Sequachee Valley news. (Sequachee [Sequatchie], Tenn.) 1896-1952, 1911-10-19
ANNUAL SAYING
TO PENSIONERS
Is Contemplated by SimpIlfied
Plan of Commissioner of Pen
sons Through the Payment
of Pensions Without
Vouchers.

Washington Oct. ia saving esti.
mated at 81, 200, 900 annually to the
pensioners of the United States and
eventually about $3.50, 900 year to the
government is contemplated by sim
plified plan for the payment of pen
sions without vouchers which Com
missioner Of Pensions J. L. Davenport
submitted to the secretary of the inter
ior in his annual report made public
today. During the year $157, 325, 1850
was paid as pensions, a decrease of
50, 49S, 154 from last year, making the
the foundation of the government,
81, $50, 1871, 730 There were 55, 1856
names dropped from the roll and 26, 900
added, leaving net loss of 90, 985 pen
sioners. The total number at the end
of the year was S92, 09S, smallest since
1892 Methods of economy resulted in
a decrease of the cost of administra-
tion by $40, SAG, the amount being
So, SIT, 1877, the lowest since 1882.
Commissioner Davenport's plan,
which was devised at the request of
congress and which will require the
passage of law, would greatly sim
plify the method of paying pensions,
result in the mailing of pension checks
on the date upon which the pension
falls due, eliminate the cost to the
pensioners in largo majority of cases
of the execution of pension vouchers
which varies from 81 to So yearly; de-
crease to considerable extent the
work of drawing and mailing pension
checks and eliminate the sending of
4, 200, 900 letters yearly through the
mails, saving about 300, 600 thereby
The plan contemplates payment di
rect by checks mailed to the last ad
dress of the pensioners Besides the en-
dorsement on the back of these checks
the government would require certiti-
cation by two witnesses as to identity.
In few instances Commissioner
Davenport said vouchers still would
be required.
Commissioner Davenport told of his
efforts to ascertain the truthfulness of
reports in the press and elsewhere that
the pension roll was honeycombed
with fraud. He sent field men from i
pensioner to pensioner in the Wash |
ington agency and is doing the same
in the Knoxville agency, with a view
to probing fraud. Out of total OF
AZ, 1S1 pensioners seen and questioned |
only twenty-six cases of improper pen
sioning were reported. The commits
sionor said he believed the check sys-
tenn would put an end to any fraud
that may now exist.
The number of soldiers and sailors
on the pension roll at the close of the
fiscal year was $40, $50 dependents and
widows 321, 642 aud army nurses 4O6.
There were 500, SS4 survivors of the
civil war; 35, 243 having died during
the year. 1t is believed that only
about twenty-five percent. of the esti-
mated 2;213 365 individuals in the I'm
ted 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. The
average age of survivors is now about
seventy years.
The last pensioner of the revolution
airy war, Mrs Phoebe M. Palmeter,
daughter of Jonathan Wooley, who
served in New Hampshire company,
lied at Brookfeld, N. Y, April %,
1911, aged ninety years.
Mrs. Britannia W. Keno, of Wash
1gton, D. c., great granddaughter
If Martha Washington and who died
Turing the year, drew pension as
widow longer probably than any other
person in the history of the pension
,ffice having received $50 month al
most sixty seven years. Mrs. KennOn
vas the widow of the captain of the
J. S. S. Princeton, who was killed
February %, 1874, by the bursting of
cannon on that vessel on which oc-
aston two members of President Ty-
er's cabinet were killed.