one a day. Three members of the home can sing no more cheerful lay than: "A pickaxe and a spade, a spade"; for the three grave diggers are kept constantly employed. There are also eight undertakers. When a member dies, the flag is displayed at half mast during his funeral, and he is buried with military honors.

This meager account of the central branch of the national home, if somewhat monotonously statistical, may nevertheless serve to indicate in a measure how completely and with what attention to detail the nation is caring for its disabled defenders. What has been said of the central branch may be said in general of the other branches. The central home was chosen for description because it is the largest-having over twice as many members as any other branch-and in a sense a kind of administrative center, because here the clothing for all the other branches is manufactured, and the board of managers has recommended that this branch be made a depot for the storage of supplies for the other branches, to be issued to them on quarterly requisitions. Each of the other branches, however, though none of them so large as the central branch, has adequate appointments for the comfort, care and entertainment of its inmates.

The central, the northwestern, the southern and the eastern branches were all opened under one act of congress, which was approved in March, 1866. The eastern branch, at Togus, Maine, was the first to be ready, and received its first inmates in the same year that the act was passed. The eastern branch has never been one of the largest, but it is an important branch of the home. Its grounds comprise over seventeen hundred acres, or over twice the number possessed by any other branch, while its buildings have cost nearly half a million dollars. It stands fifth in the number of inmates.

The southern branch, situated near Hampton, Virginia, which received its first inmates in 1870, is, after the central branch, the largest in point of numbers. Territorially it is much the smallest of any of the branches, occupying only twenty six acres, but its buildings have cost over $800,000. During the year 1896 two barracks were constructed at a cost of $25,000.

The northwestern branch, which occupies 382 acres near Milwaukee, was the third of the four branches provided for by the original act of congress. It has always been a very important branch, ranking third in the number of inmates. Its buildings have cost over $600,000, the last being a commodious headquarters building recently completed at a cost of $10,000. This branch was opened in 1867.

These four branches, the central, the eastern, the southern and the northwestern, accommodated the disabled veterans of the war for nearly twenty years, when the need of another branch began to be felt. Accordingly, an act of congress was passed and approved July 5, 1884, to authorize the location of a branch home for disabled volunteer soldiers and sailors, in either the state of Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri or Nebraska. The site chosen for the new branch was at Leavenworth, Kansas. The western branch was opened for use September 1, 1885. The land for this branch, 640 acres, was donated, and buildings to the value of over half a million dollars have been erected. The grounds of the western branch form a pleasure ground and park for the city of Leavenworth, and are daily visited by hundreds of people.

Santa Monica, in southern California, has been called the Coney Island of the Pacific coast. Here the Pacific branch was established, on donated land, under an act of congress approved March 2, 1887, entitled an act to provide for the location and erection of a branch home for disabled volunteer soldiers west of the Rocky mountains. This branch was opened for use on the first day of January, 1888. The buildings of the Pacific branch have cost nearly $500,000. The grounds are very beautiful, adorned as they are with plants, shrubs, and trees to which the harsher climate of the east is not favorable.

The Marion branch, at Marion, Indiana, was authorized by an act of congress approved July 23, 1888. It was opened March 18, 1890. Its land and buildings have cost a little over half a million dollars. This branch has a number of handsome modern buildings, including the fine Stinson memorial hall and a new mess hall which will accommodate at one sitting 1,072 members, comfortably seated in chairs.

These eight branches constitute the national home for disabled volunteer soldiers. The best testimony to the wise and liberal management of the home is the crowded condition of all the branches.

The last branch established is the Danville branch at Danville, Illinois. The act authorizing this new branch became a law June 4, 1897. The sum of $150,000 was appropriated for the establishment, which covers 222 acres of ground.

Besides the national home for volunteer soldiers, there are twenty six state homes in twenty five states. To each of these state homes the board of managers of the national home pays $100 per year for each inmate, less one half the sum retained by each state from the pensions of the men toward their partial support. These twenty six state homes have over ten thousand members on their rolls, with an average attendance of over eight thousand. The state homes are under the inspection of the board of managers of the national home, and their numbers are increasing rapidly.

In the national home in all the branches there are at present survivors from the Civil war, the Mexican war and the Indian wars. These men have every comfort, and are on the whole much better off than the average workman in civil life. Wise provision is made for their entertainment and amusement. The restraints are few and reasonable, being only such as are necessary for a body of men of every shade of character. Indeed, one might almost say that Uncle Sam has, with few limitations, adopted for the inmates of this institution the rule proposed by Gargantua for the abbey of Theleme: Do what thou wilt.

Doubtless the ravages of fever and disease in the recent volunteer army will have served to prepare many a future candidate for the soldiers' home; and no one of them, should the coming years find him homeless or friendless or disabled, ought to look forward with apprehension to spending there his remaining years. He will find not a stern kind of justice as chilling as the touch of steel-but rather the loving and tender ministrations of a mother to a dutiful son.

THE AMERICAN PENSION SYSTEM.

BY WILLIAM H. GLASSON.

[William Henry Glasson, economist; born Troy, N. Y., July 26, 1874; graduated Troy High school, 1892; Cornell university, 1896; fellow political economy and finance, Cornell, 1896-7; Harrison fellow economics, University of Pennsylvania, 1897-8; fellow in administration, Columbia university, 1898-9; head department history and political science, George school, near Newtown, Pa., 1899-1902; professor political economy and social science, Trinity college, N. C. since 1902. Author: History of Military Pension Legislation in the United States, and numerous articles on the pension system of the United States.]

In attempting thirty five years ago to estimate the cost of the Civil war, one would scarcely have included an item of two and one half billion dollars for pensions. And yet, at the present time, that amount has been largely exceeded. The last widow of a Revolutionary soldier has not disappeared from the pension roll. Eighty eight years after the war of 1812, there was a survivor, and even now 1,500 widows of that war are in receipt of aid from the nation. Experience, then, abundantly justifies a belief that, a century after the close of the Civil war, we shall be making expenditures on account of that great conflict.

It is not safe even to assume that we have reached the maximum of pension disbursements on account of the Civil war. Congress may at some time yield to an agitation for a service pension law without the disability requirements of the act of 1890. This would be following existing precedents. In that case, the tendency to diminution in expenditures might be checked, and, for a time, there might be an increase. It would be interesting to know the entire cost of the Civil war in pensions and how many times the cost of hostilities in the field the amount will ultimately be.

That the pension system of the United States has not oftener been the subject of serious study is surprising. Through its agency, money goes from the national treasury into the pockets of one person in every seventy six of our population. Over a considerable period of years just prior to the war with Spain, about two dollars of every five expended by the national government went for pensions. When has any nation pro

vided so liberally for its disabled soldiers and for the dependent relatives of the slain?

In the period from 1892 to 1897 inclusive, the entire receipts from internal revenue were $899,000,000 and the receipts from customs revenue $1,001,000,000. For the same period, the cost of pension payments and administration of the system was $880,000,000. This is 97.9 per cent of the total receipts of the government from internal revenue, or 87.9 per cent of the total custom receipts. These statistics seem suggestive of a connection between high tariff laws and lavish pension provisions. The interests of the protected manufacturer and of the pensioned soldier have been the same. Since the Civil war, there has been a noteworthy sequence in the passage of high tariff laws, the accumulation of a surplus, and the distribution of that surplus through pensions. It is doubtful whether the country would favor a $140,000,000 yearly appropriation for pensions, if that amount were to be added to the burdens of the internal revenue system.

The execution of a single pension law, that of June 27, 1890, has already cost over $700,000,000, and the expenditures under its provisions are piling up at the rate of between sixty and seventy millions a year. These figures are so large as to be appreciated with difficulty, and yet the demand for additional legislation is insatiable. Attempts by government officials to place ordinary safeguards upon the distribution of the public money are met by clamorous denunciation, and congress is importuned at every session for laws providing for even more lavish expenditures.

In the following pages, an attempt will be made to sketch in broad outline the main features of the present pension of the United States, especially as applied to military operations since 1861. Attention will also be given to some of the phases of legislation and administration which afford opportunity for the securing of assistance from the national treasury through claims without merit and often supported by fraud.

Though military pensions have been paid by the United States since early colonial times, the system has experienced a remarkable development since the Civil war. Prior to that time, rates were low, and, except in the case of Revolutionary