The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-11-08
COMMISSIONER EVANS REPORT.

The annual report of the commits
sioner of pensions presents some
statistics that are of interest,
aside from that which attaches
to the fact that a sum nearly
three times the entire amount required
for the support of the national gov
eminent prior to the civil war was
spent in pensions last year. When Com
missioner Lochren covered back a large
uneXpended balance into the treasury
it was accepted as an indication that
at last, thirty-two years after the
close of the war, high-Water mark had
been reached on the pension roll. we
are now informed that there was an
increase in it last year of 50,101 new
cases and 1871 reservations Of those
who had been, for one or another cause,
dropped from the roll, making a gross
increase of 54,072. The net increase,
after deducting the deaths, remar-
riages and other causes, amounting to
41122, was 1850. While it is not stat
ed in the synopsis of the report sent
out, it is probable that the larger part
of this net increase comes through the
dependent pension act of 1890, as the
years make more and more of the old
soldiers incapable of support by man
ual labor.
Acting on the recommendations of
his predecessor congress appropriated
$40 100000 for pensions for 1897, but
| the present commissioner could only
keep within the limit by withholding
| 1861 certificates until after the fiscal
year closed; carrying, with their ar
rearages and annual value. 81, 191, 694.
This sum will be passed on to the
appropriations for 1898 and help TO
swell the deficit of some 50, 100000 which
the commissioner recently announced
would exist at the close of the next
fiscal year. Had they been paid last
year, the expenditure would have been
Sal, $780, 936. The amount actually dis
bursed was $780, GAG, III. using up all of
the $14O,OOO,000 excepting $50, 263. There
is a small discrepancy between this
statement and that given out in Sep
TENDER by the auditor Of the interior
department, which gave the disburse-
nlents for the fiscal year for pensions
at Sal, 200,551 In the thirty-tWo years
that have elapsed since the close of
the war in 1865, the pension disburse-
ments have amounted to $2,14S, 1856, 095,
an amount about equal to the national
debt at the close of the war
There is one abuse to which the COM
missioner calls attention that congress
should remedy. There remain on the
pension rolls the names of seven wild
Ows of revolutionary soldiers. If 113
years after the close of that war there
are on the roll seven widows of soldiers
who participated in it, how many
widows of soldiers of the civil war,
taking into consideration the relative
strength of the two armies, will be on
the pension rolls in the year POLO? Girls
today are doing what the girls of a
century ago did, marrying superannu-
ated soldiers, not as Desdemona did
OthellO, for the dangers they had
passed through, but for the pension
that comes to the widow AS indus
trial conditions grow harder with the
increase of population and the de-
crease of opportunities for self-support,
this motive will grow stronger, for $12
a month will assure support Such are
mere mercenary barnacles upon pa
triotism and should be scraped off and
their exploitation of the old soldier
stopped.