Year: 1877




make total payment, for forty-eight months, of
eight hundred and eighty million dollars. One
half of this amount would represent the total
amount due for box mites, provided that not a
dollar had been paid.


The Paymaster General of the Army, in April, |
1876, stated to the Military Committee of the
House of Representatives, that the total bounty
paid by the United States Government up to |
March 81. 1876, was three hundred and eighty |
five million nine hundred and seventy thousand
six hundred and eighty-one dollars. This |
amount deducted from the four hundred and
forty million, which would be half of the amount
named above, would leave hfty-four million
eighty-two thousand three hundred and eighteen
dollars as the difference between what has been
paid under the present bounty laws and the
amount which would have been paid under this
bill, provided that the average force OF one mil
lion one hundred thousand men were entitled to
bounty but estimated that of this force, there
were at least five hundred and twenty-one thou
sand men who were not entitled to bounty. This
would leave to be paid twenty-eight million
thirty-two thousand three hundred and eighteen
dollars These are the figures of the Paymaster
General, and it is probably the most liberal es-
innate


Adiutant General Townsend's estimate, as
stated above, is much less sum. Other prom
inent officers of the army, who are equally capa-
bic of Judging, have even gone far as to assert
that ten million dollars would be all that would
be required to pay the amount this bill calls for.


On account of the vast amount of clerical labor





the proper payment of this bounty, when the bill
has been passed. it will require at least ten years
to settle all the claims against the Government
that will be brought under it; SO that, taking
twenty million dollars as the total amount re-
quired it would only be draft upon the Gov
ernment of between one and two million dollars
year after the first year or two, when the cases
that are the most apparent could be Immediately
decided upon. The public debt is now being re-
duced three or four times that amount each year,
and generous government ought to devote q
portion of this reduction to rewarding her faith
full and patriotic soldiers Twenty millions of
dollars is not too high price to pay for an act
OF justice If there are any who think it is, let
them reflect a moment on the great work accom-
plished and the value of the services rendered.
The nation is burdened with debt. The inter-
est that is annually paid on this debt is stag
gering load to bear, but the times are becoming
more prosperous. The money to be paid under
this bill will not impoverish- the Union, but on
the contrary, it will lift from the industries of the
country a burden that has long rested upon them.
1t will relieve want inspire activity and find its
way into the business channels, and, like life in
fused into the sinking frame, will impart life and
vigor. 1t will go, not into the pockets of the
capitalists, but into the hands of the poor, the
industrious, the deserving, and, in the shape of
products of labor, will contribute to the general
wealth. and In time be restored to the nation that
gave it. The wealth of nation is not merely