The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1898-01-19
How Many Surviving Veteransi

A much mooted question, raised in
connection with the charges that the
pension rolls are swollen by the pres
ence of names that do not justly belong
there, is, How many surviving veterans
are there?
According to the enumeration of the
census of 1890 there were at that time
1,034 073 survivors. Taking this mum.
Der as the basis of an estimate, the
New York Sun, making allowance for
deaths in seven years and a half, and
considering other deductions necessary
to an estimate, reached the conclusion
that there are 727 1872 surviving soldiers,
sailors and marines at the present time !;
while the pension rolls show 1888 527
persons drawing pensions as actual
survivors of the war, with 1877 500 more
survivors on the list of applicants for
pension.
The trustworthiness of the SUMS
estimate has been challenged by an en-
ploye of the pension bureau, who
attacks the census returns as "incom-
plete and therefore unrel able" This
clerks estimate is that there were in
1890, instead of the number reported
by the census, 355 TAI Union survi-
vors of the civil war, an estimate alleged
by him to have been produced by "the
ablest OF actuaries and statisticians
commanding all the data in the war de-
partment. The Outlook, a politico-
religious paper in the city of New
York, not particularly renowned as an
expert in statistics or as an authority in
worldly affairs, goes into mathematics
on this subject, and after an excursion
among death rates and insurance tables
arrives at the conclusion that the actual
count, the fflcial and painstaking emu
meration, of surviving veterans in 1890
was all wrong; but that the pension
clerks enumeration, evolved, very
much as the German philosopher Great
ed the camel, from his inner-copscious-
ness, is correct. The Outlook thus
ratiocinates a survival of 100 900 vet
Grams. This result the Free Press in
nocently accepts and regards it as
conclusive answer to an alleged "whole
sale arraignment of the honesty of the
veterans" "The Sum-" the contempo-
rary AYERS, "has not thus far attempted
to traverse this computation" In
what way "the honesty of the veterans"
is involved in census enumeration, or
in an estimate of the death rate in their
ranks, is discernible only by the lucid
mental vision that could discover an
Arrangement" in the discussion of
this question.
Before the Free Press had sought to
muddle the public by substituting
somebody's guesses for officially ascer-
tanned facts, the Sun had traversed
the pension clerks computations and
statements and upset them entirely.
1t showed from official sources that the
enumeration of the veterans in 1890, in
stead of being "confessedly incomplete"
was complete and as accurate as the
enumeration of tbe people as whole.
The incompleteneBs to which the CEN
sus official referred pertained, not to
the enumeration, but to scheme to
publish schedules giving the name, or
ganization and length OF service of each
surviving veteran. That was differ
emit thing, and the impossibility of
gathering the details necessary for this
publication led to it's abandonment.
Since the Suns estimate was made,
Robert P. Porter, the superintendent
of the eleventh census, has sent com.
munication to the Sun in which he