Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 34, Number 96, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 August 1902 — RUSH FOR PENSIONS. [ARTICLE]

RUSH FOR PENSIONS.

Flood of Applications Filed by Spanish War Veterans. Pension Commissioner Ware was very much astonished when the pension applications growing out of the Spanish-Amer-ican war were submitted to him. A comparative statement of the records of five regiments of volunteers and five regiments of regulars w'hich were before, Santiago shows that there has been great industry on the part of the pension attorneys. Commissioner Ware had heard that there were many applications from veterans of the Spanish-American war, but the figures were far greater than he had imagined. Western and Southern regiments have been much less active than Northern and Eastern regiments in their attempts to draw money from the United States treasury. When the Eighth Ohio landed in Cuba -it had 1.330 members. Veterans of this regiment and relatives of deceased members have filed 705 pension claims. The government is asked to pay pensions for the services of 53 per cent of the men who served in that regiment. This regiment was much larger than most regiments which served in the Spanish war. Consequently its greater number of pension applications will not bring the percentage of applicants above that of many others. A company which served in a certain volunteer regiment of a Northern State had a captain who was a pension attorney. He did not forget his former profession when he left the service, and it is said that practically every member of that company has an application filed for a pension.