The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-08-11
NenrIr a WILTON Pensions.

The war ended more than thirty-two
years ago. Many men who are now the
heads OF families, leaders in politics and
commerce. members of congress, govern
ors, presidents Of banks railroads, etc,
were babies in swaddlng clothes at the
time of The surrender. Many young girls
in plnafores when their fathers and broth
ors returned from the war are now moth
ors Of grown children; some of them, in
deed, are grandmothers. Yet the pension
list goes on increasing. Age cannot wither
i'll nor circumstances decrease its cost TO
the taxpayers. When everything else Ian.
suishes. the pension lis lifts up its head
in plenty and wakes fat. The revenues of
the government may fail; the people may
groan under the load Of taxation and the
hard times from crop failures and other
adverse circumstances. but the pension
payments go on forever ike Tennyson
brook.
In our dispatches Of Sunday appeared
the summary Of a signed statement by
Pension Commissioner Evans. setting
forth the fact that during the last fiscal
year nearly $1,000 names had been placed
on the pension rolls. swelling the total Of
the list to 9S3. 52S pensions. II needs, there
fore only a few more than 5000 addi-
tional names for the list to touch the mill
ION marll-the ambition Of the pension bu-
reau under the Harrison administration.
Since the Mckinley administration is
pledged TO pensions. and the bureau is I'M
der the MANAGEMENT of poll
tic.an Of the practical sort, who knows
how to place public money where it will
10 tho most good" it may be expected
that the million mark will he reached be-
fore the snow flies, or very shortly there
after
What proportion of the public revenues
is taken up by pension payments? Prob
ably few persons have any idea. Touch
ing upon the subject a week or so ago the
New York Sun, whose editor was Assist
ant Secretary of War during the Lincoln
administration, said How many people
stop to consider that more than niue
tenths Of the money raised by the tariff
has been going for pensions during the
past four years? How many people would
believe, without turning to the official
documents for the figures, that during the
same period more than 96 per cent Of all
the revenues raised by internal taxes has
been consumed by a pension establishment
maintained on account of a war that end
ed a third of century ago, and concern
ing which so good a republican and so
loyal a veteran as James Abram Garfield
remarked twenty-five years ago we may
reasonably expect that the expenditures
for pensions 0hen aggregating about $3O-
100000 a Year, will hereafter steadily de
crease, unless our legislation should be
unwarantably extravaganza
We criucise the monarchies of Europe
for putting upon the people the expense
OF immense standing armies, yet we thir
ty-two years after the end of our war.
maintain standing army Of pensioners
numbering practically 100000, and at a
cost per year greater than the total an
nual military budget of Germany, and APP
proximaung the total annual military ex
penditures of either France or Russia; and
besides this we keep up our own standing
army and expensive navy. Since 1861 the
government has paid in pensions more
than two thousand millions of dollars. and
the beginning of the end is not yet in
sight.