AMERICA’S SOLDIERS’ RELIEF “RACKET.”

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 12 October 1932, Page 4

AMERICA’S SOLDIERS’ RELIEF “RACKET.”

New Zealanders have been informed, per medium of the Press cable news, that the United States of America is experiencing; difficulty with ex-seiv icemen in connection with “bonus” payments, but an article by Mr Ernest Angell in the August issue of “Harper’s Magazine” brings to light some sensational facts which have not hitherto been available to the overseas reader. The writer, after referring to the spectacular march upon Washington by the “bonus army,” proceeds to state that the bonus is but a minor item in the total bill presented to the nation by the War Veterans’ Legion. Mr Angell describes the costs 1 of veterans’ relief as “fantastic,” and a perusal of his orderly array of facts sponsored and featured by one of the most reliable journals in the States — fully justifies the description. Veterans’ relief in America has degenerated into a nation-wide scramble for sornething-for-nothing. The Legion (the ex-servicemen’s organisation), has capitalised the war-time hysteria of the people to the tune of seven billion dollars—one hundred millions in English currency equivalent. Here are three facts brought out in Mr Angell’s article: Almost a quarter of the annual expenditure of the Federal Government now goes into the pockets of veterans or their families; the largest single government department ia the United .States is the Veterans’ Administration; the amounts granted to veterans’ relief by State and Federal Governments and by municipalities total more than twice the sum spent by the citizens of the United States for education, public or private. The expenditure is continuing at the rate of three-quarters of a billion dollars a year and it is annually increasing, instead of decreasing as in other countries. The writer of the article calculates that America will not be free of this liability before the year 2000. .“Generosity has fallen into the hands of quackery and greed,” states Mr

Angi‘ll, whoso revelations make a heavy indiet meat, against the morality of the nation. The Legion maintains permanent ‘“lobbyists” at Washington and it boasts to its members that legislation benefiting the ex-soldiers is made outside the walls of .Congress and comes before the legislature 1 onlj for ratification.” The soldiers’ organisation is highly skilled in the gentle art of '“bringing pressure to bear” on Congress. It button-holes legislators and. if one of them should prove obdurate, it can always arrange that his desk shall be flooded by telegrams from his constituents “demanding” that legislation be put through. The Legion glories in its capitalisation of hero-worship and shamelessly plays upon the feelings of the people by demanding that justice be done to the men who saved civilisation. Mr Angell, himself a patriotic American, cannot restrain his disgust with these exaggerated claims from appearing in his article— -(i“ did the American soldiers win the battles of the Marne and Verdun?”). As a result of this organised “bally-hoo” in public and graft in private, the American soldier is on a “wonderful wicket,” to use a colloquialism which would not be understood in the United States. So long as a man got into khaki he now has a claim on the Government. The scope of the legislation has been so widened that any ex-soldier can get free hospital and medical attention for “disabilities” contracted long after his discharge and in no way connected with his war or camp services. It is a sorry tale of greed and corruption which have piled costs upon costs — pensions for perfectly fit men already drawing good salaries in the Administration Department; cash payments, hospital treatment, invalid allowances, travelling allowances and so on until to-day a man who served a few weeks in camp away back in 1918 can claim “disability” allowance and treatment for asthma resulting from a chill caught in 1923. Legislation has been forced through Congress in face of presidential vetoes and appeals for consideration in view of the critical financial position due to the slump. “The army contractors got theirs during the war—now we want ours,” is the way the ex-soldiers’ organisation justifies this bleeding of the nation’s finances—and that is language which everybody understands in the United States. What a field for a National Expenditure Commission!