Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 June 1887 — THE PENSION BUREAU. [ARTICLE]

THE PENSION BUREAU.

Commissioner Black’s Good Work—An Interesting Comparison. [From the National View.] The following comparative statement • contrasts the work of the Pension Bureau during the last two years of Republican rule with the first two years of the Democratic administration: In the year ending June 30, 1883, there were 52,279 pension certificates issued, of which number 38,161 were original cases, and the remainder increase and miscellaneous claims. For the fiscal year ending .June 30, 1884, the total number of certificates issued was 56,729. of which 34,190 were original, and the balance increase and miscellaneous cases. In the next fiscal year, up to the 17th of March, 1885, when General Black entered upon the duties of his office, there were 39,154 certificates of all kinds issued. From March 17 up to the 30th of June of the same year—a period of only two months and a half—there were issued 31,232 pension certificates. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 1886, there were issued 76,654 pension certificates, 40,852 of which were original cases. In that same fiscal year there were also issued 79,985 supplemental certificates to widows and dependent relatives whose pensions had been increased by the act of March 19, 1886—a grand total for that one year of 159,643 allowances. These supp.ementnl certificates were issued within a very few months after the passage of the law. At no time in the history of the office has such an enormous number of pensions been “increased” without interference with the regular work of the office or without a call upon Congress for additional help. From the Ist of July, 1886, up to and including the 30th of April, 1887, ten months, there were 74,608 certificates issued, of which 34,852 were original cases. There are yet remaining two months of the present fiscal year, and the result will be a showing greater by far than any previous year in the history of the office. This immense amount of work has been performed with a reduction of the clerical force of over one hundred. General Black d. termined to conduct the office upon strict business principles, and required that the entire time of the clerical force during office hours should be devoted to the consideration and transaction of the public business and the settlement of long-delayed pension claims. As one result of this regulation the first year of his administration exhibited a saving in the matter of leaves of absence of 15,664 days of the aggregate time of the clerical force, or 12 years 11 months and 4 days of the time of a single clerk. Since the 17th of March, 1885, when the present Commissioner assumed the duties of his office, no leaves of absence have been granted for political purposes, and no pension-office clerks have gone off on “stumping tours,” as was formerly the custom. From July 1, Isß4, to June 30, 1885, the average number of working days for the clerical force was 266, while in the succeeding year the average number of working days was 281. In the year 1886 the present Commissioner turned over to the Treasury over SIOO,OOO of unexpended appropriations on account of clerical hire, and he effected a saving in the same year in the item of stationery of over $13,000 — this notwithstanding the fact t„at the business of the bureau had been very largely increased. It was formerly the practice that when a pension claim had been neglected—that is, when the claimant or his attorney had failed to call up the case for a certain length of time —to mark the case “abandoned’’ and consider it in about the same light as a rejected case. General Black abolished this practice, and required of his chiefs of bu- ■ reaus that all claims should be given a chance of being considered and finally adjudicated. Every case filed during his administration has received prompt attention. His order that all cases filed prior 'o his entry into office should be exami: before the Ist of June has already beeu fully complied with, and there is not a single case in the pending tiles of the office which has not been examined, and in which steps have not been taken toward final settlement. As a consequence of the application of the practical business principles in the management of the office, the Pension Bureau, for the first time in its history, is abreast of the original invalid claims filed. To illustrate the enormous increase in the business of the Pension Bureau, during the month of March, 1884, there were received 159,385 pieces of mail matter, and there were sent out from its office 141,898 circulars and lett rs, while in the month of March, 1887, there were received 287,263 pieces of mail matter, and there were sent out from the office 188,142 letters and circulars. The following table will show the number of pension certificates issued during the fiscal years ending June 30, 1883, 1884, 1885, 1886, and for the year of 1887 up to the 30th of April: Up to • April 30, Cases. 1883. 1884. 1885. 1886. 1887 Original3B,l6l 14,190 85,771 40,852 34,852 miscell4,Bl4 22,539 31,615 38,702 39,756 Tota’s. ...52,979 £6,729 70,336 79,554 74,608 In the fiscal year of 1886 there were also issued 79,987 supplemental certificates to widows and dependent relatives, whose pensions had been increased by Congressional enactment of March 19, 1886.

What Are the Issues! It would be interesting to know on what issue the Republicans expect to enter the next national campaign. None at the present moment seems to be very clear in the mincL of the leaders who are speaking from time to timer or in those of the party newspaper editors who do not enjoy the precious privilege of saying nothing when there is nothing to say. Of the men who may, or think that they may, be chosen to lead the Republican host, Mr. Sherman has just come back from the South and Mr. Blaine has started for the West. The former has spoken; the latter has been spoken a 1 out. What :s said by one and what is said of the other throws some light on what the issue is not to be, but very little on what it is to be. It is plain, for instance, that there is going to be a good deal of trouble in making the issue “the vindication” of Mr. Blaine. On that point the distinguished ex-candidate need not go West to find out what some of his former advocates and present admirers think. The press of lowa and Wis-

cousin—two States that have been included in the published itineracy of Mr. Blaine—has recently contained a number of statements to the effect that he is an “impossible” candidate for 1888. These statements db not settle the question, but they are significant. He who runs may read’the signs they afford, and they will not be lost on Mr. Blaine. Mr. Sherman, in his remarks he has made since his return to Ohio, has made another thing clear—even clearer than Mr. Blaine’s prospects—and that is that there will be no campaign made on the Southern question this year. The stakes that Mr. Blaine drove in his notorious Portland speech on the moral of the election are rudely and even contemptuously pulled up by Mr. Sherman and thrown into the ditch. The negroes of the South are not being oppressed or worked at starvation wages, as Mr. Blaine said they were and would be. The workingmen of the North are in no danger of competition from labor cheaper and more helpless than slave labor, ns Mr. Blaine said they would be. Mr. Sherman reports that there is good feeling between the races, that the negroes are not only safe but industrious, busy and prosperous. The stories of Southern progress, he says, are not exaggerated. That region is developing rapidly under the influence of peace, industry, and enterprise; it has become—mark the word—“patriotic!” It will no longer do to hold it up as a bugaboo to frighten either political babes or dotards in the North. Its interests are ours; its methods, principles, purposes are ours. Its representatives are in every market in the North and ours all over the South. The common bond of constant intercourse, ou the basis of mutual confidence and respect, is becoming every day stronger. Obviously there can be no use for the bloody shirt in the next canvass.— New York Times.