fool remedy proposed is more
enson laws, forsooth! What internal
Onsense to 60 on heaping up cases upon
ases in the Pension Office that never can
e passed in the world! Better apply the
,e OF the Executive boot to the Pension
flee. Better hurry up the cases already '
lere then roll in more. 1t would be easv to i
D, very. I could, with slight change in '
!e rules and regulations Of the Pension q