Veterans' pension

“ Various veteran bodies will present to you recommendations which should have your careful consideration. At the last session we increased our annual expenditure for pensions and relief on account of the veterans of three wars. While I approve of proper relief for all suffering, I do not favor any further extension of our pension system at this time. ”

“ So far from the pension being an inducement to self-maintenance in earlier years, the fact that a pension is due shortly is made a reason for asking for out-relief in the interim. And so relief is made to breed relief. But a further irony of fate remains to be recorded. When the Old Age Pensions Act was passed the greatest stress was laid upon the condition that old age pensioners or the "veterans of labour" should be entirely dissociated from all contact with the Poor Law. ”

“ We denounce the expensive red-tape system, political favoritism, cruel and unnecessary delay and criminal evasion of the statutes in the management of the Pension Office, and demand the simple and honest execution of the law, and the fulfilment by the nation of its pledges of service pension to all its honorably discharged veterans. ”

“ Old age pensioners, many at least of whom might have provided for their own old age by reasonable prudence in their earlier years, are designated without distinction as the "veterans of labour." Since the removal of the pauper disqualification a good many people who have been in receipt of parochial relief for years have become these veterans of labour, and have obtained, or are qualifying for, an old age pension. ”

“ Congress passed a law whereby those people receiving pensions, who entered soldiers’ homes or hospitals had to pay that money either to the superintendent of the hospital, the President of the Soldiers’ Home, or the Governor of the Home, to be cared for the benefit of the pensioner. Those who had beneficiaries at home received the benefit of their portion of the pension under supervision of the Pension Office, the Pension Office having machinery to find out what beneficiaries had dependents, etc., and what proportion of the pension should be paid to them. ”

“ This act, putting comparatively large sums of money within the reach of pensioners, excited the greed of many veterans, and served to establish the procuring of pensions in great quantities as a regular industry and one of the most profitable in the country. ”

“ No other class of our citizens deserves so well of the Nation as those to whom the Nation owes its very being, the veterans of the civil war. Special attention is asked to the excellent work of the Pension Bureau in expediting and disposing of pension claims. ”

“ The pension list, at the close of Harrison's administration in 1892, amounted to a sum greater than Germany annually expends on its gigantic army. So far as the pensioners are genuinely disabled veterans, the people make no complaint, appreciating the sacrifices which the soldiers were compelled to make in the dreadful contest. ”

“ Provided further, That no pension shall be granted under this regulation for disability not shown to be due to service or for age if the person served less than ninety days and was not discharged for disability incurred in the service in line of duty: And provided further, That persons who meet the requirements of the laws in effect March 19, 1933, and who were not on the rolls on March 19, 1933, shall, subject to the limitations of this regulation, be entitled to receive pension upon the filing of such claim as may be prescribed by the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs. ”

“ You may not receive enhanced or special monthly pension without first establishing eligibility for VA pension. However, enhanced pension is based on a higher income limit. For this reason, a claimant who is not eligible for basic pension may still qualify for increased pension benefits. You may not receive pension at the A&A and Housebound rate at the same time. ”

“ These regulations, like many to be found in pension laws, disclose a purpose to safeguard to beneficiaries the appropriations and payments made for their benefit (United States v. Hall, 98 U.S. 343, 353, 25 L.Ed. 180; Westfall v. United States, 274 U.S. 256, 47 S.Ct. 629, 71 L.Ed. 1036) and evince special solicitude for the protection of veterans who by reason of mental incompetency are unable to protect themselves. ”

“ The liberal provisions made by Congress for paying pensions to invalid soldiers and sailors of the Republic and to the widows, orphans, and dependent mothers of those who have fallen in battle or died of disease contracted or of wounds received in the service of their country have been diligently administered. There have been added to the pension rolls during the year ending the 30th day of June last the names of 16,770 invalid soldiers and of 271 disabled seamen, making the present number of army invalid pensioners 22,767 and of navy invalid pensioners 712. ”

“ These poor fellows, with knapsacks larger than a mule should be required to carry, received these taunts and jeers with silent disgust; and quite likely the most of them at this time are drawing pensions for disabilities received in the service and in the line of duty, while the old veteran of 193scores of battles and skirmishes, of hundreds of miles of marches, though broken in health, and prematurely old by reason of his hard service, has no hospital record, and suffers great difficulties in establishing his claim for a pension. ”

“ Injured French and German soldiers had revealed a similar indisposition to undergo vocational retraining lest their pensions be withdrawn. The Canadian Government took an indulgent view of this feeling and adopted a new army regulation providing that no deductions should be made from the amount of pension awarded owing to a pensioner undertaking work or qualifying himself in a new industry. As already indicated, a man was pensioned because of his disability in the open labor market, and was not determined by his earning capacity. ”

“ Service-pensions were granted to all survivors of the Revolutionary War by act of 1818, to all survivors of the War of 1812 by act of 1871, to the survivors of the Mexican War by act of 1887 and to Civil War veterans in 1904. But the bulk of United States pensions are invalid-pensions for wounds or disability incurred in service. ”

“ Every crippled soldier who has really been disabled by battle-wounds must share his earned reward with men who never did a dollar's worth of service. He must drag along with him to the pension-office a dozen "comrades" who never saw a battle and who never received the slightest injury to body, health, or limb.
"Veteran diseases" are those miraculous ailments which rage unsuspected in the bodies of old soldiers until seductive pension laws bring them to the notice of the sufferers. The Arrears of Pensions Bill is responsible for over a hundred thousand veteran diseases. ”

“ If there has been any neglect or delay in granting pensions, it has been caused by the vast number of applications—more than a million—and the difficulty as time passes in securing the necessary proof. The pension list now, thirty years after the war, requires annually the sum of more than $150,000,000, or three times the amount of all the expenses of the national government before the war. ”

“ It can only make him unpopular among those whose approbation he would like to have. Secondly, he thinks that a general pension law is the only plan by which the worthy soldiers can be placed on a level of reward with the unworthy claimants who never did any good service, but who have no delicacy and no scruples about getting on the pension-rolls. He says: "There are many brave, needy, and deserving soldiers who will never make application for a pension, therefore let the Government offer it." ”

“ Numerous applications for pensions, based upon the casualties of the existing war, have already been made. There is reason to believe that many who are now upon the pension rolls and in receipt of the bounty of the Government are in the ranks of the insurgent army or giving them aid and comfort. The Secretary of the Interior has directed a suspension of the payment of the pensions of such persons upon proof of their disloyalty. I recommend that Congress authorize that officer to cause the names of such persons to be stricken from the pension rolls. ”

“ But to repay the retired soldier by a pension inadequate to his sustenance, must have the effect of consigning him to the workhouse, and of sinking him and the army in the estimation of the working class of the population; destroying all military feeling, and, whilst the soldier is serving, weakening those important aids to discipline—the cheerfulness and satisfaction which the prospect of a pension, after a definite period, inspires. ”

“ In reviewing the pension legislation presented to me many bills have been approved upon the theory that every doubt should be resolved in favor of the proposed beneficiary. I have not, however, been able to entirely divest myself of the idea that the public money appropriated for pensions is the soldiers' fund, which should be devoted to the indemnification of those who in the defense of the Union and in the nation's service have worthily suffered, and who in the day of their dependence resulting from such suffering are entitled to the benefactions of their Government. ”

“ With their headquarters in Washington and their agencies in every State, these pension-attorney firms flooded the land with their circulars, approaching every veteran personally to persuade him that he could have a pension, whether he had sustained any injury in the war or whether he was able to make a living or not, and that they would help him to it. Tens if not hundreds of thousands of pensioners may therefore truthfully say that while they did not think of applying for pensions, they were urged upon them by the attorneys. ”

“ There are also retirement pensions for officers and enlisted men in the regular Army. Officers at the age of 64 must be retired, with no option, on three-fourths pay.
No American state has established any system of old age pensions, although many Southern states provide for Confederate veterans; but many states or cities have provided for firemen, policemen, teachers, and certain other public employees. ”

“ How carefully Miss Richmond, appealing to our judgment and sound sense, figures out the seemingly fabulous sums that might have been saved to fight tuberculosis and feeble-mindedness, from the sums wasted in soldiers pensions. But why, I ask, is the whole country spell-bound, helpless and hopeless at the prospect of the mounting pension ladder? If we admit that the granting of pensions to disabled soldiers was right, why attack the principle instead of the abuse of the practise? ”

“ But while we should be actuated by this spirit to the soldier himself, care should be exercised not to go to absurd lengths, or distribute the bounty of the Government to classes of persons who may, at this late day, from a mere mercenary motive, seek to obtain some legal relation with an old veteran now tottering on the brink of the grave. The true spirit of the pension laws is to be found in the noble sentiments expressed by Mr. ”

“ Those who attempt in the line of duty to rectify these wrongs should not be accused of enmity or indifference to the claims of honest veterans. The sum expended on account of pensions for the year ending June 30, 1893, was $156,740,467.14. ”

“ He said he felt that he might just as well apply for a pension on account of inheriting rheumatism from an uncle who fought in the Mexican war, and he would wait until the government did not insist on a veteran having such an abnormal memory about sneezing during the war, as a basis for pension claims, and when it got so a pension would come to a soldier by simply looking up his record, and examining his physical condition, he would take a pension. ”

“ The number of names on the pension roll, not counting the applicants, is much larger than was the number of men in active service at any period of the war. We are paying more for pensions than all other nations together. Our pension expenditure is heavier than the expenditure of the largest military power on earth for its military establishment. ”

“ If one of them serves thirty years of his life in such a position he should surely be entitled to retire on half pay, as a fireman or policeman does, and if he becomes totally incapacitated through accident or sickness, or loses his health in the discharge of his duty, he or his family should receive a pension just as any soldier should. ”

“ It might not be a bad idea to consider pensioning mothers, as we pension soldiers after the battle is fought, after they have gone through the valley of the shadow, after they have slaved, and toiled and suffered and reared their children to manhood and womanhood, to guarantee them a peaceful, happy old age by providing a “pension.” But while they are engaged in the service of the State, in saving the State by saving the child, I insist, where it is necessary to enable them to do their part in the battle, they should be paid—they should be compensated. ”

“ In the same country pensioners are compelled to imprint their thumbs upon receipts for pension money, and thus obviate the likelihood of other persons drawing the stipend rightfully belonging to the veteran. ”