A national government which has not the power within itself to protect its own membership, and to have some control over their election, is as weak as water and can not very long endure. -Senator S. M. Cullom, Illinois. PANICS. (Continued). aggregate for the year has been about $1,027,000,000. Railroad earnings have been the largest in any year thus far, and clearings in June the largest ever known in that month, exceeding last year 8 per cent., and for the whole year the largest ever known outside of New York. Failures for the half year have been 5,503, against 6,073 in 1891, and liabilities $62,000,000, against $92,000,000, and on the whole about the smallest for five years. In spite of low prices additional works are going into operation even in the iron manufacture, and yet more in woolen and cotton. Moreover, the crops this year promise to be very satisfactory, and the new half year begins with excellent prospects." PANIC OF 1893-'94, DISASTERS WHICH HAVE FOLLOWED MR. CLEVELAND'S ELECTION. Some of the things which have happened since the election of the present Administration, not merely as coincidences, but consequences of the threatening policies of the Democratic party are these: Bankruptcy has fastened its cold and icy grip on the owners and operators of more than one-fifth of all the railroad mileage in the United States. Property of this one class representing a capital in stocks and bonds of more than $1,750,000,000 is in the hands of receivers. Statistical returns for the month of February of the present year show a loss on 123 roads, operating 95,945 miles of track, amounting to $4,654,203, or 2.54 per cent, and a total decrease in earnings in the first two months of the year of $9,605,851, as against a gain of $539,310 last year, and as against gains of from three to seven millions in each of the three preceding years. According to the bulletin of the American Iron and Steel Association, over one hundred iron and steel manufacturing establishments and iron ore mining properties have gone into the hands of receivers, assignees, or sheriffs, while at least one-fifth of the capital invested in these industries has been absolutely sunk since Mr. Cleveland's election. In the first ten months of the present administration there was a shrinkage in the total bank clearings of this country from the total clearings during the last ten months of the year 1892 of the almost incomprehensible sum of $8,259,292,017. But says one, it was the Sherman silver act that was the cause of this. But the important and undeniable historic fact is that while the shrinkage in bank clearings for the two months preceding the repeal of the purchasing clause of the Sherman act was $2,634,599,247, the falling off for the two months immediately following such repeal was $3,339,684,035, or greater than the shrinkage of the two months immediately preceding the repeal by $705,084,788. The shrinkage in the month of September, 1893, before the repeal act was passed, was $1,467,649,673, while that of December following the repeal in October was $1,947,505,663. Neither the repeal of the Sherman act, nor the advent of the new year has availed to stem the downward course of financial and business affairs The Democratic party has no foreign markets at its disposal. -Hon. J. T. McCleary, Minnesota. PANICS. (Continued.) in this country. In the months of January and February of the present year, according to Bradstreet, the shrinkage in business, as indicated by the volume of bank clearings, reached the enormous sum of $1,890,312,536 in January and $1,867,645,918 in February, making the startling aggregate for these two months of $3,757,958 454. While these immense losses, amounting during the first year of Mr. Cleveland's Administration to considerably more than $12,000,000,000, or within a fraction of one-fifth of the total wealth of the country, properly mark the extent of the loss in trade, it does not include the still greater losses and of a character, too, which strike a deadly blow at the farmers, the land owners, the producers, and the transportation interests of the country. In that category may be reckoned nearly $325,000,000 decrease in the value of cattle, sheep, horses, swine, and other live stock; also the loss to the farmers in the depression to ruinous rates in the price of wheat, corn, oats, barley, and other cereals; in the depreciation of the value of real estate, to say nothing of the ruin that has been brought upon our mining industries, and the annihilation of innumerable other industries and enterprises depending on these for their existence and support. But the catalogue of business disasters is far from complete until included in its list is the statement of the 16,000 business failures which have occurred in that time, involving liabilities to the extent of $346,749,889, to say nothing of the great army of unemployed and dependent people, aggregating, according to Bradstreet, 219,200 in New England, 787,000 in New York and New Jersey, 500,700 in the State of Pennsylvania alone, 680,650 in the central Western States, 240,700 in the Northwestern States, 165,715 in the Southern States, and 72,800 on the Pacific coast, footing the stupendous aggregate of unemployed and dependent in our country of 2,758,595, of whom 801,885 are stated to be unemployed, and 1,956,710 dependent. All this was not so prior to the Presidential election of 1892, and is the price the country has already paid for the experiment of Democratic financial and tariff tinkering. Wages per capita, $461.91; Amount imported 1893 $8,680,319; Duty collected $2,070,124; Average ad valorem under old law 23.85 per cent. under new law 20.53 per cent. PARITY. Equality in exchange of coin as now provided by law-one ounce in gold is equal to sixteen in silver. Equality in coinage according to a fixed ratio, namely, one dollar of gold to sixteen of silver. Our protective system is a barrier against PENSIONS. It is the settled policy of the United States not to maintain a standing army in time of peace larger than is necessary for police purposes, and to depend on the patriotism of its citizens for military service in time of war. And the magnificent army of volunteers which it put into the field during the Civil War, fully justifies this policy. Instead of a large standing army, it has adopted the most liberal Pension system ever known to the world. Of the $459, 374,885.65 of expenditures for the year 1893, more than one third of it all was for pensions. WHO ARE PENSIONABLE. All officers, soldiers and sailors in the service of the United States who, in the line of duty incur any wound, injury or disease which disables them for the performance of manual labor. And when such die of a cause due to the service, their(1) widows, (2) children under 16 years, (3) dependent mothers, (4) fathers, and (5) brothers and sisters, in the order of succession named, are entitled to pensions. The rates of pension for disability depend on its character and degree, and range from $1 to $100 per month. Widows and dependents are entitled to $12 per month, and $2 additional for each minor, except that officers' widows have more on account of rank. This is the General Law. Under the Act of June 27, 1890, all officers, soldiers and sailors who served for ninety days or more, during the war of the rebellion, and have been honorably discharged, and are now permanently disabled to an extent which renders them unable to earn a support by manual labor, from any cause not the result of their own vicious habits, are entitled to pension at rates ranging from $6 to $12; their Widows are also entitled to pension, without regard to the cause of death, if they have no means of support but their own labor, at the rate of $8 per month, with the $2 additional for each minor child. Various laws make provision for service pensions to the Soldiers and Sailors, and Widows of the wars of the Revolution, of 1812, of Mexico and Indian wars; and to Army Nurses of the Civil War; which are too numerous to be here cited. Provision is also made for increase of pensions with increase of the pensionable disability. COMMISSIONER OF PENSIONS. The administration of the Pension laws is under the immediate charge of a Commissioner of Pensions, who has nearly two thousand assistants of various grades, and whose office constitutes a Bureau in the Department of the Interior. From the last published Report of the Commissioner, for the year 1893, is taken the following: Every condition of American life is affected CLAIMS FILED AND ACTED ON. Since the year 1861, 2,034,695 original claims have been filed and 1,357,921 claims have been allowed. Of the 119,361 applications for original pensions filed during the fiscal year 1893, 65,002 were filed by invalids, and 20,914 by widows and others under the act of June 27, 1890. In the total number of claims allowed under the acts in force during the fiscal year 1893 are included 62,291 invalids and 36,917 widows and others, under the act of June 27, 1890, as well as 2,599 survivors and 1,347 widows of the Indian wars, and 286 army nurses. This last-named class have been pensioned under the act of Congress approved August 5, 1892. Since 1871, 80,071 claims for pensions on account of service during the war of 1812 have been filed. Of this number 34,939 have been filed by surviving soldiers and sailors, and 45,132 by the widows of those who served in said war. During the fiscal year 1893 no applications were received from survivors of that war, but 49 applications were filed by widows. The number of pensioners on the rolls at the close of each year is also stated in this table, as well as the amount disbursed for pensions each year since 1861. THE NUMBER OF PENSIONERS ON THE ROLLS JUNE 30, 1892, Was 876,068. During the year since that date 121,630 new pensioners were put upon the rolls, 2,004 who had previously been dropped were restored, and 33,690 were dropped for death and other causes. The net increase of pensioners during the year was 89,944, and on June 30, 1893, the number of pensioners on the rolls was 966,012. Average annual value of each pension...... Average annual value of each pension under the general law.............. Average annual value of each pension under act June 27, 1890............ Total annual value....... THE FALLING OFF $135. 10 157.65 113.75 $130, 510,179.34 In the presentation of new claims appears from the fact, shown by the last report of my predecessor, that there were on October 12, 1892, 788,061 claims pending in the Bureau, while, as before stated, on July 7, 1893-not quite nine months later-the number of claims pending had been reduced to 711,150. It is apparent, therefore, that the filing of new claims and claims for increase has ceased to exceed the number of cases disposed of by the work of the Bureau, and that a rapid diminution in the number of new claims may be expected. THE AMOUNTS PAID CLAIMS FILED AND ACTED ON. (Continued.) Mexican War, $2,132,565.79; Other laws, $1,055,613.09; A total of $156,740,467.14. To this add the expenses of the Bureau, and the amounts paid by the Third Auditor, to make up the total cost as stated by the Secretary, of the Treasury, $159,357,557.87. CLAIMS PENDING JULY 7, 1893. Old wars-Service prior to March 4, 1861: Claims under act of June 27, 1890, additional to prior applications on file under former acts: |