The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1903-11-06
too conscientious to accept pension un-

DER present conditions, tardy justice.
{ 1t is interesting to note how long
/ time the pension roll has fingered arouno
the million mark. Eleven years agt
Commissioner Raum suggested, in his an
nual report, that the number of pension
! ers would ultimately reach one million
1t has never done so on the 3Oth day OF
June of any year, when the tabulation
for the official records is made, and prob
: ably never will, and yet at the close of
four of the months of last year it exceed
ed that figure. On the last day of June,
1902, the number of pensioners stood at
$685. 46. In a month it had crossed the
million line, reaching l,O02,594. This
seems likely to remain the high-water
mark, at least until service pension
act is passed, and unless that be done in
few years. Since July, 1902, the num-
Der has been steadily falling, until by
July, 1903, it numbered but 996,545. It
has been in the zoos since 1897.
The cost to the government for pen
sions on account of the Spanish and
Philippine wars has so far been small,
slightly more than $5,00O,00O. How
much it will reach affords material for
interesting conjecture. The number of
soldiers and sailors participating in the
Spanish war was $4,000, and in the
Philippine and China campaigns 100000,
making total of Just one-fifth of the
number participating in the civil war.
On account of that struggle pensions
amounting to $2,SOO,OOO,OOO have al
ready been paid. One-fifth of that
would be $7OO,OOO,0OO, but it is unreason-
able to suppose that the smaller war
will amount to as much as one-ffth, so
notable are the contrasts between the
two wars. The average of hardship and
danger and of actual fighting admits of
no comparison. Moreover, the enlist
ments to the later wars have been sub
jected to careful medical examination
so that presumably few participants
went into the service with organic dis
eases upon which a pension claim could
afterward be unwittingly based. The gov
eminent could not be so particular in
| 1853.
The regular establishment, which
seems destined to fight our future bat
ties in our tropical campaigns, will not
claim much in pensions. They prefer re-
tirement pay, and one man cannot draw
both. 1t is comparatively easy for a
regular army soldier to make the thirty
years necessary for retirement now,
since service in the Philippines counts
double toward that goal, and many
young men will henceforth be going out
of the army into civil life with three
fourths of their pay at retirement as
neat little income, with the other privi-
! leges which 60 with it, for the rest of
their lives. These charges are borne by
the war department and do not figure in
the pension roll
The cost of maintaining the pension
bureau is now about 100000 a year,
or three per cent of it's disbursements.
This includes the salaries of LIZA en-
ployes, amounting to $2,l57,2l0. Com
missioner Ware significantly submits a
chapter on their ages in which he shows
that ten of his clerks have passed so
years, twenty more have passed rs, and
sixty-seven more have passed 70. One
third of the employees of the bureau are
above go, while the average of the en-
tire force of the bureau is So years. This
illustrates one of the tendencies of the
civil system for which as yet no ade-
quate provision has been made Nearly
every administration officer will bear
testimony to the fact that there should
be service pension system for super
animated government employees, or else
the roll will have to be steadily made
larger to supply fresh material. Commits
sioner Ware recommends the passage of
such a law, saying that some system of
retirement must be devised, as the pres
ent lack of anything of the sort is prov
ing unsatisfactory and expensive.
In Speaker-to-be Cannon's plan for
retrenchment at the approaching ses-
sion, cutting out new public buildings
he will probably put some check on the
private pension acts. These, in the last
congress, were nearly double those of
any preceding congress, even those con-
crosses when the rapidity of the pas
sage of these laws provoked so much
comment. Of the 1888 names which
have been put on the pension roll by
special act the fifty-seventh congress
contributed 2,l71. The preceding Hen
derson congress put in 1891 names. The
two Reed congresses Immediately preeed