COLLECTION DIVISION-J. M. VALE, CHIEF. Statement of business transacted by the collection division during the year ending June 30, 1877, 2 13 In addition to the foregoing, from two to four clerks have been employed during the year in withdrawing abstracts of accountability from the quartermaster property-returns and in checking the property thereon. All the abstracts have been withdrawn and checking has been commenced, but is progressing very slowly because of the lack of clerks to perform this work. Although few money accounts have been examined in connection with the accountability abstracts of certifying officers, many payments, involving large amounts of money, have been checked which before stood open, and in one instance a double payment of over seven thousand dollars was discovered, the amount of which has been charged to the officer who made it. Although but little progress has been made, enough has been done to indicate the benefits which will result to the government from the work, and that it should be completed as soon as possible. But with the present force its progress must necessarily be slow. The rolls of the war of 1812 are in a bad state of preservation, many of them being badly worn and mutilated. Reference is, and has been, constantly had to these rolls to ascertain the services of soldiers of that war who apply for bounty land and pension, and, by reason of the great lapse of time and frequent handling, all of them are more or less torn, and many of them will soon wholly disappear if something is not done to preserve them. The employment of a sufficient number of clerks to make up in alphabetical registers a complete abstract of the service of every man whose name appears upon the rolls of the volunteers or militia, on file in this office, is recommended. This will obviate the necessity of referring to the rolls, except in special cases for the verification of a signature or for information of a like nature. It will also show at a glance all the service of every man who served in that war and was paid by pay. masters whose accounts are on file in this office. No service can now be readily traced unless the name of the captain of the company or colonel of the regiment to which the soldier belonged be stated. The recollection of these old soldiers as to the names of their commanding officers is found to be faulty, and frequently the service of soldiers cannot be ascertained because the names of their commanding officers cannot be furnished. Again, a soldier may have served honorably one period of enlistment under the command of an officer whose name is given, and dishonorably under one whose name is purposely suppressed. So faulty are the present indexes that the government is liable to be defrauded in many ways. These records are the only records of the militia of the war of 1812 in existence, and their preservation is desirable, not only as a matter of history, but also to protect the government and afford proper information to the soldiers of that war and their representatives. THE FILES. The number of money settlements made in this office from March, 1817, to June 30, 1876, was 162,623, and the number added to June 30, 1877, was 5,140. making a total of 167,763. The number of property settlements made from 1861 to June 30, 1877, was 34,135; of which 3,079 were made during the last fiscal year. At present the files are in good condition, and the number of employés is five. During the last fiscal year more than 1,200 linear feet of shelving have been filled with current accounts; an average of 600 feet each year, and it is probable that the bulk of incoming accounts will not be much diminished for the next four or five years. The settlements are now contained in four rooms, three of them being attics. When the latest settlements, now in the office, are filed there will be no vacant shelving, and the only recourse of the file-clerks will be to place valuable documents upon the floors and in other inconvenient and unsafe places, thus rendering systematic arrangement impossible, and causing confusion and loss. It is therefore very necessary that additional room, with shelving, be provided as soon as possible. The incoming pension vouchers alone amount to nearly 1,000,000 per annum, and they, as well as all others, should be accessible at all times for reference; hence the great importance of having suitable facilities for filing and arranging them in such a way that they may be referred to as occasion may require. The recent destruction of the upper rooms of the Patent Office building by fire is a reminder of the unsafe condition of the valuable vouchers now on file. Hundreds of millions of money have been paid on the vouchers legally in the custody of this office, and some of the rooms in which they are placed are very far from being secure from the ravages of the flames. Suitable arrangements should speedily be made to obtain rooms as near fire-proof as possible for the custody of these valuable archives. There were five lady copyists usefully employed during the year. The number of miscellaneous papers and difference-sheets registered was 4,516. The number of pages copied and compared was, miscel laneous papers, 18,528; difference-sheets, 2,198; letters, 4,388; letters compared ouly, 883; total, 25,997; names indexed, 54,141. In respect to the imperative necessity of a statute of limitations, I invite attention to the extract from my last annual report (1876). This is but one of a long series of such recommendations by this office. I am surprised that Congress, while so frequently seeking to provide for the security of the Treasury against fraudulent demands, should entirely neglect this universally recognized and efficacious check. Legislation is much needed to simplify the system of annual reports to Congress of amounts needed for claims against appropriations which either have become exhausted or have been covered into the Treasury in pursuance of section 5 of act of June 20, 1874, (legislative, executive, and judicial appropriation act.) The great number of subdivisions in the appropriation for the Quartermaster's Department sufficiently multiplies labor, and when to this is added the legal requirement that each fiscal year of these exhausted and covered in appropriations must be kept separate and distinct, the burden is becoming very heavy; and each new year adds another to these subdivisions of subdivisions. Take "army transportation" for example, to say nothing of the now existing appropriations, we have already under this head the following list of defunct appropriatious, viz, army transportation for 1871 and prior years, for 1872, for 1873, for 1874, and for 1875. On the 1st of July next that of 1876 will be added to the list, and one year thereafter 1877, and so on, ad infinitum. And this is but a sample of what must occur under each one of the leading heads of appropriation for that one department. These almost endless subdivisions not only serve no useful purpose, but greatly increase clerical labor and liability to error. I see no reason why they should be required to be kept up in these defunct appropriations, either between the different heads of appropriations for a single .department of the Army, or the fiscal year thereof. I submith herewith the draft of a law which would, I think, accomplish this desirable end. Under this or some similar law the Secretary of the Treasury could annually ask Congress to provide for claims against appropriations no longer available in these general classes, viz: Unpaid claims or accounts against the Quartermaster's Department; Unpaid claims or accounts against the Subsistence Department, &c., &c. SECTION 1. Be it enacted, &c., That no claims or demands against the United States, of any kind whatsoever, shall be paid, except from the appropriations made therefor for the service of the fiscal year in which the same accrued, whether such appropriation be permanent, specific, or general; but the accounting-officers shall continue to receive and audit such claims or demands, under existing law, unless the same are barred by statute of limitations; and the Secretary of the Treasury shall, at the beginning of each regular session, report to Congress, with his annual estimates, any amounts which may be needed for unpaid claims or demands of the several branches of the government and the several staffdepartments of the Army for which no available appropriations remain: Provided, That this section shall not operate to prevent the settlemuet of officers' accounts for expenditures made during the period for which the appropriation was available. Respectfully submitted. Hon. JOHN SHERMAN, Secretary of the Treasury. # HORACE AUSTIN, Auditor. |