Jasper County Democrat, Volume 17, Number 101, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 March 1915 — THE PENSION LIST. [ARTICLE]

THE PENSION LIST.

"In the fifty years since the civil war ended the American people have paid to its survivors or their dependents $4,500,000,000,” asserts a writer in the World’s Work. This sum is beyond ordinary comprehension, but that it is large .enough to represent a fairly adequate return for the service performed is certainly within the grasp of ordinary comprehension. The . pensioning of wounded and disabled soldiers began immediately after the war. In 1866 the government was paying s abput $15,000,000. annually to survivors. By 1880 this had groWn to $56,000,000, and in 1889 to The sums were paid out under the pension law, which provided only for invalids, that is, men wounded or otherwise physically disabled during the war. With each increase of

the pension fund it was predicted that the country had - taken on a financial burden which could not be increased and borne, but in the light of later happenings these predictions sound absurd.

In 1872 it was estimated by Pension Commissioner Baker that all veterans entitled to a pension had made application, and that the pension roll had attained its maximum length. Subsequent developments, however, showed that only about a third of the legitimate pensiofiers had taken advantage of the government's generosity. .Many had not applied for the season that they iookedupon a pension as a kind of charity; others maintained that it was pay for patriotism, which was not a pturchasable quality ;'and many more .who were in comfortable cirurtstances had never felt the need of the money, and hence had never tied to get what was coining t-o them. But then began an era when i-mtsion doctors and pension lawyers worked up a flourishing trade as pension getters. They advertised extensively and scoured the whole uuntry for eligible applicants. Many veterans reached an age when injttries which had once been thought slight became acute handicaps, ana ■ ’•ey joined the throng of appli-

/’H.’. A: .cclations of veterans also interested themselves in securing ilie passage of more liberal pension laws, and almost before the country knew how far the matter had been allowed lo go it was carrying a pension burden which twenty years before it had declared no nation could carry without inviting bankruptcy. In 18 79 a law was passed which provided that veterans who qualified as invalided pensioners before January 1, 1881, would receive full pensions from the time of their injuries. Under this law a veteran mounded in 1 865, and placdd on the pension list in 1880, received as first payment back pension for the preceding fifteen years. There was a rush to take advantage of this, ■ •;ir h increased the pension apitro-i-iiation from $33,000,000 in 18 79 ■?o 5>55,090,000 in 1880, and it has been estimated that this act has cos't the government to date $200,000,000. Another law which greatly increased pension expenditures was that which provided that a widow should receive a pension from the day her husband died. Both.of these acts encouraged fraud, and was frequently practiced. Widows concealed facts about later marriages which they had contracted, and veterans long since dead were impersonated by unscrupulous persons in the employ of agents, it is a matter of record in the pension office that one man received a pension for having a “normal heart,” and another for having a “sallow complexion,” both acquired in the service of their country. ... Beginning in 1890 the government introduced a new principle into its pension .legislation. Until that time pensions were granted <lhly- to those veterans or their dependents who wdre actually suffering on account of injuries sustained during the war. But in 1890 it was decided that inasmuch as the veterans were beginning to show traces of age, they needed further help. They became invalids of nature’s

maklng, and a new pension law was passed providing pensions for all veterans, regardless of whether thfey were disabled in service. Pensions of from six j; to twelve dollars a month were all veterans who could not work. In three years ..this ran the pension expenditures from $86,000,000 up to $157,000,000, and increased the pension list fi/om 489,000 to 566,000. Now the advocates of a straight pension of a $1 a day to all veterans are multiplying and it is not unlikely shat before many years the -government will be supporShg all veterans of the war.