A WIN FOR THE PRESIDENT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 121, 24 May 1935, Page 6

A WIN FOR THE PRESIDENT.

For the second time President Roosevelt has stood in the way of an organised demand for the outright payment of veteran bonuses in the United States, and again lie lias proved himself the master. By his action, in which lie has had the support of a majority in the Senate, lie has saved the country from a political ramp of the worst kind. In March of last year the House of Representatives was carried away by a wave of political fervour which might have resulted in incalculable harm to the country; the inflationists in the Lower House for the first time had a feeling of strength, and were

determined to over-ride the will of the President; there were shouts and jeers in the House during the discussion on bonuses, and members voted solidly for bigger allowances for veterans. The Senate, however, stood behind the President. Since then the personnel of the House has been changed by the elections of last November, when the people strongly endorsed the policy of the President. The recent move has shown, however, that on this question of bonuses political groupings seem to count for little. A Bill more far-reaching than thnt of 1934 was before the House; it proposed thnt tho veterans should be paid immediately the amounts duo to them in bonuses over the next ten years, and that two billlion dollars of fiat money should be issued for the purpose.

Tho President warned the House against the inflationary consequences if the Bill were made law, but his words were ignored. In the background was the unseen hand of the qrganised veterans, who have used their power relentlessly to squeeze the Government at every opportunity. In no other country have ex-soldiers won such dominance over the political machine. The number of American World War pensioners increased in the ten years from 1919 to 1929 by BG6 per cent, while the figures in Britain, France and Italy fell by nearly one-fifth. In "the United States the cost increases as if there were among the four million veterans a great race for money. As the war recedes into the distance, their arrogance and power increases- and bonus money is demanded on the slightest pretext. So menacing hns the movement become, with its demands for all who enlisted, that Katherine Mayo, famous as the 'author of "Mother India," wrote a book about it. The same scandals followed the Civil War, and continue to this day. It is possible that the end of the century will sec the United States still paying pensions for services in a war that ended in 1918.