The Salt Lake tribune. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1890-current, 1910-11-18
IMPOSING UPON
A GREAT NATION
Startling Facts and Figures in
Connection With Expense
for Pensions.
"W0RLD'S WORK" HAS
MADE INVESTIGATION
After Long and LabOriOuS Work
the Magazine Makes Pub
lie the Result.

In announcing the result of long
and painstaking Investigation of the
pension situation in this country, the
World 8 Work "'does not charge that
the pension bureau is corrupt; it is not.
Nor inefficient; for neither is it that,
We do assert that the body of legisla-
ton passed by successive congresses
subservient to the old-soldier vote, and
extended by liberal interpretations put
upon it by authorities of the pension
bureau. has made so broad the road into
the national treasury that there is no
reason why any man who was living ut
the time of the Civil war need go with
out a pension. We do point out that
the evidence taken in pension cases is
naturally exparte, and that as tho war
recedes the deaths of responsible officers
and undesirable witnesses make fraud
more and more easy; and we do assert
that the pension rolls abound in aberra-
tions of the proper purpose Of the mill
tary pension system; that they are
packed with unworthy and periured
names, and honeycombed with fraud. =,
''Since our Investigations began
says the World IS Work, ''apd they have
been pursued without aid from the pen
sion Office and in the face Of the com
missioner 8 refusal to open the list Of
inspection--we have come across:
ceases where two and even three per-
sons had drawn pensions for one man g
service;
ceases where pensions have been con-
tinued long after the proper beneficial
ries were dead;
Ceases where one man has drawn
several pensions;
Many cases where deserters are re-
ceiving pay equal to that of men who
served to the end;
Ceases where sbounty jumpers had
been given double pensions;
Cases where men absolutely without
military records have been given an en-
listment and honorable discharge:
'Innumerable cases where soldiers
ire being given compensation for ills
utterly unconnected with army service;
Ceases where women never married
to soldiers are pensIoned as legal wild
ows
Ceases where girls born long after
the war, who had married veterans for
the sake of their pension, are being
paid by the nation.
ga year after the Civil war the gov
ernment was paying S15.000000 to dis.
abled soldiers, their widows and or
phans and other dependents In 1874
the pension bill reached $4,000, 900.
Then il began natural decline. IL had
fallen in 1878 to S2s.000,000 In Janu
ary: 1879, there was passed a law
giving full arrears to all entitled to
pensions. The lump sums thus offered
presented tempting prizes, and thou
sands Of old soldiers searched their
bodies for some twiuges that might be
attributed back to wartime. In two
years the bill bounded from S2S,000,000
TO $5S,o000 900.
"The Grand Army of the Republic,
organized al the close of the Civil war.
now fell largely into the hands Of
pension promoters-Corporal Tauner, u
professional pension agent. at their
head. The organization swiftly grew
and became a political power. sue
cession of Grand Army pension agents
administered the government IS pension
bureau. "God help the sl,rplus in The
United States treasury when | get
ut it," said Corporal Tanner when