Congressional Serial Set

The Board of Managers is very clear and decided that in the local administration the inmates are to be made to feel that the Home is what the name implies, and not a poor house or military garrison.

If the policy of maintaining these Homes upon the basis of existing law is to be persevered in additional branches must be provided, and it is the conclusion of your committee that the maximum number of beneficiaries of the Homes will not be reached earlier than 1895.

No other investigation of the Home has been made by Congress, except that authorized by the House of Representatives of the Fortyfirst Congress, July 5, 1870.

Supplement to Revised Statutes of the United States, page 155, paragraph 4, requires the Board of Managers to furnish the Secretary of War on the 1st day of August (since altered to the 1st day of October) estimates in detail for the support of the Home for the next fiscal year, and directs the Secretary of War to include the estimates in those for the War Department. It also directs that no money shall be drawn from the Treasury for the use of the Home except on quarterly estimates and on quarterly requisitions by the Board of Managers upon the Secretary of War based on such estimates, for the support of the Home for a time not exceeding one quarter. It also directs the Board of Managers to render quarterly accounts of its receipts and expenditures to the Secretary of War. These laws have been faithfully obeyed.

Since 1880 three new branches of the Home have been established and the accommodations of the Home have been so much enlarged that the average number of members present has increased from 5,603 in 1880 to 12,935 in 1890. Whether the policy of enlarging the capacity of the Home is good or bad, Congress is responsible for it, and the laws authorizing all of the three additional branches were initiated by the proper committees of Congress.

It has been stated, to show the extravagance of management of the National Home, that a Confederate Home in one of the States is supported for $125 per man per annum, and that persons in the same State who are indigent are supported as well as the disabled soldiers are supported in the National Home for $100 per annum.

Any statement based upon the theory that the National Home should be supported at no greater cost than are asylums for the indigent is misleading, and tends to degrade the crippled veterans of the Home. The Home is not for paupers too indolent or degraded to work for their own living. It is for men who, in their careers as healthy, able-bodied men, have been halted by wounds or diseases, in the vast majority of cases, caused by their service to the country. They should not be ground down in the Home furnished by their country's gratitude to the same cost of living as that in a poorhouse. In the language of the committee above quoted, the members "are made to feel that the Home is what the name implies, and not a poorhouse."

So the Board of Managers has had pride in feeding, clothing, and housing the members of the Home with the liberal allowance turned over to it by Congress, so that every member may feel that in belonging to it he is receiving a grateful appreciation from his country and that he is really "at home." Congress has in express terms annually ap propriated money "for necessary expenditures, for articles of amusement, boats, library books, magazines, papers, pictures, and musical instruments, librarians, and musicians," and this fact alone shows that it has been its intention to provide liberally for these "wards of the nation," and makethem as happy as possible under their painful cir

cumstances, and not to make a meager allowance, merely sufficient to keep body and soul together.

The reports of the Branches show that, so far as the funds will permit, theatrical and musical entertainments and lectures are given to the members free, in halls built with their own money.

Reading rooms are furnished at each Branch, in which magazines and newspapers from all parts of the country are furnished, and libraries in which books interesting to the members are placed. There are also rooms in which various games are played.

There are many other conditions about the Branches that show that they are homes, and not asylums in the ordinary meaning of the term. The most cursory inspection of any one of them by an unprejudiced person will convince him that it is an institution in which the health, moral and physical, the self-respect, and comfort of the members are consulted as much as possible.

These objects can not be attained at the rate of $100 per man per annum, or for any sum near that amount.

The financial statistics of the Home show that the average annual cost of maintenance of each member of the Home, beginning with the fiscal year ending June 30, 1880 (that being the first year in which the accounts correspond with the official fiscal year), and including the fiscal year ending June 30, 1890, is $135.85. This amount includes all expenses except those of construction, which are not properly chargeable to maintenance. Table K, on page 25, contains the statistics from which this information is obtained.

These statements can be proved or disproved by a Congressional investigation. But it is not likely that any material diminution of annual cost per man can be made. On the contrary, it is the opinion of the Board from careful observation that the expenses must increase. Until lately the labor of all kinds in the Home has been done by the members, but their increasing infirmities in many cases make idleness compulsory, however willing they may be to work.

Civilians at materially higher rates of pay must now be employed and their number will increase. All hospital attendance and nurses have been taken from the members until within a year. Now the experiment of employing women nurses is in course of trial, with every prospect of making it a success, but at an increased cost.

The hospitals, too, are continually increasing in size, and number of patients and the cost of maintenance of men in hospital is much greater than that of those outside for obvious reasons.

As the members grow older changes in diet must be made, which may or may not increase the cost of ration.

AID TO STATE AND TERRITORIAL HOMES.

The act of Congress approved March 2, 1889, appropriated $300,000 for aid to these Homes, coupled with the proviso that no State under this appropriation should be paid a sum exceeding one-half the cost of maintenance of each soldier or sailor by such State.

The sum of $296,881.96 has been paid the various States under this appropriation, being the whole amount appropriated, less $3,118.04, the cost of executing the law. There has also been paid the States, under the urgent deficiency act, for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1889, the sum of $44,272.39, so that the whole sum paid for aid to State Homes in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1890, is $344,272.39. Table L, page 25, gives the details of this disbursement. From this it

appears that an average of 4,516 men were supported at these Homes for that fiscal year, and that the amount due the States on this account was $378,704.38. There is, therefore, due the sum of $81,822.62, which is a deficiency, and for which an appropriation will be asked at the proper time. The average annual cost of these Homes is $167.74 for each man. The most costly is that of Nebraska, whose annual cost for each man is $268.40, and the least costly is that of New York, whose annual cost for each man is $139.46.

PENSIONS.

Although 6,649 of the members of the Home are already pensioners, as shown by table N, page 33, the time is not far distant when every member will probably be a pensioner under the operation of existing law.

The Board of Managers is required by the law to pay to each pensioner the whole amount of his pension, under such regulations as the Board may establish. It is therefore necessary to have a personal account kept with each pensioner, involving a good deal of clerical work, and the increased number of pensioners will materially increase this work. The question as to what amount of pension should determine a man's admissibility to the Home is one that for good reasons should be left indeterminate.

The table of contents indicates the reports of the various Branches for the fiscal year. The governors have given their impressions to the effect of the sale of beer in the Branches to the members upon the morals and discipline of the Home, and attention is particularly called to the governors' statements. They are unanimous in opinion that the sale of beer to the members in the Home benefits them physically and morally, enables them to save a little money for their families, and injures the illicit grogshops just outside the limits of the Branches. The Board has given up all hope of breaking up these vile dens, which spring up like poisonous weeds. Prosecutions are of no avail; when one grogshop is closed others kept by worse men, are at once started. A detailed report of the inspection of the National and State Homes has been made by General W. W. Averell, assistant inspector-general, and is appended to this report.

The table of contents contains all information necessary for an easy reference to all tables, reports, etc., transmitted with this report. W. B. FRANKLIN,

Pres't Board Managers N. H. D.V. S.

TABLE A.-Statement of estimates and appropriations for year ending June 30, 1890.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

NOTE. $150,000 appropriated by Board of Managers for construction of Marion branch was appro priated by Congress for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1889.

TABLE B.-Appropriations by Board of Managers for year ending June 30, 1890.