Show Z U F A 0 al 0 5 41 Y thines 4 Z 0 r the B by ELMO WATSON w HAT Is the most expensive thing j in the world E no it Is not a rare metal nor n I 1 j a precious stone nor any of the tl J other thin things g s which we common s ly think of when the adjectives lv f expensive or costly are applied a to them ew y the most expensive thing in 1 the world Is wart warl for war while it Is in pro ress not only y exacts a fearful bearfi toll of lives careers and money mone but long after the last gun has been fired and an the battle flags have been furled a nation en ei in it continues to pay and pay and pay I 1 the occasion for these reflections upon the th costs of war Is the fact that march 12 of this till year marks the one hundredth anniversary of c the establishment of the united states pension bureau and during that institutions career of 0 nearly a century it was the medium through which there were paid out staggering sums of 0 money in pensions to veterans their widows and an their dependents and these staggering sums sum were only a small vart part of the actual expense of 0 the wars in which uncle sam has been engaged here are the latest available on the th amounts eft pensions paid out ut from 1790 1700 to 1932 but as will be seen later in this article even these figures do not tell all the story war of revolution 00 k war ot of 1812 0 in dlan wars nar ar with mexico 11 II war i 1 with spain ar establishment anwar hufled noticed that unbelievably small fig 1 f for 0 r the world war pensioners d does 0 es not include the vast sums sum paid out in one form or another 1 s and the explanation Is that tha prent setup set up for compensating n this conflict rf f the world war the gov put approximately f of world war vet i average of about abou f this money was wn by the veterans veteran kt sj alon on came from nde ide by congress con blot alf in the fiscal and anc ted service mem disk aurance su rance id ad total tota nr rgene 9 ency abe d n 0 f this g i 77 e e 7 P tat 0 O 0 fn an rz grover cleveland clevelan ld government life converted insurance the total amount paid on these e items la Is many thousands of claims have been filed under the law providing monthly payment of term insurance and government life insurance for total toia and permanent disability and relief was being given in cases on june 30 1032 the disability allowance plan which went into effect july 1 1030 1930 provides monthly payments to veterans permanently disabled to the extent of 25 per cent or more even though their disability was not incurred in or as a result of their terms of service another new relief law provides for the pensioning of emergency officers who are 30 per cent or more disabled or incapacitated as a result of their world war service on the same basis as retired officers of the regular army the history of pensions for veterans of american wars goes back to the earliest days of the republic on june 20 1770 even before the declaration of independence dependence rn had been adopted the continental congress appointed a committee to consider what provision ought to be made for such as are wounded or disabled in the land or sea service this committee made a prompt report and on august 28 26 1770 1776 the first national pension act in america was passed by the continental congress that part odthe of the law fixing the amount was as follows that every commissioned officer commissioned noncommissioned non officer and private soldier who shall lose a limb in any engagement or be so disabled in the service of the united states of america as to render him incapable afterwards of getting a livelihood shall receive during his life or the continuance of such disability the one half of his monthly pay from and after the time that his pay as an officer or soldier ceases after the constitution had been adopted and the new government had bad been organized it continued for f nr a time the pensions which had been previously granted and assumed their payment liay ment soon however a strong demand arose for a new pension law and on march 23 1792 the first pension law passed by the new government went into effect later there grew a demand tor for a pension law not based upon disability incurred in the service and in his hie annual message to congress on december 2 1817 president monroe recommended such euch a law A bill wits was passed by the house on december 24 as ft a sort of a christmas present to the veterans of the revolution passed by the senate imm immediately ed lately afterwards and approved by president monroe on march IS 18 1818 the loose wording of this law however made frauds easy and the grant of pensions became a public scandal A law passed in 1820 required all pensioners already on the rolls and future applicants A ap pp licanto to file a statement of property as proof of their alleged dependence upon government bounty for a livelihood As a result the names of many pensioners were stricken from the rolls rolla rn in the early days of the republic pensions were distributed by the secretaries of war and nar navy y cut but on march 12 1833 a commission f pensions was set up under the direction of secretary crebar of war in 1840 the pensions disby disere 4 the secretary of the nay navy w were ere also under the administration of the commis pensions which in the same year was cred bred B red to the department of interior and beye pensions bureau there it remained 7 jal 31 when tle 1 jilted states veterans rans ad alon was established e and absorbed the H bureau gl there began the enactment of a long d Z james monroe series of pension acts in favor of the widows of soldiers erg of the revolution restricted at first to those who had married before the close of th the revolution these grow grew more liberal later until pensions were granted to all widows regardless regard lesa of the date of mar marriage ilage out of these pensions pen alona and similar ones for widows of veterans of later wars grew many abuses of the pension system for it became a practice for young women to marry aged veterans in order to benefit by a government goven ment after the death of their hus bands the pension rolls of the revolution had scalea ly grown to their peak when the united stated became engaged in another war the war of 1812 to add to its list of veterans and depend ente drawing pensions and the same thin thing was repeated later at intervals of two decades with the mexican war and the civil war the first law pensioning soldiers of the civil war was waa a disability pension act of july 14 1862 which provided for the disabled survivors for the widows orphan children and dependent member of those who died because of wounds received or disease contracted while in the service of the united states and in line of duty rates for total disability ranged from 8 to 30 a month according to rank and these same rates were applied to the widows of the soldiers successive laws beginning july 4 1864 and culminating in the recent act which increased the pensions of civil war widows more than seventy five years old have increased the rates setting fixed rates for various kinds of disability the civil war changed a number of things as regards the pension treatment of war veterans in the first place the veterans of that war were nu numerically merica ily of large political importance they were able to make their influence felt in washington consequently the march of pension legislation quickened affef aft erthe the close of the war the passage of the arrears act in 1879 added greatly to the burden of debt which uncle sam bears because of the wars in which he has engaged this act provided that all pensions which had bad been granted or might hereafter be granted should date from the time of disability provided application were made before january 1 1880 ISS 0 the effect of that law Is shown by the fact that the total sum paid for pensions jumped from in 1879 to in 1880 the greatest increase in any one year in the history of our pension system from time to time during the course of 0 the pension history of the country c various presidents have attempted to stem the tide of pension payments outstanding in this effort was president t grover cleveland A 4 bill to establish service pensions for persons in dependent circumstances was vetoed by president cleveland in 1883 1888 A similar bill was passed june 27 1890 providing that all persons who had served 90 00 days in tha th war and who were suffering buffering from any mental or physical disability of a permanent character which incapacitated them from performing manal labor might receive pen pensions zions ranging from 0 to 12 a month according to the degree of at disability widows of soldiers who served 00 days who were dependent upon their dally daily labor for suppo support rt con could id receive 8 a month the most edlef carefully u lly worked out attempt to forestall the expensive and sometimes wasteful r results e of the pension system was made when we entered the world war it was waa the first t time that our government had ever tried to find a system s ys at the outbreak of a war to deal with disabled veterans in some pome manner other than by pensioning them after the war too efforts were made to prevent p re the beginning of a pension system by giving the veteran some government assin assistance tance in establishing himself Wb atthe result nas been irk in the long dispute te over bonus bonns legislation and other bitters connected with vete veterans rants co compensation rn pensa tion Is 19 too well known from recent events to require regu lre further com comment in this artIc 16 a 16 by western union I 1 |