U. S. Senate Speeches and Remarks of Carl Schurz/Pay for Army Officers

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The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on the amendment of the Senator from Connecticut, to strike out the fifteenth section.

Mr. SCHURZ. Mr. President, I hope that section will not be stricken out without due consideration. I believe that the section as presented to us by the Committee on Military Affairs introduces a very important reform in the system of paying our officers. Heretofore it has been almost impossible to determine what the pay of an Army officer was. If you wanted to learn it you had to go not only to the Paymaster General's office and make an inquiry there, but you had to go from one office to another in order to pick up your information by little items.

I find in a document before me the pay of a colonel in the field $2,736, and including pay proper and commutations. Here is the pay of a colonel at Washington, $4,146 28. Here is the pay of a lieutenant colonel in the field, $2,446 50. The pay of a lieutenant colonel stationed at Washington is $3,608 02; and so it goes through the whole list. How does it happen that the pay of an officer at Washington is so much larger than the pay of an officer in the field? The difference accrues from an increase in the commutation of fuel and quarters which he has here, while he does not enjoy the same advantages in the field.

Now, so far as I am aware, in all other armies in the world the pay of the officer is increased when he goes to take the field in active service, and it is reduced again when service in the field is over and he goes into garrison; and I think so it ought to be. Why is it that there is, as a general thing, so great an urgency of officers of the Army for employment here at Washington? The reason is, simply, that their duties here are easy and pleasant, that they can mingle with civilized society, and at the same time enjoy very great material advantages. It seems to me, therefore, that the reform proposed in the bill presented to us by the Military Committee is a very desirable and just one. It is just to those officers who perform the hard and dangerous military duty, while under the present system those who are in the field, liable to be killed and to endure dangerous exposure in inhospitable regions, are laboring under great disadvantage as compared with those who sit comfortably in their offices here in the capital of the country.

I believe there is no worse system of paying officers than that which we have at present in our Army, where nobody can ascertain but by the most difficult process of minute inquiry what really the pay of an officer is. We have a number of major generals, and there are not any two of them whose pay is the same. Here is Major General H. W. Halleck, whose pay proper is $2,640. The allowances run it up to $9,862 98. Here is Major General Meade, whose pay proper is also $2,640. The allowances run it up to $9,342 05. Here is Major General Hancock, whose pay proper is the same, but whose allowances run it up to $9,785. Here is General Schofield, with the same pay proper, whose allowances make in the aggregate an income of $7,432.

How do these discrepancies arise? From the circumstance that in some places the quartermasters compute the value of quarters, fuel, and forage higher than at other places; a system which necessarily gives rise to great irregularities, and is excessively difficult of oversight and control. It may, indeed, be assumed that thousand and thousands of dollars are thus paid out without our knowing how, why, and wherefore.

Now, it seems to me that the system proposed in this bill is in every respect preferable. If we accept, it then we shall know exactly what the officers of the Army are entitled to and what they receive. That mysterious network of commutations will cease to confuse accounts and to puzzle those who want to know the truth. Then we shall know also that those who are serving in the field against the Indians and are braving the hardships of campaign life are not laboring under any disadvantage as compared with those who sit comfortably in their offices at Washington and unite with all the luxuries of civilized life at the same time pay far higher than that which those receive who do the dangerous work. I therefore earnestly hope the Senate will not reject this section without due consideration.