a Approximate.

e Railroad riots.

No census.

d Great financial crash.

b Dec. 29, 1876. Tramp law passed. Great depression in business; panic in summer of 1893. h Depression continues; Coxey tramp; April, 1895, the * This year a census was taken quarterly, showing on April 1, tide seems to turn. 1,127 tramps, and on October 1, 516. In 1879, on April 1 there were 973, and on October 1, 409.

XV.

Soldiers' homes.

PENSIONS AND SOLDIERS' HOMES.

BY A. O. WRIGHT.

The American system of liberal pensions for disabled soldiers, their widows and orphans, is not a charity, but a business investment. The government does not depend upon a standing army of professional soldiers, but in times of need calls out its citizens from civil to military life. A part of their pay is the promise, express or implied, that they and their families shall be taken care of. This is in the nature of an insurance against risks incurred in a hazardous occupation. The Pennsylvania Railroad insures its employees against the accidents of their work. With different methods, but on the same principle, the United States insures its soldiers and sailors against the risks met in its military or naval service.

This system had its origin very early in the history of our government, and has been steadily maintained as its settled policy. The great Civil War did not cause any departure from this system, but only compelled its application on an enormous scale. This policy is an integral part of our democratic system of national defence by popular armies, and is in entire harmony with our democratic system of government. Our regular army and navy, with their select schools at West Point and Annapolis, and their system of promotion and of pensions for officers, as well as by the spirit of their traditions, are survivals of European aristocratic ideas. Our volunteer armies, with their freer traditions and with their pensions for soldiers, are the outgrowth of the democratic spirit, as truly as were the armies of the French republic and empire which Napoleon led.

This pension system has its defects in practice, which are mostly the results of bureaucracy. The Pension Office at Washington has

undertaken to manage a million applications for pensions scattered all over our country by department methods. In using official red tape, our federal officers are as expert as are those of European countries. The errors of ex-parte affidavits secured for applicants are more than offset by the errors of routine and carelessness at Washington. And it is the unanimous statement of all who are familiar with the actual facts that an immensely less number of pensions were withheld, until recent legislation, from applicants justly entitled to them, for lack of sufficient proof, than have been wrongfully secured through unscrupulous pension agents.

Tens of thousands of worthy applicants were unable to secure the proof that would connect their present disability with their military service a generation ago. And on the other hand there was a demand for a service pension. The recent disability pension law was the legislative result. Under this the fact of service and the fact of present disability only must be established to entitle the applicant to a small pension, not exceeding $12 a month. This has led to a considerable increase of the number of pensions and of the total paid by the government. But this is now at or near its highest point; and the number of pensioners and the amount paid will very soon begin to decrease quite rapidly, as the survivors of the Civil War die off. The only possibility of any considerable increase of the pension list is in case of a service pension being enacted which would place all survivors of the Civil War on the pension rolls, and would thus nearly double the number of pensioners. This, however, does not seem likely to be done for many years to come, when the survivors would all be entitled to a disability pension on the ground of old age.

In the case of widows the pension becomes in many cases, doubtless, an inducement to young women to marry old soldiers, which is an abuse dating back to the widows of veterans of the Revolutionary War, the last of whom have scarcely yet passed away.

The burden to the nation caused by the pension system is large; but it is entirely within the ability of the government to carry, and it gives the highest practical proof that the settled policy of this government is to care for its citizen soldiers, in consequence of which we can rely upon a volunteer army in time of public danger.

The pensions paid have, as a rule, been beneficial to the pensioners. They have come very much as endowment insurance payments or sick or accident benefits from fraternal societies. Money

received in such ways is not always expended wisely, and may encourage recipients to spend it in debauchery. This has also been the case with pension payments, especially when the long delays of the dilatory Pension Bureau have caused an accumulation of back payments. But the ordinary quarterly payments to ordinary pensioners are a distinct benefit to them, and are usually spent as wisely as the money received from other sources.

Soldiers' homes, on the other hand, are charities, and have the same general results as other charitable institutions. They are not poorhouses; but from one point of view they are charities, though from another point of view they are supplementary to the pension system. They are governed by the same law of human nature as other charities, and need the same precautions against abuses.

Soldiers' homes are just as liable as other charitable institutions to be mismanaged by incompetent officers or to be imposed upon by unworthy inmates. They are just as liable to the various forms of folly of which institutions are capable in construction and in government. It is a misfortune to humanity to have 2,000 to 4,000 feeble old men massed together in necessary idleness, as in our national homes. No wisdom of daily management can compensate for this fundamental error of plans. But this, again, was not a premeditated crime against humanity any more than a similar massing of insane or of children in other classes of charitable institutions. The rapid increase of members of soldiers' homes has been met by extensions of the original plans to fill immediate demands till the national homes are generally examples of the evils of too large institutions. The same want has also been met by State homes, which have had the same general fortunes and misfortunes as other State institutions. Generally, these are smaller copies of the national homes.

Wisconsin is the pioneer in three deviations from this plan, which have begun to be imitated in other States. The writer drew the bill for the Wisconsin Veterans' Home, and has been a member of its governing board from the beginning, and therefore may be unduly prejudiced in its favor. The Wisconsin home was the first to receive the wives and widows of soldiers, as do now quite a number of other State homes. We were also the first to adopt the cottage plan, properly so called. In addition to detached buildings, for single men, for single women, for feeble old people, for hospital, and for general dining-room, we have a large number of two

tages each for a husband and wife, giving thus family life and breaking up the rigidity of institutionalism. We have also the distinctive feature of being managed by the G. A. R., aided by the State and national government. All the newer State homes are imitating our example and adopting one or more of these features, and thus breaking away from the traditions of institutionalism.

All the State homes are inspected and aided by the national government, and report to it as a part of its system of caring for disabled soldiers. There is, therefore, in spite of the deviation spoken of, a general unity of management. The system of records and reports to the national government is uniform. The diet and clothing are substantially the same. The methods of payment to members for work done is similar in all; and the rules for admission and discharge of members and of transfer from one to another home are the same except in the case of women, who are only admitted in a few State homes. As great a uniformity of administration as is desirable of the whole system of State and national homes under one board, which governs the national homes and supervises the State homes, is thus secured.

The administration of both State and national homes is, at least, as good as that of other charitable institutions managed by State or private authority. One great exception to this is the mechanical method compelled by the overgrowth of the national homes, the evils of which are aggravated by the idleness of the inmates and by the querulousness and crankiness of old age and enfeebled constitutions. These evils are less in the State institutions because of their smaller size, and least of all in the institutions built on the cottage plan.

The two chief evils of the State homes are also found in the national homes in equal or greater degree, the reception of many members who could be supported outside and the vices to which many members are addicted. Both of these evils are greatly favored by the fact that soldiers may have the double benefit of a pension and of a soldiers' home. It is an anomaly for inmates of a charitable institution to have considerable amounts of spending money, ranging from $6 to $25 a month. The only wonder is that it does not do more harm than it does. The anomaly is explained partly by the fact that the pension is given for one reason and under one law, and the home is given for another reason and under another