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2d Session.

LINCOLN POSTAGE STAMP.

No. 1842.

JANUARY 12, 1909.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. OVERSTREET, from the Committee on the Post-Office and Post-
Roads, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. J. Res. 216.]

The Committee on the Post-Office and Post-Roads, to whom was referred the resolution (H. J. Res. 216) for a special Lincoln postage stamp, having had the same under consideration, report it back to the House with the recommendation that it do pass. The resolution is as follows:

Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Postmaster-General is hereby authorized to design and issue a special postage stamp of the denomination of two cents in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln.

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REPORT

60TH CONGRESS, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. No. 1845. {

2d Session.

CONDEMNED CANNON.

JANUARY 13, 1909.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. BRADLEY, from the Committee on Military Affairs, submitted the following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 24492.]

The Committee on Military Affairs, to whom was referred the bill (H. R. 24492) to authorize the Secretary of War to donate one condemned bronze field piece and cannon balls to the county of Orange, State of New York, having considered the same report thereon with a recommendation that it do pass with the following amendment: Strike out the words "or without" in lines 5 and 6 of the bill, and as thus amended that the bill do pass.

This bill was referred to the Secretary of War for information and remarks, and has been returned with the information from the Chief of Ordnance that a field piece suitable for the purpose mentioned in this bill would be a light 12-pounder gun.

The department has on hand some of these guns, which are obsolete and which are only valuable as old material, and there are a smaller number of carriages on hand which are useful only for ornamental purposes.

PENSION APPROPRIATION BILL.

JANUARY 13, 1909.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the state of the Union and ordered to be printed.

Mr. KEIFER, from the Committee on Appropriations, submitted the

following

REPORT.

[To accompany H. R. 26203.]

The Committee on Appropriations in presenting the bill making appropriations for the payment of invalid and other pensions for the fiscal year 1910 submit the following in explanation thereof:

The estimates on which the bill is based will be found on page 281 of the Book of Estimates for 1910 and amount to $161,018,000. The accompanying bill appropriates $160,869,000.

The following statement gives, by appropriate title of expenditure, the amounts appropriated for 1909, the estimates for 1910, and the amounts recommended in the accompanying bill for 1910:

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The following table, taken from the report of the Commissioner of Pensions, shows the amounts paid by the Government in pensions to soldiers, sailors, and marines, their widows, minor children, and dependent relatives, on account of military and naval service since the foundation of the Republic:

War of the Revolution (estimate)
War of 1812 (service pension)..
Indian wars (service pension)..
War with Mexico (service pension)
Civil war

$70, 000, 000. 00 45, 694, 665. 24

9, 355, 711.03 40, 876, 879. 10 3,533 593, 025.95

War with Spain and insurrection in the Philippine Islands
Regular establishment.

Unclassified.....

Total disbursements for pensions.............

$22,563, 635. 41 12, 630, 947. 88

16, 393, 945. 35

3, 751, 108, 809.96

The following table, also compiled from the annual reports of the Commissioner of Pensions, shows the number of pensioners on the roll, the annual value of pensions, the disbursements on account of pensions, the number of original applications filed, and the number of original claims allowed each fiscal year from 1879 to 1908, inclusive:

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Full amount of fees paid to attorneys
At the close of the year there remained unpaid 11,093 cases of all classes,
on which the first payments due amounted to
Average value of first payments in original cases.
Average value of first payments in original regular-establishment cases.
Average value of first payments in original act February 6, 1907, cases..
Average value of first payments in original general-law cases
Average value of first payments in original act June 27, 1890, cases..
Average value of first payments in original act of April 18, 1908, cases..
Average value of first payments in original war with Spain cases..
Average value of first payments in increase and reissue cases
Average value of first payments in all cases.

REFERENCES.

$264, 522. 46

444, 560. 12 97.62

128.32

48.40

136.36

98.42

69.67

253.49

35.08

42.00

Navy pension fund.-Section 4755 of the Revised Statutes provides that navy pensions shall be paid out of the " Navy pension fund," upon an appropriation by Congress, so far as the same may be sufficient.

The naval pension fund at present amounts to $14,000,000, bearing interest at the rate of 3 per cent per annum, and is created under the provisions of sections 4751 and 4752 of the Revised Statutes.

The payments on account of navy pensions during the fiscal year 1908 aggregated $4,929,337.51.

Pension agents.-The compensation of pension agents is fixed by the act of June 14, 1878 (Supplement to the Revised Statutes, pp. 347 and 348), by the act of July 4, 1888, and by the act of March 3, 1885 (Statutes at Large, vol. 23, pp. 99 and 362).

The bill provides for the payment of the salary of one pension agent at $4,000. This is in accordance with the recommendation of the Secretary of the Interior (Mr. Garfield), concurred in by the Commissioner of Pensions (Mr. Warner), made pursuant to a proviso in the pension appropriation act approved March 4, 1907, which reads as follows

That the Secretary of the Interior shall make inquiry and report to Congress, at the beginning of its next regular session, the effect of a reduction of the present pension agencies to one such agency upon the economic execution of the pension laws, the prompt and efficient payment of pensioners, and the inconvenience to pensioners, if any, which would result from such reduction. This provision shall not be construed as interfering with or limiting the right or power of the President under existing law in respect to reduction or consolidation of existing pension agencies.

In compliance with said provision the Secretary of the Interior has submitted a report in House Document No. 352, of the last session, showing that a consolidation of the present 18 pension agencies into 1 agency, or as he suggests placing the payment of all pensions under the Commissioner of Pensions through a disbursing officer at Washington, would result in a saving of $200,000 in expenses the first year and annually thereafter of not less than $225,000; that under such a consolidation all pensioners could be paid as promptly as they are now paid by 18 agents, and without inconvenience to the pensioners.

The foregoing views of the Secretary were strongly reenforced by statements made by him and the Commissioner of Pensions before the committee. These statements will be found in printed hearings before the committee January 7, 1908.

The establishment of a disbursing officer under the Commissioner of Pensions at Washington instead of the existing 18 agencies throughout the country for the payment of pensions would involve a change of existing law, and is therefore not recommended in the accompanying bill, but instead the committee recommends appropriation for only one agent for the payment of pensions, and, if that is approved by the House, at another point in the bill, as indicated in this report, is submitted for consideration the necessary authorization to enable the Secretary to put into effect the suggestions he has made in said document, and that will eventuate in an annual saving of not less than $225,000. The law (Rev. Stat., sec. 4780) authorized the President of the United States to establish agencies for the payment of pensions and an act of March 3, 1885 (U. S. Laws, vol. 23, p. 262), fixed the salary of pension agents at $4,000 per annum.

Under these laws the existing pension agencies can be disestablished and only one continued, as the Secretary and Commissioner recommend, presumably with the President's assent. The immediate saving will be $68,000 on salaries of pension agents, $4,500 on account of rent of offices for the New York agency, and for clerk hire $100,000 at least for the first year, and $1,500 for examination and inspection of agencies.

The bill reported herewith proposes to appropriate $335,000 for clerk hire instead of $410,000 appropriated for that purpose this fiscal

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