The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1904-07-27
PENSION FIGURES
WILL Be JUGGL[D.
Commissioners Ware Is Trying
to Make Out Strong Case
for the administration
Globe Special Washington Service

14lI G Street
WASHINGTON, D. c., July 2e.-To
Commissioner Ware of the pension Office
has been assigned the task of making the
old soldiers of the country believe that
the G. 0. p, and more particularly the
Roosevelt administration, is truly the
veterans friend. Mr.. Roosevelt himself
set the ball rolling last April when he
caused the now noted Special Order No.
49, to be promulgated for the supposed
benefit of veterans more than sixty two
years OF age. According to that remark
able document Ga campaign document, by
the way,) all veterans over sixty-two
years old are classified under the dis
ability clause. OF course. some men are
almost in the prime of their physical and
mental powers at sixty-two, but that
makes no difference tc the administration
in campaign year.
Mr. Ware is hard at work on his an
nuai report, and he-expects to have it
before the voters fully six weeks earlier
than usual this year. He is in something
of a Quandary. The administration wishes
to show On the one hand that Order No.
7s'' has accomplished wonders for the
old soldier, and on the other hand it does
not wish to have it appear that there has
been any considerable raid on the public
treasury for the purpose of paying these
disability pensions.
May Be JugeIed With
No statistics. perhaps. in the whole
governmental system are so susceptible of
being juggled with as the statistics of the
pension Office. Commissioner Ware,
moreover, is an experienced and accom-
plished juggler-that is, he is capable of
making the best possible campaign ar
gument out of the materials at hand.
Here is the record of pensions granted
under Special Order No. IS, from the date
when the order went into effect, April
Is, until June 80, is as follows: Original
pensions granted, $3.50; pensions increas-
ed, 14.76S. At this time there are about
10000 applications pending under this
order.
There ara a. number of facts in con-
nection with this much talked of Order
NO. u.s., says Mr.. Ware for the defense,
which have not yet found their way into
print Although the order was promul-
gated in March it did not go into effect
until April H. We fixed on that date
because it was exactly thirty-nine years
from the close of the Civil war Thirty
nine years elapsed after the close of the
Mexican war before the American sur
Y1vors Of that conflict were placed on the
pension roll. The treaty of peace between
Mexico and the United States was signed
Feb. 2, 1S4S. Fhirty-nine years after
congress passed a law granting pensions
to all soldiers of the Mexican war. wheth-
not. The pension given to Mexican war
soldiers was IS month. provided they
were 81 years of age But the interior
department this year was not SO liberal
with the Civil war pensioners as congress
was with the Mexican veterans in 1887.
The former get only Sc a month at the
age of 81, while the Mexican war sur
vivors get So
Less Than a Million
Contrary to the general expectation,
commissioner Ware will say in his an
nual report that the total number of pen
sloners on the rolls is still under one MIL
hon. At the close of the fiscal year 1903
the whole number of pensioners was $685.
DID, The adoption of Order No. IS led
some persons to suppose (and all the
democratic orators to declare) that the
number of names on the rolls would reach
at least LOCO, 00oA at the end of the fiscal
period which has just closed. The final
hgures are not yet at hand, but the num-
Der IS certainly below the million mark
Heavy mortality has. of course, oc-
Cured among the pensioners during the
last year, for nearly all Civil war veterans
are now getting old. But the fact that
"A per cent of the pensioners are married
accounts for the failure of the total num-
Der of names on the rolls to decrease
In other words, pensions cease in only
about 26 per cent of the cases. when vet
Grams die for pensions are constantly
being granted to widows. There was a
time when the number of pensioners ex-
ceeded 1000, 600. That was in 1902 On
Aug. of that year the whole number on
the rolls was 1,001, 494
Walter E Clark