Jasper County Democrat, Volume 6, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 October 1903 — BIG PENSION CAMPAIGN [ARTICLE]

BIG PENSION CAMPAIGN

General Black’s Plan to Help the Veterans. A LARGE INCREASE FAVORED. Graad Army’s Chief Declares For One of From *21,000,000 to *30,000,000— Brery Veteran Slxty-two Years Old Without a Pension Who Had Sixty Days* Actual Service to Receive a Stipend. General John C. Black, the new commander in chief of the Grand Army of the Republic, has begun his administration by declaring In favor of an increase of tbe pension expenditures of the government that would amount to from $21,000,000 to $30,000,000 a year and would run the total payments up from the present figure of $140,000,000 to $161,000,000 or $170,000,000. says the Washington correspondent of the New York Herald.

General Black has declared that it will be the policy of the Grand Army of the Republic to fight from now on for a pension for every veteran of the civil war more than sixty-two years old who saw sixty days of actual service and for his widow after him. This means that General Black intends to commit the Grand Army of the Republic to a campaign for the addition of at least 300,000 names to the 1,000,000 already on the pension rolls. The commissioner of pensions. Mr. Ware, estimates the number of survivors of the civil war who are not now drawing pensions at more than 200,000. He says they may number 225,000. If tbe proportion of widows to survivors is as great as was the proportion of widows to survivors at the corresponding date after the Mexican war, there are probably a few more than 100,000 widows of civil war veterans who are not now drawing pensions. It is difficult to estimate what proportion of the survivors are sixtytwo years old or more, but it Is 'quite probable that enough are of that age to bring the total number of new pensioners, including the widows, up to about 300,000.

The amount that this would add to the annual pension expenditures would depeud upon the rate of pension to be allowed. If a service pension law should be enacted it Is safe to say that the rate would not be less than $6 a month, or $72 a year. At this rate the addition of 300,000 names to the roll would add $21,600,000 to the annual expenditures. Advocates of a service pension for the civil war would hardly, however, be contented with such a beggarly pittance as $6 a month, especially in view of the fact that the last congress Increased the rate of pension for survivors of the Mexican war to sl2 a month, or $144 a year. It is certain that congress would not give the survivors of the civil war a service pension of sl2 a month.

It is probable that if such a pension should be provided for the rate would be $8 a month. This would involve increasing the pensions of 37,748 pensioners who are now drawing less than $8 a month and would bring the additional expenditures up to approximately $30,000,000. An idea of bow long the civil war pension roll Is certain to maintain formidable proportions, whether a service pension Iftw is enacted within the next few years or nqt, can be based on the fact that there are on the pension roll, fifty-five years after the close of the Mexican war, 5,964 survivors of that war and 7,910 widows, or a total of 13,874 pensioners on account of the little army of 78,718 men that participated in it. At the same ratio there will still be on the pension rolls in 1921, or fifty-five years after the date from which the pension office reckons the close of the civil war, no less than 400,000 pensioners on account of that war.

Some further ides of the longevity of pension roll* may be obtained from the fact that there are now on the rolls eighty-nine year* after the close of the war of 1812, one survivor and 1,115 widows and, although It Is 120 year* since the close of the war of the Revolution, there are still on the pension roll two widow* of soldiers of that war. In other words widow* of survivors of the civil war in considerable numbers will still be drawing pensions In the year 1986. Many of the future widows of civil war veterans are little girls in pinafores. Many more of them are being rocked in their cradles. Some of them have not yet been born. It is now thirty-seven years after the official close of the civil war. The younger of the two surviving widows of veterans of the war of the -Revolution, Esther S. Damon of Vermont, was not born until 1814, or thirty-one years after the official close of the war. Within the last few years widows of the Revolutionary war have died who were born more than thirty-seven years after the close of the war. The willingness of girls to marry old pensioners is proverbial. One of the widows of the Revolution who died dnring the last year was Nancy Jones, who wan born In 1810, or thirty-three years after the close of the war, and who married Darling Jones, a survivor of that war. In 1832. when he was six-ty-eight years old and she was sixteen. In the case of Mary Bneed. another Revolutionary veteran’s widow, who died last year, the date of her marriage is not on record, but the disparity between her age and that of her husband was greater than that in the case of Nancy Jones. Rowdoln Sneed, the Revolutionary soldier In this case, was Of , ty-slx years old when his wife was | bom, and If they were married when

she was sixteen he was a gay bridegroom of seventy-two. He died in 1841 at the ripe age of eighty-one years, when his wife was only twentyfive years old. There comes a time in every pension list when the number of survivors is at the maximum and when the number of widows is at the maximum. The number of survivors of the civil war was greatest of course Immediately after the war. Whether the maximum number of survivors on the pension roll on account of that war lias been passed or not will probably depend upon whether a service pension law is enacted within the next few years. There is no question as to whether the number of widows of soldiers in that war will increase. Judging from the figures for the Mexican war, the number of civil war widows will go on increasing for the next fourteen years at least, as the maximum number of widows of soldiers in thq Mexican war was not reached until 1899, or fifty-one years after the close of that war. This would make the number of civil war widows reach the makimum in 1917.