Bisbee daily review., 1911-10-17
PENSIONS PAID IN 4 NEW WAY
 SIMPLER ONE
Million Dollars a Year Will Be Be Saved by Dispensing With Voucher
 System
WORK IS EASIER
 FOR THE BUREAU
Report of Commissioner States That Pension Frauds Are
 Less Frequent Than
 Generally Supposed

WASHINGTON, Oct. l6:-A saving estimated at Sl.0OO,00O annually to the pensioners Of the United States and eventually about SlSO.0O0 a year 10 the government is contemplated by a simplified plan for the payment of pensions without vouchers. which Commissioner Of Pensions Davenport submitted to the secretary of the in terior in his annual report made pub lie today. During the year, Sl57 ,325,- l60 was paid as pensions, a decrease Of S3,49S,l54 from last year, making the total amount paid in pensions since the foundation ef the govern ment S4.230,3S1 .730. There were 55,5S0 names dropped from the roll and S6,200 added, leaving a net less of 2S,9S5. The total number at the end Of the year was SS2. .e9S. the small est since 1892 Methods Of economy resulted in a decrease Of the cost Of administration by Sl40,5A6. the amount being S,2,5l7,l72, the lowest since 1882.
 Simpiified Method
 Commissioner Dayenport's plan. which was devised at the request Of Congress and which will require the passage of law. will greatly sim plify the methods Of paying pensions. resulting in making a pension check upon the day on which the pension falls due. eliminate the cost 10 the pensioners, in large majority Of cases, of the execution of pension vouchers, which varies from Sl to S5 yearly; decrease 10 a considerable ex- tent the work of mailing checks and eliminate the sending of 100000 let ters yearly through the mails, saving SS00 900 thereby.
 The plan contemplates payment di- rect by check mailed to the last ad- dress of the pensioner. Besides the endorsement on the back of those checks, the government will require certification by two witnesses as to port said vouchers would still be re- quired
 Not Badly Honeycombed
 Commissioner Davenport told of his efforts 10 ascertain the truthfuIness Of reports in the press and elsewhere that the pension roll was honeycomb- ed with frauds He sent men from pensioner to pensioner in the Washington agency and is now doing the same in the neville agency. Out of a total of 47,SSI pensioners who were seen and questioned, only 26 cases Of improper pensiOning were re. yealed.
 The number of sailors and soldiers on the pension list at the close of the fiscal year was 570,0J0; dependents and widows 32l ,642, and army nurses i06. There were 529.SS4 survivors of the civil war. SS,293 having died dur ing the year.
 It is believed that only about 9 per cent Of the 2.213,365 individuals in the United States service during the civil war are now living, the death rate of the survivors being now slightly in excess Of six per cent yearly.
 Revolutionary Pensioners
 The last pensioner of the reyolu. tionary war, Mrs. Phoebe NJ. Talmet- CT daughter Of JOnathon Werley who served in a New Hampshire company, died at Brookfeld \. Y., April 25. 1911. aged 90 years.
 Mrs. Brittania Kennon of Washing. ton D. C.. great grand daughter of Martha Washington, and who died during the year. drew a pension as a widow, longer probably than any other person in the history of the pension office having received $50 a month for almost e years. Mrs. Ken non was a widow of a captain of the United States steamship Princeton, who was killed Feb. 2S, iS44 by the bursting of a cannon on that vessel.