For some reason, Mrs. MacArthur was only granted a pension of merely $1,200.00/per year after MacArthur died September 5, 1912, whereas the widows of all other lieutenant generals were receiving $2,500.00/per year. Mr. James Flanders, a Milwaukee attorney and lifetime friend of MacArthur, led a long but successful fight to get Mrs. MacArthur's pension raised to the amount equal to the widows of other lieutenant generals. William Howard Taft was President of the United States at that time (March 1909 - March 1913), Elihu Root was a Senator for New York at that time (March 1909 - March 1915), and the Bureau of Pensions administered pensions for military personnel from 1832 to 1930. The Bureau of Pensions had two duties: (1) assess and either approve or deny claims, and (2) pay approved benefits. During that same time period, the Bureau's workload was significantly being reduced due to the death of many Civil War pensioners in the early 1900s.