Birmingham state herald., 1895-12-27
ID INCREASE PENSION ROLL Seven Thousand Pension Bills
 to Be Referred. arr -----
NR. PETER OFFERS A BILL
For the Protection of the Wives of Disspated
 Pensioners.
E. PROPOSED BY REPUBLICANS
Admit ~ele Superiority of the Last Tariff Az S yer the Mckinley Bill-Mr. Jus z ce Shiras Responsible for the
 g Deficiency.

s shington, Dec. 25.--(Special Core spondence. )-That the present congress will increase the already over-burdened pension roll seems to be a foregone con clusion, if the number of bills introduced at this time is to be taken as evidence. The calculation is that over 1000 pension bills will be referred to the committee on invalid pensions during the Fifty-fourth congress, and from a resolution intro- duced in the house last week to allow MT. Jones' (of Virginia) seat to be contested, who, it will be remembered, in the Fifty third congress, by raising the point of no quorum at the Friday night sessions of the house, kept many a bill for pensions from becoming law, together with the fact that MT B. A. Enloe of Raum in- vestigating committee fame, is no longer a member of the house, it looks as if there will be nothing to prevent the re- publicans from duplicating their acts of the Fifty-first congress.
 Senator Peffer introduced the following bill:
 Be it enacted by the senate and house of representatives of the United States of America, in congress assembled That in any and all cases where male pension CTS of the United States desert or aban- don their families, or where such pen sioners are addicted to habitual drunk enness, or where for any reason or cause such pensioners do not use their pension money for the support of their families and do not support them, and when they have no other sufficient means of SUD- port, the commissioner of pensions, on such facts being made to appear by com petent testimony and on application of the wife of any such pensioner, shall pay the money due such pensioner from time to time to his said wife so long as such condition of failure or neglect to support continues.
 Sec g. This act shall take effect and be in force on and after the first day of the first calendar month after its approv- al by the president.
 The bill has occasioned considerable merriment among. those. who have read it. though there Is much merit contained therein. The seoffers say that in the backwoods, whenever It is found that an old soldier is drawing a pension, all the old maids and widows for. miles around make a dead set'' for the pen- sioner, and that after marrying him in n le cases out of ten the woman turns out to be such a shrew; that 1t Is no sur prise that the old soldier is driven to drink" and if Senator Peffers bill be- comes a law it will result in regular bunco game with all the maiden ladies and bereaved widows in the rural dis tricts.
 The Proposed Tariff Measure.
 The tariff bill proposed by the repuD- licans as a relief for the treasury is, to say the least of it. an admission that the tariff act passed by the last congress is far superior to the Mckinley bill, and is also an admission that in two years time the present tariff law will raise enough revenue to support the government. This acknowledgment by the republicans brings to the fore tn? late lamented income tax, and 1t is conceded by every one that, in a word, MT. Justice Shiras is responsible for the deficiency in the revenue.
 Internal Revenue Commissioner Mill Ter, in conversation with->a prominent democrat a few days ago, said that had the income tax not been declared uncon- stitutional by the supreme court the gov- ernment would have received $50 ,000, ,000. and perhaps s6O,OOO.O00, from 1t the first year, and that in five years would have received nearly $10O, 100000. Thus 1t Is seen what burdens the people bear, for had the commissioners predictions be- come true we could have abolished the customs houses and raised sufficient rev. enue to run the government from the income tax and the whisky and tobacco tax.