The National tribune., 1894-03-15
AN OPEN LETTER
To the Commissioner of
Pensions.
Hon. Han. Lochren.

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you expect to save" $250OO,OOO this year
from the amount of money placed at your
disposal by Congress to pay the Nations
just debts to its veteran creditors.
That there may be no room for misappre-
hension as to the matter, we give the exact
language of your assistants letter:
! l have stated that estimating the basis OF the
expenditure for pensions for the first six months
OF the present fiscal year. the disbursements tor
the entire year would not exceed $40, 0o00O0 and.
as the appropriation for the present year is $685.
/ 100000, this would leave on July next a surplus
/ OF S25.Oo00oo unexpended in the Treasury.
! This has all the air of an official express
ion of the policy of the Pension Bureau. To
say that it is intensely alarming to the ex-
soldiers of the country is stating it very
mildly. 1t was frightful few weeks ago,
when you announced that you intended
Saving" S15 100000 in this way. What can it
be when it is learned that you intend adding
the immense sum of $10,0O0,O0O more to the
aforementioned enormous amount. 1t seems
that the appetite for saving" like the APP
petite for power and wealth, grows with
exercise. The inevitable outcome of such
passion, INDUCED in without restriction, is
that the Pension Bureau will conceive that
its function is not TO pay out the money APP
propriated for pensions, but to keep it from
being paid out; that its chief aim will be
not to execute the laws, but to put obstacles
in the way of their execution, and to meas
ure its efficiency and success by the extent
to which it defeats the very purpose of its
creation and maintenance.
There is no escape from this conclusion.
Any other is, in fact, impossible.
The special function of the Pension Bureau
is the adjudication of claims arising out OF
the contracts entered into by the Govern
ment with the men who enlisted in its mill
tary or naval service. Much the greater
part of its business for the last 80 years has
been the settlement of the claims of the
100000 men who were in those services
from 1861 to 1865. This was an extra
ordinary time, the number of men with
whom it had to deal was utterly UMPIRE
cedented in the history of the world, and the
unparalleled fierceness and duration of the
struggle brought to the Bureau a wholly IN
ayapnIed voIppaa of by,Si,aco
thing else connected with that war, the pen
sion business had necessarily to be gigantic.
But the country-and Congress represent
ing it-intended that this should be done in
prompt and satisfactory manner, as other
matters had been managed, ard so the Pen
sion Bureau was given phenomenal facilities
for transacting its business. magnificent
building costing millions of dollars, was
erected especially for its Office, and an army
of skilled and well-paid clerks were assigned
to the work. We say army" advisedly, for
the reason that, counting those in the field,
Examining Surgeons, etc, IFS numbers equal
those of the force which Gen. Washington
usually had under his command during the
Revolution, and are greater than those of
the army with which Gen. Taylor invaded
Mexico and won the great victories of Mon
terey and Buena Vista. It's cost of main
tenance is also much greater.
What wonderful results have we not
reason to expect from the employment for
long period of such an immense force of
carefullyselected, highly-trained, and we'll
paid Americans? Nothing humanity pos
sible would seem to be out Of reach of its
accomplishment.
Two things, yes three, at once thrust
themselves forward for consideration.
The first is that this immense force, grad
ually growing TO its present proportions, we
admit, but always very large, has been
working assiduously and interruptedIy
upon the mass of claims for period ap-
preaching 80 years-approximately the life
of generation.
The second is that, assuming that their
labor has been directed with only the most
ordinary skill and intelligence, they must
have completed an immense amount of
work. As things go in the business world
a pension claim is not at all an intricate or
difficult piece Of work. There are but few
essential facts connected with it. and these
are not at all difficult TO determine. Much
the greater part OF the proof required lies
close at hand in the carefully-compiled rec
ords of the War Department Matters a
hundredfold more intricate than the knot
test pension case ever presented to the PEN
sion Bureau are constantly being settled in
few days or weeks time in the business
houses or the courts of the country, with
out any blare of trumpets or anv
considerable expense. Therefore il can
not help being true that every essen
tial, necessary fact in hundreds of thou
sands of the I'll 900 cases now pending
in the Pension Bureau was long ago ascer-
tanned, collated, given its proper value and
adjustment to the other facts-in brief that
there are hundreds of thousands of cases in