WAR VETERANS

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 115, 16 May 1936, Page 8

WAR VETERANS

PENSIONS IN AMERICA

A UNIVERSAL DEMAND

(From "The Post's" Representative.) .'NEW YORK, April 22. The war veterans' bonus, involving two billion dollars, having been passed, over the President's veto, arrangements are already in hand to present a fresh demand—pensions for all war veterans, numbering - 3,500,000 men, apart from their dependants. In fact, several draft Bills have already been prepared, and the most successful lobby in Congress is at work,' canvassing prospective supporters, in the House of Representatives and Senate. Publicists for this newest and greatest racket of all time predict its being placed on the statute books within five years. Naturally enough, the United States is paying pensions to dependants of th"c 49.,000 men who were killed in action, or died on active service, to those who were wounded or invalided, or who have since acquired: ailments directly traceable to their war service. A gen-, erous nation also pays compassionate' allowances to veterans for injuries or sickness incurred since the war. It is now proposed to increase, substantially, the pension or endowment paid to these classes. Another suggestion is to pay a pension to all survivors of all veterans, even if such deceased men were not in receipt of .disability allowances, or were not eligible therefor. ■ .''.'. The clamour for pensions for all war veterans is not confined to themselves. It is abetted by States and municipalities that have enjoyed pensions, in the form of Federal endowments, under the New Deal, for three years.past. Now that they visualise the prospect of being asked—the Republicans would ask theni—to finance themselves, they are pressing their veterans, their aged, and unemployed to demand Federal subventions. The more Uncle Sam pays the more prosperous are local merchants, the more pleased local taxpayers. . . . _. , A cross-section of the veterans' pension legislation already prepared indicates that there will be a demand for a flat-rate pension for all veterans and their heirs./ Those who are now receiving less for ailments incurred since the war would be raised to that minimum. Those who receive more would retain .their present rate. . •' "If," said one Congressman, "the veteran gets his pension, which I shall vote for, and lives to. be eligible for the old age pension, he should receive both. We. shall not penalise him because of his war service." The cost? One may gain an impression from'the fact that Uncle Sam pays a hundred million dollars a year in Civil War pensions, and a like amount in pensions for the Spanish-American War, although only 300,000 were 'mobilised for that campaign,. nearly forty years ago. Someone estimated it as involving as much as paying the present veterans' bonus ' every year. ■ BURLESQUE STUDENT ofeGANI-' V.- SATION. ■■-'■_ ] V ■ Two branches have been formed ' in Canada, one of them at' the University of -Toronto,'. of art extraordinary student.' organisation formed in "\ the .United States .and called "Veterans. of Future Wars'." ...■ Originating at ...the Princeton University and credited, with being a 1 burlesque on: war veterans arid their demand for a war bonus valued at £400,000,000, this strange cult has swept, like a prairie ' fire over the United States, .-with 120 branches formed" in less than 'a" fortnight in universities and colleges froth Maine to California. '. . '.. .;/■■;'..■ .'.,..- The object of the unit is'to"demand payment now, for every male between. 18 and 36 years, of a ,war bonus of a thousand dollars, "so that those who may be killed in the next /war can enjoy their bonus in' advance.""'. The official: salute ,is an outstretched hand, palm upwards, in the-attitude of asking for money. Women's auxiliaries have been formed among girl students, also elders' auxiliaries, known as the Home Fires Division. The new body has been bitterly assailed as "yellow, Communist, and Fascist" by the American ex-soldiers, but it has caught the student fancy to a remarkable degree,-and one wonders whether it is likely to become a disturbing influence in the coming Presidential elections. ;'; :'' :' :■' :'•'■•