The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-10-16
NEW PENSION PLAN MEANS b|G SAVING Chairman Davenport Sub- mits His Report MAIL CHECKS DIRECT Number of Soldiers and Sailors on the Pension Roll Is 570,050, Dependents and Widows
 321,f42
 
MAIL CHECKS DIRECT

Washinston. October 15.-A saving esti-
 mated at S1,ooO,00O annually to the pen sioners of the United States and event. | tally about S1S0,OO0 a year to the govern l nent, is contemplated by simplifled plan for the payment of pensions without vouchers which Commissioner of Pen- sions J. L. Davenport submitted to the | Secretary of the Interior in his annual l report made public today. During the year S157, ,160 was paid as pensions
 decrease of sS4eS,154 from last year,
 making the total amount paid in pensions since the foundation of the government | S4 23O, ,3s1, ,730. There were 55,1S5 names dropped from the roll and 26,2 200 added,
 leaving a net loss of 2S,ss5 pensioners. | The total number at the end of the year
 was Se20es, the smallest since 1892. Meth l eds of economy resulted in decrease Of the cost of administration by S1D,546, the
 amount being s2,517,127, the lowest since
 1882.
 Commissioner Davenport's plan, which | was devised at the request of Congress, and which will require the passage of a law, would greatly simplify the methods 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 large majority of cases of the execution of pension vouchers which varies from N to s yearly; decrease to a considerable extent | the work in drawing and mailing pension checks and eliminate the sending of A. | C0o0O0 letters yearly through the mails,
 saving about $so,0oo thereby.
 The plan oontemplates payment direct by checks mailed to the last address of the pensioner. Besides the indorsement
 on the back of these checks the govern
 ment would require certification by wit
 nesses as to identity. In & few instances
 Commissioner Davenport said vouchers
 still would be required.
 Commissioner Davenport told of his ef
 fcrts to ascertain the truthfulness of re- ports in the press and elsewhere that the pension roll was honeycombed with fraud. He sent field men from pensioner to pen- sioner in the Washington agency, and is TOW doing the same in the Knoxville agency, with a view to probing fraud. Gut of a total of 47,1s1 pensioners seen ard questioned, Oniy 20 cases or improper pensioning were reported. The eommis- sioner said he believed the check systeny 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 570050, dependents and widows 32i,6i2, and army nurses 406. There were | b2a,SS4 survivors of the civil war, 8, ,24S | having died during the year.
 | It is believed that only about 9 per cent | of the estimated 2213, ,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 | 6 per cent yearly. The average age of | susvvors is now about TO years.
 | The last pensioner of the revolutionary | war, Mrs. Phoebe M. Palmeter, daughter | of Jonathan Wooley, who served in New | Hampshire company, died at Brookfield, | N T., April 25, 1911, aged 90 years. | Mrs. Brittania w. Kennon of Washing | ten, D. C., great granddaughter of Martha Washington, and who died during
 the year, drew pension as widow longer ! than any other person in the history of | the pension office, having received $50 a
 month almost 67 years. Mrs. Kennon was
 tie widow of the captain of the United States steamship Princeton, who was | killed February 2S, 1S44, by the burst | ing of cannon on that vessel, on which | occasion two members of President Ty- l lers cabinet were killed.