Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 51, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 January 1884 — GRAND GRABS. [ARTICLE]

GRAND GRABS.

Contemplated Saids Upon the National Treasury. [Washington Telegram to Chicago Tribune] The most dangerous attacks on the Treas" ury are the bills proposing addition# to the pension rolls. Each bill is backed up by petitions which apparently come from exsoldiers. The large part of them are collected by claim agents, one of whom has gathered 80,000 signatures of alleged soldiers asking for additional pension legislation. Aside from the general bills vouch involve by official calculation over $200,000,000 there have already been introduced nearly I.COO private pension bills. Many originate with attorneys, who send bundles of them to members, with a request to present "diem. They then charge those interested $26. Not one in ten of this class can ever pass. Many have no merit. Few sent in by c airn agents are ever followed further than the fee. The proposition to equalize bounties has been introduced by a dozen members. There have been several official calculations made of the amount which the passage of such a bill would require. The Paymaster General estimated that it would take as a minimum $157,000,000, and that the amount might run up to $163,000,000. No official calculation places the sum at less than $128,000,000. At least 350 additional clerks will be needed to make the settlement. The next scheme in the order of magnitude is the one for lemoving all limit upon granting arrears of pensions. This also Is strongly supported by petitions which pension agents have procured. A bill which is being urged with great persistence is the bill for pensioning all who were prisoners of war for two months; without regard to the question whether or not they suffered thereby in health, this is an insidious measure, since few politicians have the courage to take even an apparent stand against pensioning those who suffered as prisoners, and there are very many deserving cases. Added to these are the bills to pension all Who served fourteen days in tbo Mexican war, all who served in the various Indian wars, and the two extraordinary bills of Price, of Wisconsin, and Peters, of Kansas, one providing for pensioning all who served in the Union army upon their reaching the age of 45 years, and the other providing for pensioning all who served sixty days for the terms of their natural lives. For all except these last schemes there is a great pressure here. [Telegram to New York Herald.] Although the Forty-eighth Congress has been in actual session only three weeks, the bills already Introduced would, if enacted, absorb all the surplus revenues of the Government for several years to come. No regular appropriation bill has yet been repotted, but nearly every measure presented contains an appropriation direct, indefinite, implied, or oblique. An attempt has been made to classify the most important bills and estimate the probable amount involved, 60 that the public may see how their representatives in Congress would like to dispose of the public moneys. A recapitulation of the amounts proposed to be appropriated by the bills shows this staitling result: Public buildings and grounds .$ 12,000,000 River and harbor improvements...... 6,000,000 Public education 105,000,000 New bureaus, cmsßniseions, etc 1,000,000 Soldiers’ Home in Kansas 200,000 Equalizing bounties (official estimate) ;; 100.000,000 Pensions (estimated) 1 175,000,<«0 Prize money, etc 363.644 Deserters, nurses, etc. (estimated)... 2,250,000 Half-pay for Revolutionary officers (estimated) * 25,000,000 Depredations and spoliations (estimated) r. 10,000,000 Private bills (estimated) 25,000,000 State claims (estimated) 30,000,000 Drawbacks, rebates, etc 3,975,549 Miscellaneous Items (estimated)...... 5.000,000 Grand total $800,790,194