Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 April 1895 — PENSIONS SHOW A DECREASE. [ARTICLE]

PENSIONS SHOW A DECREASE.

Bill as Reported to the House Carries an Appropriation of $141,581,570. The pension appropriation bill, as reported to the House by Mr. O’Neil of Massachusetts, carries an appropriation of $141,581,570, being $200,000 less than the estimates and $10,200,000 below the appropriation for the current fiscal year. The reduction is made in two items—in the payment of pensions and in the fees of examining surgeons. For pensions, the bill allows $140,000,000 —a reduction of $10,000,000 from this year’s appropriation —and for th# surgeons’ fees, SBOO,000, being a reduction of $200,000 under the amount allowed for the current year. In the report accompanying the bill is a table showing that in 1879 the number of pensioners was 242,755. the annual value of the pensions $25,493,742, and the dirbursements on their account re[>orted by the treasury $35,121,482. In 1894 the number of pensioners increased to 969,544, the annual value of pensions to $130,120,863, and the disbursements by the treasury to $141,177,284. Commissioner Loehren, when before the committee, expressed the opinion that the high-water mark in the payment of pensions had been reached. Many of the pensioners who remain on the ( folls, he said, may get increases, so that, even if the pension roll should decrease, the amount expended will not decrease in proportion on account of the increased disabilities allowed for. The social purity movement has struck Sedalia, Mo.