Evening star., 1898-03-25
EIGHT MILLIONS NEEDED
Deficiency Expected in the Pension Appro
priation.
Estimate Sent to Congress- BY the
Secretary of the InterfOr-Cause
Of the Deficit.

The Secretary of the Interior today for
warded to the appropriation committees of
both houses of Congress an estimate of
46 required to supply the defici
ency in the army and navy pensions for the
fiscal year ending June 30, 1898.
In a letter to the Secretary of the Treas
ury upon the same subject Secretary Bliss
calls attention to the fact that the appro-
priation for pensions for the year 1897 was
inadequate, and in consequence the current
fiscal years appropriation was burdened
with payments amounting to S. 191 6,4 g.
which sum was in the nature of a defici-
ency of the previous year. He states fur
ther that the pension bureau executed a.,
GIL certificates which were ready for de-
livery in June, 1S,-. and first payment
thereon ought TO ha been provided for by
deficiency appropriation for that year,
but, instead, these certificates were with
held beca, Sc of the exhaustion of the ap-
preparation and seeming disinclination to
ask Congress for the needed deficiency,
and were not delivered until after the be-
ginning of the next fiscal year. The first
payments on these certificates were there
fore made from the appropriation for the
currant fiscal year, amounting to the sum
above stated. This sum, he says, is prop
erly a deficiency in the last fiscal year.
''On the first day of July, 1897, there was
available $140.0OO0OO for the payment O.
army and navy pensions; 81 600 .0O0 of this
amount was set apart for navy pensions,
leaving $136, ,Uub 900 for army pensions. The
total number of pensioners on the roll June
30 1897, was 916,014 while on the 2Sth of
February 1898, there were $780, .613 on the
rolls, net increase of Is $50. Between the
latter dates there was disbursed for the
payment Of army pensions S95.37O S72..8,
leaving the sum of $4O629. 1854 for the
payment of pensions to the end of the pres
ent fiscal year.
1.-The commissioner of pensions estimates
hot will lQ FOR ha
payment of pensions during the remaining
four months of the fiscal year, which is
more than SSO00.OOO in excess of the unex
pended appropriation.
In conclusion, Secretary Bliss says:
Increase of Pensioners.
THE commissioner has recently expressed
to me an opinion as to the future course Of
pension payments. at variance with his
views thereon, as stated in the annual
report, which was to the effect that after
the close of the current year payments
would rapidly decline. 1t is now his opin-
ion that in view of the increasing applica-
tions for original pensions and for increase
of pensions there will be increase
il the sum required for the payment of
come. In this connection the appended
table, showing the number of pensioners on
the roll and the value Of the roll annually
since 1887, is significant.
From this 1t appears that the pension
roll has substantially doubled since a quar-
ter Of a century after the close Of the war.
Ia 1SW-twenty-five years after the war
Gle sed-the number of pensioners on the
roll was 5s7 e44; at the close of the current
fiscal year the number on the roll will ap-
proximate $4,000, an increase of nearly 10
per cent since 1890. In that time the value
of the roll has increased from $72. .O52 143. ~
in 1880 to approximat tely $l32OOO,OO0 in the
present fiscal wear.
The roll is larger now than at any for
mer time, Notwithstanding that thirty-three
years have elapsed since the cessation of
hcStilities. 1t contained about $500 more
pensioners in 1897 than it did in 1895, and
approximately 10000 more in 1898 than in
1897, and the value of the roll has also in
creased in the same period"