would be grave doubts whether these could ever be obtained. With this view of the situation a plan of campaign was early agreed upon, and the work begun. Your Commanderin-Chiet appealed to the public conscience of the nation in two addresses-one delivered in New York and the other in Washington-in behalf behalf of right and righteousness concerning the pension problem and demanding the fulfillment of the pledged faith of the people in all pension matters. These addresses were widely distributed and without much expense to our organization.

It should be stated that a comrade contributed money to print 10,000 copies of the second speech, and a lady friend, through Governor Theodore Roosevelt, gave a similar amount for printing extra copies of both speeches, for free distribution to the comrades. This liberality will receive your full commendation. This unknown "friend" "' sent me $500, by the hand of the Governor, for use in aid of deserving objects in connection with the Grand Army, and it affords me the greatest pleasure to thus acknowledge the good that has been done by reason of this thoughtful and generous donation. It has carried sunshine to many sorely burdened souls in our Order.

The result of the publication of the addresses was a deepened interest in this much discussed problem. Your pension committee formulated such amendments as bore out the recommendations of the Thirty-third National Encampment, and pressed them upon the attention of the Congress with resolute courage and unfailing dignity and earnestness. To keep alive the interest in this work, your Commander-in-Chief made a tour of visitations through southern departments and constantly pressed to the front the objects sought in the legislation in question. The claim made, was that our pension laws were most liberal and in the main satisfactory, and that the complaints made were generally against their interpretation by those charged with their execution. To avoid irritation of an unhappy sort, amendments were thought necessary so as to make clear the meaning of our pension laws, beyond the changing rules established for executing them by different officials.

It is a source of great gratification to be able to state that the amendments to the pension law of 1890 proposed by your administration were unanimously passed by the Congress and that every speech made was in their favor. And it is believed that with a liberal and just execution of present pension laws, little further in way of pension legislation will be necessary to secure for the great majority of the dependent saviors of the Nation the fulfillment of the pledged faith of the people in behalf of those who periled their all, in the morning of their lives, for Liberty and Union. The report of the Pension Committee will give full details of its work, and your special and close consideration is drawn to this important review of the year's efforts along pension lines. In view of the high character and prominence of the members of this committee, your Commander-in-Chief has left this branch of the work of the Grand Army to be mainly presented by them to the Encampment.

PENSION OFFICE OFFICIAL DATA.

Through the courtesy of the Honorable Commissioner of Pensions, H. Clay Evans, the following official data is furnished for the information of comrades. Your Commander-inChief submits these most interesting and instructive facts as worthy of the considerate judgment of comrades and the country:

MEMORANDUM.

Showing number of Pension Certificates issued in fi-cal year ending June 30, 1900, by classes, viz. :

Number of claims of all kinds-Originals, Increase, Reratings,

Allowances and rejections of Original Claims for fiscal years ending

Number of cases on appeal from action of Bureau of Pensions to the Department of the Interior showing number of cases affirmed and number of cases reversed for the four years ending June 30, 1900:

MEMO. Of the 378 reversed in 1900-78 are not reversals strictly speaking; 64 of these were sent back for Special Examination in the field; 14 were sent back for Test Medical Examination-about the same per cent for other years prevail.

Amount paid for Pensions for account of Army

and Navy from 1866 to June 30, 1900 . . $2,528,373,147 18

Total amount paid for Pensions during President Grant's first administration:

MEMO. The first year of the McKinley administration carried over all the June (1893) allowances and paid them out of the 1894 appropriation, thereby avoiding a deficiency.

Disbursements for Pensions and Maintenance of System from July 1st, 1865, to June 30th, 1900: