Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-03-15
PENSION MONEY.
How $4,000 is Paid Quarterly
at the Home.
Treasurer Smith Signs His Name
$1,000 Times Yearly.
How the Veterans Get the Money and
How the Veterans Get the Money and
Dispose of It.

Next Tuesday, March IS, is pension
day at the Eastern Branch of the
National Home. d. ". s., at Togus-a
day that comes around with unswerv-
ing regularity four times each year,
bringing with it each time about $75,-
eco of Uncle Sans currency to be dis
bursed among the members of the
Home.
4 Pension day is always welcome to
the veterans, be it in March, June,
September or December. and is await
Cd with pleasant anticipations of fat
pocketbook. and the satisfaction that
comes from having few dollars to
spend as their fancy wills. But the
March pension day seems to them
! little better than the rest, coming as it
does when they have seen the closing
days OF a Maine winter and every
thing about them is springing into new
life.
Many of the veterans make their
plans during the cold weather for the
iurloush which they intend to enjoy
Nhen the springtime shall have ar
rived, and the March pension brings
The time for action. 1t is usually
followed by a general exodus from
camp, and that is why it is more wei
come than the rest. No crowd OF
school boys ever felt more jubilant
over their first spring ball game than
do these old soldiers when they start
out on a furlough.
Did you ever think Of what there was
behind all this-the four pay days and
this sprinstime lark of the heroes of
'61; of the work that has to be done by
somebody before the veterans can get
six feet beyond the Home limits?
Doubtless there are those who think
that the payment Of pensions is ac-
companied by but little more work
than there is in giving out cOmpli
mentary tickets to three-ring circus,
but it is not so-in fact, there is no
comparison between the two.
The payment of pensions entails upon
the treasurer and-his assistants, who
conduct the business of that depart
ment. some of the hardest work that
is done at the Home. To begin with,
there are 2750 members of the Home,
and of that number, all but perhaps
200 are pensioners. Each man has a
separate account to be gone over, and
each man must have a voucher made
out for him.
But to begin at the first. Under the
law, when a man applies for admis
sion to the Home, his pension certifi-
cafe, accompanied by his application
papers are handed to Governor Allen.
If the man is admitted, his certificate
is then turned over to the treasurer,
and is booked on the pension roll, I'M
der the different laws governing pen
sions.
Here is where the work on the part
of the treasurer begins. Each quar-
ter there are 1900 vouchers to be
executed, each being signed three
times by the treasurer. 1t will thus
be seen that one little incidental in the
work of Major Smith at pension time
is to sign his name about 1900 times
to these vouchers. This is a total of
over $1,000 signatures yearly to pension
vouchers by the treasurer.
The army pensions are paid at Au-
gusta and those of the navy, at Bos-
ton. On the fourth day of each quar-
ter the vouchers are sent in, and the
pension agent commences remittance
on abstracts to the treasurer, with
check covering the same. By follow
ing this method, the clerks in the
Office are kept busy. When the alb
stract comes to the treasurer it is i'm
mediately entered in the treasurer's
cash book as receipts, and credited to
each in1iI idual account on the ledger.
These ledgers-there are two of them
Of $50 pages each, running from A to
l., and from NJ to u, are large books.
carrying four accounts to a page. A
~ fan fIrra IN, lankinc the i
ledgers, is the neatness of appearance
The name over each account is execut-
ed in large fanciful letters, while the
account itself is written in small regu-