256 



CONGRESS. (PENSIONS.) 



diers n ot of officers, but of soldiers who are 

 receiving a less rate of pension than $12 per 

 month shall be increased to $12 per month. 

 The increase in nearly all cases is from $8 to 

 $12 per month. There are a very few cases, 

 perhaps less than twenty in number, upon the 

 pension-roll, in cases of the widows of warrant 

 officers of the navy, where $10 per month is 

 given, but the substantial provision of this bill 

 is an increase of pensions of widows of soldiers 

 from $8 a month to $12 a month. 



" The provisions of the bill also apply to de- 

 pendent fathers and mothers who are drawing 

 pensions on account of the death of their sons. 



" I apprehend the proposition in reference 

 to which this House wishes to be informed is 

 as to what this is going to cost the people and 

 the Government. A very careful estimate was 

 made less than two years since, based upon the 

 number of this class of pensioners upon the 

 roll, an estimate based, too, upon the number 

 of applications then pending of that kind, and 

 the total cost was estimated by a gentleman 

 who was thoroughly familiar with the Pension- 

 Office, having served there for twenty years, 

 and having been chief of the miscellaneous 

 division, whose duty it was to make such esti- 

 mate for the benefit of the Commissioner of 

 Pensions and the Secretary of the Interior, and 

 he fixed the cost at something over $5,000,000 

 less than $6,000,000. 



"I wish to say further in relation to this 

 matter that this rate of $8 was passed in 1816, 

 just after the War of 1812, and at that time it 

 was the full pay of the soldier. This Govern- 

 ment thought then when the soldier was killed 

 in battle, or gave his life to the country in any 

 way, his widow should be entitled to receive 

 the pay her husband was receiving when he 

 was in the Government service. Since that 

 time the pay of a private soldier has been in- 

 creased and has varied from $11 to $13 and 

 up to $16 a month. The proposition has been 

 urged upon Congress to follow out the original 

 principle, and to give to these widows and de- 

 pendent parents the same pay that the soldier 

 was receiving at the time he lost his life ; but 

 the committee thought it fit and wise to com- 

 promise by adopting a sum which bore a re- 

 lation between tne two extremes which had 

 been paid, and therefore we have fixed upon a 

 sum that is between the highest and the lowest 

 rates paid for the service of the soldier, $8 

 being the lowest and $16 the highest. 



" There is another thing, Mr. Chairman, to 

 which I desire to call the attention of the com- 

 mittee, and that is that this bill applies to all 

 widows of the soldiers of the wars in which 

 this country has been engaged who are now 

 on the rolls, and there is not a community 

 throughout all the length and breadth of this 

 land in which there is not some humble home 

 in which light and joy will be shed by the ac- 

 tion of this Congress in passing this bill. Eight 

 dollars a month at this time, when it costs more 

 to live than it did when the rate was fixed by 



law, is not enough to support these old people. 

 These widows and dependent relatives are 

 growing old. I have received, I may safely 

 say, since this proposition has been pending in 

 Congress, thousands of letters from all parts of 

 the country from these old women addressed 

 to me, some of the writers stating that they 

 were then over ninety years of age, all of them 

 begging and asking this additional four dollars 

 a month in order to enable them to live com- 

 fortably, or with a little more comfort, during 

 the few remaining years of their lives. Now I 

 have said this much in explanation of this bill, 

 and I apprehend that there will be no very 

 serious opposition to its passage." 



In criticism of the measure, Mr. Reagan, of 

 Texas, said : 



"The policy of pensioning soldiers who have 

 been disabled in the military service of the 

 country and thereby rendered unable to earn 

 a livelihood and support their families, the pol- 

 icy of pensioning the widows of such soldiers 

 who have lost their lives in the service I 

 mean those who were their widows at that 

 time is a just and beneficent policy. No one 

 would more cheerfully than myself vote pen- 

 sions for such soldiers and such widows. We 

 have pension laws providing, it would seem, 

 for all the conditions that appeal to public jus- 

 tice. And yet, notwithstanding these laws, 

 notwithstanding the Pension Office is open to 

 all entitled to pensions under the laws, we have 

 a deluge of private bills for pensioning the sol- 

 diers of the war, or those who profess to be 

 soldiers of the war, each session of Congress. 

 And instead of the number diminishing, it is 

 constantly increasing. 



" I witnessed a scene on this floor in passing 

 a bill giving arrearages of pension, I believe it 

 was, when Democrats were urged to vote for it 

 by Democrats, because it would give them the 

 soldier-vote, as the Senate would defeat it any- 

 how; and Republicans were urged by Repub- 

 licans to vote for it as they would get ahead of 

 the Democrats for the soldier- vote, and because 

 the Senate would defeat it anyhow. It went 

 through this House, as any bill will go through 

 this House that proposes a pension, and when 

 it got to the Senate it went through that body 

 with as great unanimity as it did through this. 



" Now, Mr. Chairman, I had a friend in Con- 

 gress a few years ago from the State of Ken- 

 tucky, who had in mind a proposition which 

 he thought would settle all this trouble, satisfy 

 all parties; adjust the political trouble. It 

 proposed to pension everybody in the United 

 States, and give life-pay to retiring members 

 of Congress. This, it seems to me, was a good 

 bid. It seems when we are struggling for po- 

 litical power, if I should make this bid I would 

 go as far as anybody could go to benefit my 

 party by pensioning everybody and giving life- 

 pay to retiring members of Congress. 



"But what is this to come to? No one can 

 doubt, no one will doubt, that I am correct in 

 saying instead of the supreme and sole motive 



