individuals were true or false, viz: Claims that the nation's pension roll is not a roll of honor, but is padded with fraudulent pensions, and that the old soldiers of the War of the Rebellion are cheats and frauds.

So widespread and numerous were these serious assertions that even the great patriotic masses of our countrymen began to fear that the assertions were founded in fact; hence it was decided that they would know the truth and publish it as their first and greatest duty to the generation of young men who offered and gave their lives to their country in 1861 to 1865.

A series of searching questions was carefully prepared and submitted to the Commissioner of Pensions, and these questions were promptly, cheerfully and carefully answered after an exhaustive search of the records of the Pension Bureau. Inquiries were instituted in different States and Departments. Prominent old soldiers were consulted. The number of pensioners among the members of different Posts of the G. A. R. was found, their standing, the merits of their claims considered, etc.

"In one State a very prominent ex-soldier, a scholar and teacher of deserved and enviable reputation, made a careful study of this claim of "Fraud in Pensions," as far as the ex-soldiers in his State was concerned. He had every facility afforded him, and through the various State, county and town organizations he gathered his data conscientiously and exhaustively and to your committee he reported the result of his patriotic and laborious investigation, and it was "Not one Soldier Pension Fraud in the whole State." Your committee have neither time nor space allowed them in this brief report to give all the evidence considered by them, but they give with pride and satisfaction their unanimous verdict that the pension roll of the United States is a roll of honor; that the soldiers and sailors who fought the battles of their country and now are receiving pensions on account of their wounds and disability are worthy of their country's gratitude and the respect of their fellow citi

zens.

"Your committee do not deny that frauds are sometimes attempted and thus the Pension Bureau is deceived, but these attempts are comparatively few in number and very seldom traced to a soldier or sailor who served during the War of the Rebellion.

"It is not fair argument to try to prove that our courts are venal and rotten because perjury and subordination of perjury lead them into error and injustice at times; and because that abomination, the dishonest pension attorney, often tries and sometimes succeeds in foisting upon the Pension Bureau fraudulent claims for pretended widows and other dependents, it does not follow and it is not true that the pension rolls are padded with frauds.

"It is one of the principal claims, kept in stock by the enemies and slanderers of the old soldiers, that there are more pensioners on the rolls

than there were soldiers in the army. In this connection permit us to quote from the report of an expert and most reliable gentleman, who gives the committee the result of his research:

"It has been definitely ascertained from an examination of the records of the War Department that there were 2,213,365 individuals in the military and naval service of the United States during the War of the Rebellion, of which number 1,727,353 were alive when the war closed (all deserters excluded). In 1890, according to the estimates made by the War Department, based upon careful investigation, there were 1,285,471 survivors of the war living, while the Census reports showed only 1,034,073. The Census reports are believed not to be correct for the reason that a great many ex-soldiers were not in the country during the time the Census was taken, while many others failed to be enumerated as such. When the investigation was made by the War Department they had the Census figures as a guide, and reached the conclusion that the figures were too low. By the same method the War Department estimates the number of survivors on June 30, 1897, at 1,095,628.

"Now let us examine the report of the Commissioner of Pensions for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1897, and we find that there were then on the rolls the names of 733,527 soldiers who are drawing pensions. This includes all the pensioners of the regular army and navy who contracted their disabilities before the war and since 1865. And while it is impossible to determine the number of such persons, it is perhaps not far from 33,000, which number deducted from the whole number leaves about 700,000 whose service was in the War of the Rebellion.

"This leaves about 395,000 survivors who have not yet been pensioned and effectually disposes of the charge that there are more pensioners than survivors of the war.

"Again, take the Commissioner's report which shows that on June 30, 1897, there were 187,500 original invalid claims pending not yet adjudicated. This would leave more than 200,000 survivors who are not pensioned and who had no claims pending on June 30, 1897.

"I give you those figures to show that there is very little, if any, foundation in the charge that the pension rolls are 'padded,' and as you know the facilities which the Pension Office possesses for preventing fraud and the careful scrutiny which it gives to all claims makes it next to impossible for one to practice false personation in getting on the rolls.

"We are informed that possibly 60,000 men from the regular army have been pensioned since the War of the Rebellion closed. There were on June 30, 1897, 16 pensioners of the Revolutionary War (9 daughters and 7 widows). There were 2,817 pensioners of the War of 1812 on the roll. There were, from the Indian Wars 1832 to 1842, 6,661 pensioners. There were from the Mexican War 18,999 pensioners. Then there are the pensioners drawing pensions under special Acts of Congress. Yet

all these above enumerated pensioners are not considered as swelling the number and amount when unjust, unkind or thoughtless critics attack the old soldier pensioner of the War of the Rebellion and lay at his door the charges which their ignorance or malice or both are all too ready to make.

"These unjust critics never have a word to say in commendation of the great army of soldiers of the War of the Rebellion, larger than the great army recently assembled to fight Spain, who fought on every battlefield of the Republic from Bull Run to Appomattox, and have never asked nor ever will, if they can help it, one cent from their country for the services they freely gave her.

"Our Government has paid to pension attorneys fees out of the first payment of the soldier's pensions during the nine years ending June 30, 1897, $13,600,000, and we ask if some method cannot be adopted by the Government whereby this or a large part of this outlay in the future can be saved to the old soldier by having this work done for him without charge by or through its agents.

"To the great number of our comrades from all parts of our country who have written to us requesting us to do something for them or the plans and schemes they have honestly believed we should advocate and press before Congress and elsewhere, we express our regret that time and strength in most cases have rendered it quite impossible for us to even answer their letters, but we believe we have done what we have in the interest of the greatest good of the greatest number. And in this connection let us say that the Commissioner of Pensions has always shown your committee the greatest courtesy, listened to any and all suggestions, and always expressed the desire and determination to do all in his power for the deserving soldier, but relentlessly to pursue all frauds and eliminate from the roll all fraudulent pensions he could discover, and in this he should and will have the active sympathy and assistance of every true soldier of the Republic. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1898, the Pension Bureau has allowed 56,737 pensions which includes originals and restorations. The number of original claims allowed by the Pension Bureau during the past fiscal year was largely in excess of the entire number of claims allowed either during the whole four years of the second administration of General Grant or of that of the entire administration of President Hayes.

"While serious hardships are inevitable in many cases, while deserving men cannot prove their claims or bring their cases within the laws, and some worthy and needy men fail to get pensions while others, seemingly less deserving, do receive the nation's bounty, still we must remember that no human law was ever framed uuder which perfect justice can be done; that fraud, error and misfortune will creep in to injure and deprive of rights, but notwithstanding some faults and shortcoming in the pension laws and their execution, we bear willing testimony to the

fact of the justice and generosity of our country over all other nations to its soldiers, and when we are disposed to doubt this let us remember the stream of gold steadily flowing in small sums from the nation's treasury into the hands of the hundreds of thousands of needy soldiers or their dependents, and then thank God we are Americans.

We say to the unfriendly newspapers and critics: When you are tempted to criticise and growl over the pensions granted to men who are carrying through life the heavy burdens of wounds and disease consequent to the battle-fields, the exposure and hardships of camp, march and bivouac, just pause a moment and remember that time is fast removing these pensioners at the rate of between 30,000 and 40,000 each year, and as the years go on the death roll rapidly increases. Look at this table for the last six years:

Pensioners, died and dropped from other causes.

So that by 1920 there will be left but 251,727 survivors, and in 1945 there will not be a single survivor of the soldiers of the War of the Rebellion. The Pension Bureau burden is being rapidly solved by the common enemy-Death.

And now, comrades, pardon us if we make one request in the face of the all too frequent assertion we have met while acting in your service, viz: That all the business done, all the eloquence expended at the annual meetings of the Grand Army of the Republic centers around the constant and familiar cry, “Give us more pensions!"

We know this to be false and most unjust, but in the name of our holy cause, of the lives so freely offered and given that our country might live a nation honored by all the world, let us in our Encampments insist upon justice to the nation's pensioners, but also keep constantly and prominently before us the other high and noble objects and aims of our patriotic order into the fellowship of which no man can enter who has not offered his life to his country.

W. W. BLACKMAR, of Massachusetts.
R. B. BROWN, of Ohio.
HALBERT B. CASE.

Committee on Pensions.

COMRADE TANNER, of New York: Commander-in-Chief and comrades, in the main that report is an admirable one. With most of its conclusions, I can heartily agree. There are some things, it

seems to me, to which attention should be called. One thing that has struck me is in regard to the statements in the Washington Press as to the Pension Office.

As to the mail matter received by the Commissioner of Pensions, I wonder if there should be subtracted from that six million of letters those forwarded to him pouring out indignation and demanding redress, whether a large reduction would be made. I make a passing allusion to that.

It is well to understand that at the time specified under Grant the sum total of all claims in the office was 300,000. It then took in regular order two years to get a return of a soldier's record from the Adjutant General's Office owing to the small force. Then there were three hundred clerks only in the Pension Office, and to-day there are over sixteen hundred.

I wish I could go to the full extent of the committee's conclusions and join in their commendation of the Commissioner of Pensions and say that he has displayed the spirit that he should towards the true claimant, but hard, stubborn facts force me to a different conclusion. I hold myself perfectly responsible for what I contend here or elsewhere, and do not hesitate to say to my comrades from all quarters of the United States that the present Commissioner of Pensions said one morning in a meeting of his chiefs of division, working himself into a passion, "I tell you when you find a claim for pension based upon alleged deafness or rheumatism it is a fraud and I won't have it, and if I find men here who will not do as I wish who are chiefs of division, I will get other men."

A comrade rose to a point of order that the question is upon the adoption of the report of the Committee on Pensions, and this is neither time nor place to indulge in personal attacks or personal abuse of anybody or any person or any official, and much less an ex-soldier of the Union army.

COMRADE TANNER: I venture to suggest that when I indulge in a personal attack the Commander-in-Chief will stop me.

THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF: The chair would hold that the object of the discussion, and the subject matter now is the Pension Office and the manner in which the pensioner has been treated by those to whom has been committed the care of the Pension Office,