Of course none will apply who are now receiving $12 or more per month.
But on the 30th day of June, 1886, there were on the pension rolls
202,621 persons who were receiving fifty-eight different rates of
pension from $1 to $11.75 per month. Of these, 28,142 were receiving $2
per month; 63,116, $4 per month; 37,254, $6 per month, and 50,274, whose
disabilities were rated as total, $8 per month.
As to the meaning of the section of the bill under consideration there
appears to have been quite a difference of opinion among its advocates
in the Congress. The chairman of the Committee on Pensions in the House
of Representatives, who reported the bill, declared that there was in it
no provision for pensioning anyone who has a less disability than a
total inability to labor, and that it was a charity measure. The
chairman of the Committee on Pensions in the Senate, having charge of
the bill in that body, dissented from the construction of the bill
announced in the House of Representatives, and declared that it not only
embraced all soldiers totally disabled, but, in his judgment, all who
are disabled to any considerable extent; and such a construction was
substantially given to the bill by another distinguished Senator, who,
as a former Secretary of the Interior, had imposed upon him the duty of
executing pension laws and determining their intent and meaning.
Another condition required of claimants under this act is that they
shall be "dependent upon their daily labor for support.
Pages:
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463