Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-11-07
NEARLY A HUNDRED MILLIONS.
Pay Roll of the Army Reported by
Paymaster General hates.

The great expense of maintaining our
army on a war footing is set forth in detail
in the annual report of Gen. A E. Bates
paymaster general of the army During
the past fiscal year there was expended on
account of pay of the army the sum of
sol 800 30, a net increase of So6 III, 12}, as
compared with similar expenditures during
The preceding fiscal year. The principal
items of expenditure were as follows:
Pay of the regular army, S34, l41 Do; pay
of United States volunteers, $50, 81 us; eX-
ira pay to volunteers, war with Spain
81, 443, 1913; on account of disbandment of
the Cuban army, $500, 100; extra pay to
regular army, war with Spain, S2o2, 595;
mileage to officers, $4o3,174; extra mileage
to officers, national defense, SlI7,640
The army called into service by the Pres
ident unuer the acts OF April - and May
IL, 1895, aggregated, volunteers and regu-
lars, over $4,000 men. General Bates says
these soldlers have been regularly pad,
either monthly or bi-monthly, during their
term of service, and, in addition, the vOlun-
teers, excepting those on duty in the
Philippines, have been mustered out of ser
vice and received their final pay.
THE work of the pay department." says
General Bates, from the commencement
of the Spanish-American war to its close
and during the continuance of hostilities IN
the Philippines in suppression of insurrec-
ton, has been phenomenally laborious and
exacting, but the officers of this department
have met every requirement of duty with
zeal and promptitude and to the satisfac-
ton of the army.
"A state of war has not been permitted
to interfere with the regularity of monthly
payments, except in the Philippines, where
bi-monthly payments have been p: eferred.
cit is gratifying to this department to be
able to state that the peculiar difficulties
best known to the mastering officer and the
paymaster, attendant upon the muster out
between September 3, 1898, and the 22d of
June, 1891 of over 10000 volunteer treops
have been overcome with surprising facility
and the day of their discharge has been the
day of their payment.
The paymaSter general says that some of
the volunteer paymaSterS, while evincing
great zeal and intelligence, have been too
old to withstand the hardships of military
service, and he says that under no cir
cumstanceS should men be appointed to
this office who are more than forty years
of age, nor until they have passed an eX-
animation as to their physical. moral and
mental fitness for the position"
According to the report, the regular
troops have continued to make large de-
posits with the army paymasters and the
the privilege very extensively. The sol
diers' deposits during the past fiscal year
amounted to S1.496. TG2, more than double
the amount deposited the previous year,
when the deposits were greater than ever
before in the history of the army The
paymaster general recommends that Cen
gress be urged to increase the pay now re-
ceived by paymasters' clerks 10 per cent
for every FIVE years of service, until 1t
reaches st,s89 year. and he also recon-
mends legislation authorizing the retire.