The above statement covers amount of pensions paid and all other expenses incident to the maintenance of the service.

PENSIONS.

"High-Water Mark."

The last year of the Harrison administration there was paid out for pensions-fiscal year ending June 30, 1893$156,806,537.94.

In June, 1893, under the Cleveland administration, a Board of Revision was created-the action of the previous administration was reviewed, thousands of cases were reduced and dropped, so that for the year 1894, the first year of that administration, there was paid for pensions, $139,986,626.17, or a reduction of $16,819,911.87.

Dropped by Board of Revision in 1895 .
Reduced

1895

COMPARATIVE.

6,428 20,359

Exhibit of droppings from rolls for the six years ending June 30th, 1900, for each year, viz. :

The fact that different rules and different interpretations of the same laws have been established in the execution of pension legislation, makes it clearly apparent that a pension court of appeals should be provided, so as to insure the fair and impartial judicial settlement of all disputed claims for pensions, in a competent court specially authorized to deal with. such cases. Your administration brought this subject to the attention of the President of the United States, and submitted a bill for his consideration to carry into effect

the recommendations made to him as detailed in a letter accompanying the same. It was afterwards decided to present the bill to Congress and it was introduced in both the Senate and the House of Representatives in the closing days of the last session, too late to be acted upon. This proposed Bill provides what is believed to be ample ways and means for promptly and satisfactorily adjudicating the more than 14,000 appeal cases now pending and in a way just to applicants and to the government. The full details of this measure were submitted to Congress when the Bill was introduced, and to this interesting data reference is made for an intelligent understanding of this most important proposed legislation. In view of the conceded justice and need of this measure, opinions entertained by leading jurists of the country, comrades are urgently requested to do all in their power to secure its early passage by Congress.

The time has come for promptly disposing of all appeal cases in the Pension Office before a judicial tribunal worthy of the veterans who saved this Republic to full freedom in the sixties. From a careful consideration of the whole subject your Commander-in-Chief feels that the early passage of this Pension Court of Appeals Bill would relieve public men from a vast amount of letter writing and secure prompt justice to all applicants for a pension, and place the Pension Department on a basis of legal adjudication of pension cases, at once generally satisfactory and commandingly just to all interests concerned. Generous pension laws are one thing, and their proper and legal execution is quite another matter-as the action of the Pension Office furnishes abundant proof during the past few years.

What is needed, beyond doubt, is a Pension Court of Appeals to provide interpretations of the law in a competent court, with high judicial functions, so that there shall hereafter be no grounds for charging that political consideration of party policy, or the personal idiosyncracies of pension officials pervert the true purpose of the pension laws from being impartially carried out. Your Commander-in-Chief has given this proposed measure his hearty support, and regards it as among the most useful and most desirable pension measures

ever introduced into Congress. It should early become a law, and so settle for all time to come, the constantly arising irritations and complaints in the line of pension applicants. And this proposed court would be desirable in settling claims for pensions under the Spanish-American war and any future

wars.

UNHAPPY IRRITATIONS.

It is a source of great regret that the Pension Department is widely criticised by a large number of worthy applicants for pensions, under the belief that their claims are not treated in a liberal and just way, under the present administration of the pension laws. Such a state of feeling is greatly to be deplored for it gives rise to irritations of an unfortunate and unhappy sort.

Your Commander-in-Chief has given diligent and painstaking attention to many of these complaints, and loyal efforts have been made to compose the unhappy feeling of dissatisfaction that exists, in this connection. The impartial and worthy execution of our pension laws unquestionably calls for great prudence and wisdom on the part of those charged with the duty of their adjudication. The great weakness undoubtedly to be found is the faulty present system in force in the Pension Office. Nothing should be left to individual interpretation. It is not so much the question of officials as it is of a proper judicial system, in the execution of our generous pension laws. With the proposed Pension Court of Appeals once duly organized, the whole atmosphere of the Pension Office would be quickly changed into as harmonious and popular a branch of the government as are those of the Departments of the Treasury, of the Post Office and of Justice. For then the law would be effective under high judicial interpretation.

Your Commander-in-Chief believes that the passage of the proposed Pension Court of Appeals Bill would bring harmony and settle, once for all, the vexing questions and irritations now so pronounced in the Pension Office, through its wise provisions for interpreting the pension laws and ability to speedily clear the appeal cases now burdening the files of the Department of the Interior. And this view, strongly held,

leads to the urgent and repeated appeals made in this address for comrades to neglect no opportunity to aid in securing the passage of this most important and righteous measure. With it peace and concord and full justice in pension cases would be secured without it, no end of heart burnings and irritations will continue.

VETERANS IN PUBLIC SERVICE.

The able and well-advised reference to the important topic of "Veterans in the Public Service" in the annual report of Department Commander Kay of New York is so pertinent that I include a portion herewith. He says:

"Not much less important than the pension question is that which affects the veteran in his desire to earn a living. No pension can compensate the want of employment. No honor can come to the government that fails through neglect, or refuses to assist its soldiers and sailors honorably discharged, by a reasonable preference in the public service. Particularly those who volunteer. * * * * * * While the people of the State of New York, through popular vote, have engrafted into the Constitution, a suitable recognition of the veterans of the Civil War, giving them a tangible preference in the civil service, no act of Congress has ever been passed, through which as a matter of right, those who served out their terms of enlistment, or were discharged from service at the close of the Great War, even though wounded a dozen times, receive any consideration under the National Government, in the public service. Nothing but a recommendatory statute, Sec. 1775, signed by our martyr President, Abraham Lincoln, more honored in breach than by observance, by government and employes alike, evidences the gratitude-or lack of it-shown by the Congress to the men who saved the Union. This is not so through any failure in way of effort. Time and again, for the past twenty years, attention has been called to the matter, bills have been introduced to bring it about, but never meeting with success. *** *

In view of the long years of earnest efforts put forth by this faithful comrade in this connection, special attention is