The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-10-25

crossed the million line, reaching LOO. .4S4 This seems likely to remain the high water mark, unless a service pension act Is passed. Since July, 1902, the number has been steadily falling until by July, 1903, it numbered but 996, ,545. It has been in the 990's since 1897.
 The cost to the Government for pen sions on account of the Spanish and Phil ippine wars has thus far been small. slightly more than $5.0o0,0OO How much 1t will reach affords material for inter esting conjecture. The number of sol- diers and sailors participating in the Spanish war was 312.O00. and in the Phil ippine and China campaigns 146,0O0, mak- ing a total of just about one-fifth the number of participants of the civil war. On account of that struggle pensions amounting to g. 800. 100000 have already been paid. One-fifth of that would be $70O. .0o0.00O, but 1t Is unreasonable to sup pose that the smaller war will amount to so much as one-fifth. so notable are the contrasts between the two wars. The average of hardship and danger and act ual fighting admits of no comparison. Moreover, the enlistments to the later wars have been subjected to very careful medical examination so that presumably few participants went into the service with organic diseases upon which a pen- sion claim could afterwards be unwit- tingly based. The Government could not be so particular in 1883.
 The regular establishment, which seems destined to fight our future battles in our tropical campaigns, will not claim much in pensions They prefer retirement pay, and one man cannot draw both. It is comparatively easy for a regular army soldier to make the thirty years neces- sary for retirement now, since service in the Philippines counts double towards that goal. and many young men will henceforth be going out from the army into civil life with this three-fourths of their pay at retirement as a neat little income. with theother privileges that go with it. for the rest of their lives. These charges are borne by the War Depart ment, and do not figue in the pension roll.
 The cost of maintaining the Pension Bureau is now about A.000.000 a year. or per cent of its disbursement. This in cludes the salaries of 1,714 employees, amounting to $2,157.21O. Commissioner Ware significantly submits a chapter on their ages in which he shows that ten of his clerks have passed eighty years. twenty more have passed seventy-five, and siXty-seven have passed seventy. One-third of the employees of the bureau are above sixty. while the average age of the entire force is fifty-three years. This illustrates one of the tendencies of the civil service system for which as yet no adequate provision has been made. Nearly every administrative officer will bear testimony to the fact that there should be a service pension system for superannuated Government employees, or else the roll will have to be steadily made larger to supply fresh material.
 In Speaker Cannon's plan for retrench- ment at the approaching session, cutting out new public buildings and river and harbor improvements, he will probably put some check on the private pension acts. These. in the last Congress as noted in these dispatches at the time, were nearly double those of any preced- ing Congress. Of the t0353 names, which have been put on the roll by special act. the Fifty-seventh Congress contributed 2,1n. The preceding Henderson Congress put on 1891 names The two Reid Con- gres'ses immediately preceding added re- spectively G% and 37S names The two Crisp CDemocratic) Congresses before that stood at 119 and 217. respectively. 4.-ls last was drop from the l, ,3SS in the Reed Congress of 1SS9-9O. In the first Congress under Garfield and Arthur, only 216 special bills were passed, just about one-tenth of the present number. The general pension budget was then costing about 600 a year, while the roll car ried only 2s5 600 names.
 Indiana, with smaller population than Massachusetts. still draws twice as much in pensions. Ohio is far ahead of New York, standing at thead of the list with receipts of 15000, GOO. or one-ninth of the total. She has about one-eighteenth of the population.