The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1915-05-06
Since Civil War Ended Several Acts
Have Been Necessary to Assure
Fair Play for the Old
Soldiers.
LARGE AMOUNT Is PAID
It Seems Only to Represent Fairly
Adequate Returns for Services
( Which These Men Rem
dered for Country.

In the fifty years since the civil.
war ended the American people have
paid to its survivors or their depend
ents $4,500,000, 000,' asserts a writer
in The Worlds Work. This sum Is be-
yond ordinary comprehension, but 1t
seems large enough to represent a
fairly adequate return for the service
performed, although gratitude cannot
be measured in money. The pension
ing of wounded and disabled soldiers
began Immediately after the war. In
1856 the government was paying about
S15,000,000 annually to survivors. BY
1880 this had grown to $4,000 900,
and in 1889 to SS6,OOOOO The sums
We're paid out under the pension law,
which provided only for invalids, that
is, men wounded or otherwise physi-
cally disabled during the war. With
each increase of the pension fund it
was predicted that the country had
taken on a financial burden which
could not be increased and borne. but
in the light Of later happenings these
predictions sound absurd.
In 1872 it was estimated by Pension
Commissioner Baker that all veterans
entitled to a pension had made app1i-
cation, and that the pension roll had
attained it's maximum length. Suisse
quent developments, however, showed
that only about third of the possible
pensioners had taken advantage Of
the governments generosity. Many
had not applied for the reason that
they looked upon pension as kind
of charity; others maintained that it
was pay for patriotism, which was not
purchasabl quality; and many more
VIII in ri oh1 DIR
stances had never felt the need of
the money. and hence had never tried
to get what was coming to them. But
then began an era when pension doc
tors and pension lawyers worked up
flourishing trade as pension getters.
Try to Reach All.
| They advertised extensively and
secured the whole country for eligible
applicants. Many veterans reached an
age when injuries which had once
been thought slight became acute han
dicaps, and they joined the throng of
applicants. Associations of veterans
also interested themselves in secur-
ing the passage of more liberal pen
sion laws, and almost before the coun-
try knew how far the matter had been
allowed to go it was carrying a pen
sion burden which twenty years be-
fore it had declared no nation could
carry without inviting bankruptcy.
In 1879 a law was passed which pro-
vided that veterans who qualified as
invalided pensioners before January 1,
1881. would receive full pensions from
the time of their injuries. Under this
law veteran wounded in 1865, and
placed on the pension list in 1880, re-
ceived as first payment back pension
for the preceding fifteen years. There
was a rush to take advantage OF This,
which increased the pension appro-
priation from $33 5000, 900 in 1879 to
SIS .OO0,O in 1880, and It has been
estimated that this act has cost the
government to date 100000. 900. An
other law which greatly increased
pension expenditures was that which
provided that a widow should receive
a pension from the day her husband
died. Both of these acts encouraged
fraud, and is was frequently practiced.
Widows concealed facts about later
marriages which they had contracted,
and veterans long since dead were i'm
parsonated by INSCRIPTIONS persons
in the employ of agents. 1t is mat
ter of record in the pension office that
one man received a pension for having
a normal heart" and another for hav-
ing "sallow complexion" both &C.
uuired in the service of their country.
New Principle Introduced
Beginning in 1890 the government
introduced a new principle into its
pension Legislation. Until that time
pensions were granted only to those
veterans Cor their dependents) who
were actually suffering on account of
injuries sustained during the war. But