Again, Bonuseers

(See front cover)

A grizzled old admiral of the U. S. Navy last week became a spearhead in the movement for immediate cashing of the Soldier Bonus at a cost to the Treasury of some two billion dollars. He was Robert Edward Coontz, D. S. M., class of 1885 at the Naval Academy, onetime Chief of Naval Operations, onetime commander-in-chief of the U. S. fleet, 32DEG Mason, Caraboo, Missouri Democrat. The Veterans of Foreign Wars, earliest agitators for the cash Bonus, elected Admiral Coontz their commander-in-chief at their 33rd annual encampment at Sacramento. Calif. Now on the Navy's retired list, he will for the next year train V. F. W.'s heaviest political guns upon the Capitol, the White House, the Treasury.

V. F. W. has a claimed membership of 200,000 who have seen overseas service beginning with the Spanish-American War. Darold DeCoe, the outgoing commander-in-chief, told his followers last week that their rolls had increased 67% in the last year as a result of their advocacy of the Bonus. Small in size, V. F. W. is compact and effective politically. In 1930 it first demanded immediate Bonus cashing as a form of unemployment relief. In 1931 a cowed Congress met it halfway by voting, over a Hoover veto, authority to all veterans to borrow up to 50% of the face value of their adjusted service certificates. This year V. F. W. rammed through the House a bill to cash the Bonus in full by issuing unsecured currency. The Senate stood firm against the measure. For its Washington lobbyist V. F. W. has a one-time regular Army man named L. S. Ray. Overseas he served with the 36th Division, was wounded in action, got the Croix de Guerre, emerged a lieutenant.

"Criminally Brutal" After hearing Texas' Representative Patman, chief sponsor of Bonus legislation in the House, predict success at the next session, the V. F. W. delegates at Sacramento went on record to continue their drive for full and immediate payment. Of equal significance was their enthusiastic adoption of two resolutions roundly flaying President Hoover for evicting the Bonus Expeditionary Force from Washington in July. The first resolution declared: "The President summoned the U. S. Army to rout and maim a pitiful and inoffensive crowd of ragged and unarmed bonuseers. . . . The use of the Army . . . was unnecessary, criminally brutal, morally indefensible." The second resolution "seriously censured those government officials responsible for the unhumanitarian and un-American manner" of the B. E. F. evacuation.

Mention of the National Economy League, headed by another, younger U. S. admiral, Richard Evelyn Byrd, and out to snip 450 millions from Federal appropriations for veterans, filled the Sacramento air with hisses and catcalls.

Cold Chills. Naval Washington was interested in seeing what Admiral Coontz would do and say as V. F. W. leader but political Washington took the Sacramento meeting with comparative equanimity. Of vastly greater concern to it was the national convention next week at Portland, Ore. of V. F. W.'s big young brother, the American Legion. Would the Legion, with its 936,000 members, also plump for immediate payment of the Bonus? It seemed certain to do so. Would wrathful legionaries also succeed in having the convention censure President Hoover for his treatment of the B. E. F? It seemed likely. The prospect sent cold chills up & down the spines of the Republican high command.

On to Portland. Legion conventions are four days of fun & frolic for middle-aged men who keep young on martial memories. As at their 13 other conventions, thousands of legionaries, converging in Portland, will dress up in bright uniforms and, behind blaring bands, parade past the Multnomah Stadium packed with 35,000 admiring citizens. Meetings will be held in the 16-year-old auditorium on Clay Street which will seat 4,000 delegates. For the convention's entertainment the Oregon Legislature voted $25,000. Portland businessmen made up an additional play pot. As a courtesy the Navy is sending two cruisers to Portland under Admiral Richard Henry Leigh, commander-in-chief of the U. S. Fleet.

Last week from his big, brown, frame house in tiny Warsaw, N. C., Henry Leonidas Stevens, Jr., this year's national commander of the Legion, set out for Portland and his day of glory. Taking his wife and eight-year-old son with him, he traveled by way of Indianapolis, the Legion's national headquarters. Curly-headed Commander Stevens. 36, is an eager, affable small-town lawyer who hunts, fishes, golfs, sings bass in the Episcopal choir. He has had a full and active year in office. He made speeches up & down the country for adequate national defense. He put 10,000 Legion posts into a drive with the American Federation of Labor to find a million jobs for the jobless. He helped President Hoover's anti-hoarding campaign. He went to France, was decorated with the Legion of Honor, inspected A. E. F. cemeteries.

Job, Not Man, But in the Legion it is the office of national commander that counts, not the man who passingly occupies it. The job pays $10,000 per year, with a liberal traveling allowance. It carries prestige and power. Yet its occupants seldom advance to important political positions thereafter. Banker Hanford MacNider, commander in 1921, was made an Assistant Secretary of War. Later he was made Minister to Canada. Last week he resigned that job to return to the U. S. for the Republican campaign. His chief job will be to persuade the Legion that cashing the Bonus now would imperil the national credit.

Lawyer Paul Vories McNutt, 1928 commander, is the Democratic candidate for Governor in Indiana this year. Realtor Ossee Lee Bodenhamer, 1929 commander, was badly beaten last month by Mrs! Hattie Caraway for the Senate in Ar kansas.

Bursting Bonus. Aside from the election of his successor, Commander Stevens seems destined to preside over wild and stormy sessions. For two years the Bonus issue has been vigorously suppressed at the Legion's national conventions. At Boston in 1930 a cash payment resolution was strangled in committee. Later when the Veterans of Foreign Wars began to make spectacular headway with their Bonus drive in Congress, the Legion's na tional executive committee at Indianapolis climbed on the legislative bandwagon, declared for the 50% loan plan. At Detroit in 1931 the Legion was all primed to ap prove full cash payment when President Hoover, on the spur of the moment, dashed to their convention, made a strong speech of dissuasion. Bonus cashing was beaten 902-to-507 on the strength of his appeal. Even as late as last April Commander Stevens was telling President Hoover that very few Legion posts wanted the Bonus.

But Commander Stevens had misjudged the temper of his organization. Rank & file legionaries suspected they had been "sold out" by their leaders to please the White House. At State conventions one department after another began plumping for cash at once. The cry for cash arose in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Illinois, Texas, California and a score more. Speak ers against the Bonus were roughly booed to silence. There was money to be had in Washington and legionaries were bent on getting it. It was hard to make them see why railroads and banks could get hundreds of millions while jobless, hungry veterans got not a penny. Last week 35 States, controlling 1,063 of the convention's 1,415 votes, were Bonus-pledged.

Hands Off. President Hoover has no relish for a fight in which he is doomed to defeat. Last week he was lying low, having abandoned all efforts to try to stop the Legion's stampede for the Bonus. He has a last line of defense--the veto. Secretary of War Hurley had announced he would go to the Portland convention, make a speech if they would let him. Last week the White House disavowed him as its spokesman.

Livest Lobby, The significance of a Legion declaration for the Bonus lies in the fact that it will unleash upon Congress the most powerful lobby in Washington. The Legion's chief lobbyist is smart, dapper, arrogant John Thomas Taylor, a Reserve Corps lieutenant-colonel. Before the War he was an undercover man for the late tariff-loving Boies Penrose. His law partner was Thomas W. Miller who, as Alien Property Custodian, spent a year in Atlanta penitentiary for conspiracy to defraud the Government. Lobbyist Taylor saw overseas service, has four battle clasps with a silver star citation. His greatest feat was putting through the first Bonus bill in 1924. He carries a cane, wears a stubbly blond mustache, has an eye that pierces the boldest Congressman. His salary is $6,000; he earns it and more. His boast is that one word from him to Legion headquarters and a deluge of hundreds of thousands of letters and telegrams will pour in on a balky Congress. He picks hostile Senators and Representatives for legionaries to "get" at elections and more often than not the Legion gets its man.

B. E. F. Censure? More serious politically for Republicans than a Bonus declaration is the increasing Legion agitation to censure President Hoover for his treatment of the B. E. F. Such action would prove a distinct liability to him in November. Already eight States--Massa-chusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Illinois, Ohio, Texas and Mary-land--have passed resolutions condemning his use of the Army. When Assistant Secretary of War Davison tried to defend the President's action before the New York convention, he was booed and hissed --but a censure resolution was beaten 357-to-106.

In defense of the Administration the following points are made: 1) The B. E. F. had no constitutional right to remain in Washington after Congress adjourned. 2) Veterans were ejected from Government buildings needed for an improvement program which would increase employment. 3) Rioting was started by Communists and criminals bent on revolution. 4) The Army was not summoned until the police had lost control of the situation. 5) Dynamite was found in the Anacostia camp. 6) Many in the B. E. F. were not veterans but hoodlums and bums with forged discharge papers. 7) The troops were humane, did their job without hurting anybody.

Friends of the B. E. F. set up the following facts in rebuttal: i) The ist Amendment to the Constitution ("Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances") does not specify that Congress must be in session for such assembly and petition. 2) The Government buildings from which veterans were ejected remain untouched and unworked after five weeks. 3) Every veteran arrested as a rioting Red has been released for lack of evidence; three veterans indicted for assaulting police had good overseas records; not one criminal record has been turned up among the B. E. F. 4) Police Superintendent Glassford had cleared the Government buildings and a truce on rioting had been declared an hour before troops were called. 5) Empty dynamite boxes had been used .to build Anacostia shanties. 6) Out of 8,000 members of the B. E. F. the Veterans Administration found only 500 who were not veterans; expelled from the B. E. F. were some 30 men with discharge certificates forged in a Philadelphia printing plant. 7) Driving women and children into the night with fire and gas is not humane.

N. E. L. At Portland the Legion's position will not be wholly aggressive. To some degree it is on the defensive. The nation resents increased Federal taxes. Out of every tax dollar, 25-c- goes to veterans. Is this expense wholly justified? The Legion must defend all the millions upon millions of dollars its lobbying has pumped out of the Treasury.

Last July the National Economy League was created with Admiral Byrd for temporary chairman. On its advisory committee are Calvin Coolidge, Alfred Emanuel Smith, Newton Diehl Baker, Elihu Root, General Pershing. Admiral Sims. Its broad mission is to force reductions in all governmental expenditures. Its immediate objective is to cut veterans' appropriations. Lobbyist Taylor last month spotted N. E. L. as a real foe, urged "thorough and complete organization if we are to be successful in the future."

Breakdown. The League v. Legion fight centres around the Veterans Administration for which during the current year Congress appropriated $927,849,000. This money will be spent as follows:

Civil War Pensions $ 97,221,000

Regular Army Pensions. 7,127,000

Spanish War Pensions 116,393,000

Compensation to World War veterans disabled in military service. . . 204,641,000

Allowance to World War veterans disabled in civil life 104,277,000

Retirement pay for disabled emergency officers 11,046,000

World War widows & orphans 36,284,000

Hospitalization $ 55,329,000

Administrative costs 60,199,000

War-risk Insurance reserve 117,000,000

Bonus reserve 100,000,000

Unsatisfied with these outlays, the Legion wants the Government to pension the widows and children of all veterans yet to die.

N. E. L. Knock Outs. The National Economy League's principal attack is upon the payment of allowances to veterans not disabled in service. The Spanish War lasted 114 days and out of 300,000 men under arms, 5.547 lost their lives. In 1915. 28,912 veterans of that war were drawing $3,851,699 for real hurts. In 1920 the bars were dropped: any veteran disabled in any way or over 62, was eligible for a pension. Today Spanish War pensioners total 235,463. N. E. L. would lop $109.000,000 from the Government's bill by limiting payment to those disabled in actual service in 1898.

N. E. L. would also knock out the $104,000,000 now being paid to veterans who came through the World War unscathed. In that conflict 234,879 U. S. soldiers were gassed or wounded, yet 331,693 are now drawing pay for war hurts. This occurs because Congress has given them un scientific presumptions that their disabilities are service-connected. By putting compensation back on a war basis, N. E. L. would save another $125,000,000. It would limit free hospitalization to veterans who could boast of real war hurts, halve ad ministrative costs by clearing the bounty rolls, weed out frauds among war-risk insured.

Fear v. Love. N. E. L. is new and un tried in the highly competitive field of national legislation. Not until it can pro duce a lobby as effective as the Legion's to displace fear of the veteran with love of the taxpayer in the Congressional heart can it succeed.

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