more boxes were purchased during the fiscal year ended June 30, 1919. The cost per box is 64 cents; the cost per strap, 80 cents. The boxes do not wear out and the straps do. A total of 23,500 boxes have been purchased. It is estimated that 56,462 more boxes would be sufficient in which to place all the files. Each box will hold approximately 30 cases.

MARRIAGE AND DIVORCE.

The Bureau of Pensions is not a mere administrative office. It is a court called upon to construe the law and to exercise judicial functions, determining the rights of parties and the Government under the law and facts. There are very many cases in which the marital status of parties must be determined. There were 589 such cases reached for action during the fiscal year in which the issues were so complicated as to require formal opinions by the law division for their determination.

Section 2 of the act of August 7, 1882 (22 Stat. L., 345) provides that marriages shall be proven in pension cases to be legal marriages according to the law of the place where the parties resided at the time of marriage or at the time when the right to pension accrued.

Hardly any two of the 48 States of the Union have the same laws concerning marriage and divorce as determined by the statutes of the several States and the decisions of the highest tribunals thereof. There are presumptions of the validity of the marriages indulged in in some of the States which are not permitted in others. Decrees of divorce in one may deny the right of one or the other party to the marriage contract to remarry; in other States a divorce in every case discharges the parties from the obligation of the marriage contract and frees them absolutely.

Complaint has been made with increasing volume because of the rigorous requirement of the law, and, therefore, the practice in the Pension Bureau, as to the proof of validity of the marriage relation. Many cases occur in which claimants for pension are required to go back 20, 30, 40, and even 50 years to prove the death or divorce of former spouses, so as to make clear the legality of their own relation. This in numerous cases imposes upon the widow applicants a peculiar hardship.

After meeting the soldier, going through a ceremonial marriage with him, and living with him in the ostensible relation of husband and wife for a long period of time, she is called upon after his death to prove whether her husband had ever been married before, and, if so, what had become of the former wife or wives.

I think there should be an amelioration of the rule, but the matter is wholly for Congress. It might, for instance, declare that cohabitation for a fixed period of time up to the date of the soldier's death

should give rise to a conclusive presumption for pensionable purposes that the wife thus cohabiting was the legal widow of the soldier to the exclusion of any other. Often husbands who are parties to a ceremonial marriage are not communicative as to their previous history. Wives feel that they have no concern about the matter until after the soldier husband's death the widow learns to her dismay that children born as she supposed in lawful wedlock have the stigma of bastardy, and she is denied a pension because she is unable to prove that the soldier was legally divorced from a former spouse, information of whom came after the soldier's death.

The Pension Bureau has no power under the law to change its long-continued practice, but the hardship imposed upon worthy women is made more manifest by the lapse of time.

LANDS FOR THE LOYAL.

The Secretary of the Interior has a fine purpose of aiding our soldiers and sailors of the great world war to procure land for homes for themselves and their families.

For service in wars prior to 1855, the Pension Bureau issued land warrants as follows:

MONTHLY PAYMENT OF PENSIONS.

In the report of the Commissioner of Pensions for the year 1914 this subject was spoken of. It was there said that the commissioner found a great division of sentiment among the soldiers. Nothing was then said about the sentiment among the widow pensioners, who now have become the most numerous class. It was in said report stated that the commissioner had informed the pensioners that the Secretary of the Interior was in sympathy with the old soldiers, and would be in favor of the payment of pensions monthly if that would be helpful to them and that the commissioner took the same stand. For the additional labor and expense necessary in the Pension Bureau an estimate has recently been furnished the Committee on Invalid Pensions in the House of Representatives, showing that for the current year an additional appropriation of $175,000 would cover the cost. There seems to be a general demand now among the soldiers themselves and their widows for the monthly payment.

The argument in favor of more frequent payment is patent to everybody and need not be here set forth. Congress itself has provided that insurance, allotments, and compensation, all of which are paid through the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, shall be paid monthly.

A bill is now pending to provide a civil-service retirement law, which, if adopted, would require payment monthly. So it seems the policy of the Government, as well as employers generally, to make payments at shorter periods than quarterly.

The system of paying pensions through a disbursing office in the bureau was established to take the place of the pension agency system, on February 1, 1913. In the period of six years and five months from that date to June 30, 1919, there was paid out in pensions a total of $1,140,433,323.10, and the accounts covering that total, prepared, certified, paid, and administratively examined in the bureau, have been accepted by the auditing officers of the Treasury with no item of disallowance on account of improper payment. At the beginning of said period the bureau force employed in paying pensions numbered 275. At its close the total number so employed was 163, a decrease of 40 per cent. In the same period there was a decrease of 25 per cent in the number of pensioners on the roll, the number on February 1, 1913, being about 837,000, and on June 30, 1919, 624,427.

Should Congress provide for civil-service retirement, the monthly payment of pensions, and the transfer of the compensation feature of the Bureau of War Risk Insurance to the Bureau of Pensions, this bureau could easily assimilate and dispose of the additional work entailed, at a minimum outlay for clerk hire and other necessary expenses.

PENSION BUREAU WORK.

Lincoln in his second inaugural address said: "To bind up the Nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan," and this very aptly expresses the purpose for which the Pension Bureau was created. The bureau has by years of study, training, and experience built up an efficient system for handling pension claims.

Many people who are not posted have an erroneous impression of the workings of the Pension Bureau. They regard it as a simple thing to take up a pension claim and immediately dispose of it. There have been and are many laws on the subject of pensions. No pension can be allowed unless there is a law to justify it. The numerous pension laws have required consideration and interpreta

tion and there are now published 20 octavo printed volumes in which are the opinions of the Secretary of the Interior determining questions that have arisen in pension cases.

A claim must be filed in the Pension Bureau setting forth under what law the claim is made and the facts constituting the right of the claimant to pension.

All claims are first received in the Mail Section, where they are stamped with the date of receipt and from thence forwarded to the Law Division where the validity of the declaration is determined. From the Law Division they go to the Record Division where the claim is properly recorded, jacketed, and given a number. The record is made in various ways for purposes of statistics and information and so that the claim may be readily found. In the Record Division have been prepared and are on file about 6,000,000 numerical and alphabetical record cards. From there the claim goes to one of the adjudicating divisions which are the Civil War and the Army and Navy, which are made up of persons who by training, study, and experience have qualified themselves for properly making calls for evidence to establish title to pension and for assembling, examining, and weighing the evidence when submitted. After the case is determined in the adjudicating division it goes to the Board of Review, which has a skilled corps of reviewers and re-reviewers, who by special fitness, close application, long experience and a knowledge of the pension laws and decisions, have become expert in determining the rights of claimants for pension. No claim is rejected unless it has been considered and disallowed by an examiner, reviewer, and reviewer, and every claim which is allowed, must have the concurrence of three persons of the same class.

Should an inquiry be necessary in the field, it is referred to the Special Examination Division, which has an efficient organization and superior facilities and equipment for such field examinations as are necessary to determine the merits of doubtful or difficult claims, or those in which criminal features are involved. Should a medical question present itself for solution, it is sent to the Medical Division which has a highly competent, technical, and experienced corps of medical examiners, reviewers, and referees to pass on and determine the same. There are over 1,400 physicians and 500 specialists throughout the United States who assist the Medical Division through personal examinations of invalid soldier applicants for pension. Should questions of law arise they are sent to the Law Division, which has a corps of trained legal men and assistants to pass on questions relating to marriage, divorce, attorneyship, guardianship, and interpretation of laws, and to handle cases involving criminal features and recovery by civil action. Should a claim be allowed, it is sent to the Certificate Division, which has charge of issuing, num140922°-INT 1919-VOL 1-26

bering, and recording certificates granting pensions, keeping the grand roll on which is entered the name of every person ever receiving a pension certificate, granting all permits to draw pension, and the issuing of duplicate certificates in lieu of those lost or destroyed. The total number of certificates issued by the office in 1919 was 76,503; 6,227,000 is the approximate number issued on account of all claims allowed since the beginning. The certificates then go to the Finance Division where the roll for payment of pensions is made up, and the pensions according to that roll are paid by the Disbursing Division. These divisions are supplied with the necessary equipment and machinery for preparing and mailing promptly millions of checks each year, all being made out, addressed, signed, and sealed by electrical machinery operated by skilled employees. The filing system of the Pension Bureau seems to be as near perfect as human ingenuity can make it, and any one of the immense number of claims is readily accessible at all times. Admitted and abandoned claims are filed on the top floor of the Pension Building. The pending claims are filed in the adjudicating divisions, and 2,663,381 cases are on file weighing more than 1,176,000 pounds. Each package contains all of the files in the claim of the soldier, and the claim of his widow and minor children, if any. The millions of cases in the files of the bureau containing much of historical value relating to all of the wars in which the United States has participated, have been the means of settling many controversies of titles to land and cognate matters, and have been of great service in determining the rights of individuals to become members of various patriotic societies and have been invaluable in genealogical research.

The average number of employees in the Pension Bureau to do this work during the last year was 883. The various divisions have numerous duties to perform beside those above enumerated. The entire system, though complex, is carefully adjusted in its various parts and moves regularly and smoothly toward the accomplishment of its purpose of determining the rights of claimants to pension. Operations of Special Examination Division for four years.