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About The commoner. (Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-1923 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 1, 1921)
i TlvWgVW. The Gommoraeft '-' tffinfffcJfl' XT, i NO. 8 iRJ- " T What CountiThjnks of Shelving Bonus (From the Literary Digest.) The loud protests reaching th'itfjofllce ln vari ous papers against. reburying.jthe 'soldiers' bonus in .the flies of a senate committee, give strength to the belief of Secretary Hoover's Washington Herald that the matter is merely 'postponed, not. defeated, and- "is as assured as If already acted upon." Thus we And a weslo.wj editor crying, "shame arid disgrace" upon th.q "fickle and unap preciative," Mammonworshiping .nation which can not out of its vaster resources do for its soldiers what Great Britain, .panada,, New Zea land, Austria, France, Belgium, and Jttaly have done for theirs; which wjll.npt,qomp'qnsate the men who fought and suffered and bled for $1 a day while shirkers at homo tvero getting $10 a day and the profits of war-time business were making 23,000 new multimillionaires! This cry is echoed by other papers and 'is,. taken up by individuals, journals, and organizations sneaking for the veterans of the war-. "It is'-true that President Harding's insistence upon 'a' postpone ment of the bonus bill on the grb'und that it would wreck' the nation's finances'' quickly per suaded a majority of the Senate,', a'hd the post ponement seems to be heavily. irfd6rscd by the prevailing newspaper sentiment .of" the country, - irrespective of party lines and 'sectional preju dice. Yet it must be recorded that many refuse to accept this disposal of it as logical or fair, or generous, or ingenuous. ' ''The soldiers, and sailors have-been buncoed antf'tkey are not back ward about saying so," we read in the Chicago Journal (Dem) The-boys who fought this war, allrfgih'gly Observes the Des Moines Register (Ind. Rep.) may well read Kipling's "Tommy Atlclns'-'-'t's always Mr. A'tkiris1 when.' the band begins- to play." It strikes the. Columbus Citizen (Irid.) as more-than passing strange "that there should be ,'n'o, money available for. the soldiers wftllfl money by the hundred million is avail able for the railroads.;" ,, Theva" wi.s money eifou$(h 'tor'.1 a naval-building, program to, cover the estimated bonus three times ovr, declares the , Tif ton .Gazette (Dem.), in Gqorgja, but "everybody, ,elso munition, armament, and sup ply, rptiter; capital and labor" must be paid before the men who fought are paid if they ' ever are paid." Foremost among the servjce-rnen's journals, The American Legion Weekly insists, that the people of this country, in .so, iar as -they have spoken, are clearly tor a bonus; taUs atten tion to the fact that fourteen states' have de cided to givejbonuses. In five the , legislature acted:, in U19 other, nine the,. people,; spoke "un equivocally and conclusively" in, referendum 3 as follOWS: ,.,..- ,ff. ,; --!- ' . ' For Against -Ratio For Malno . .. ;' .. ,r ,10.5,712 52,820 3.2to:l Michigan ..- 471,159 185;C02 2,5 to 1 New Jersey , ... .534,532 165,555 3.2 to 1 New York 1,117,546 03M2G5' ' 1.8. 'to 1 Oregon . : 88,219 -37,866 2.-3 to 1 Rhode Island . . i -10,535 1303 S.Tto 1 South Dakota .. . 93.4.59 56;366 "'' 1 7 tol Washington "224,356- ' 88 12 8' N 2.6 to "1 Wisconsin 165,762 : 5T,34 '' '2.7 to 1 ' ' .- '" . In asking the Senate to lay the, bonus bill over President Harding, declares . The American' Legion Weekly, ".prevented the -.passage of a measure whichTa majority of t'b.e,.peonle- of this; country and tf majority of our -tuational legisla tors had come to regard as inherently (founded on. justice," The American Legion,jve are. told must insist that Pres'dent Harding arid Secretary of the Treasury Mellon failed to make out a"' jase against compensation.: "To assume that a country Mvhioh spent bil lions in the war can not add tothis a propor tionately small amount, Is to assume that if the war. had lasted a few weeks longer the country would have been ruined. The American Legion can not subscivbe to the belief that this, is sound While the government did not borrow money without paying a fair rate of interest, while it did not conscript industry without adequate re muneration, it conscripted men and remunerated them as it -pleased, . The American Legion can npt subscribe to the belief that this is rf air If it was unjust to ask a contractor to work for -the v government- tor less than cost plus-10 per cent H was unfair to ask a man to fight -for it for cost minus 50 per cent. The American Legion must believe that it will becoirie apparent to the Amery lean people that President Harding, in his re markable message, set forth no reason whatever .to justify the Senate in delaying action, on a bill so vital alike to the' wejl-being of the men who served their country and to the country it self. It must express the fear too, that normalcy can not be attained by ignoring obligation. Defending the bonus as meaning "fair, square treatment for the men who fought for America, The Stars and Stripes (Washington), another ex-service-man's paper, similarly attacks the Harding logic. The more it studies the message the more it feels "that it was a piece of ex pediency coming from the hand but not from the heart of the Chief Executive, and that in good old army slang 'he may be -sorry when he' gets sober.' " Precedent, says National Commander John G. , Emery -of the American Legion, disproves Secre tary Mellon's "prediction of financial collapse if the adjusted compensation bill passes. Eng land and her overseas dominions, France, Italy, and Belgium enacted national-relief legislation and found money thus expended a potent, factor in. stabilizing conditions .generally through, re habilitation of individuals." , With these spokesmen for the veterans .stajnd such widely distributed papers as .the New Yqr$k Call (Socialist), Chicago Saturday Blade (Ind..), Milwaukee Leader (Socialist), Shreveport Times ('Dem.), Minnesota Star (Labor), and Seattle Union Record (labor). Labor (Washington) calls for a survey of profiteering and a levy upon the profiteers thus discovered of a special tax with which to pay a bonus. William Jennings Bryan makes a simpler suggestion in his Commoner. "Why not keep the excess-profits tax and use the proceeds to pay the ex-service men?" The NewiMajority (Chicago), organ of the Farmer Labor party, tells the disappointed ex-service men that this lesson should teach them "that th.e old parties are alike," that "there is'no help for the worker and the ex-service men are workers,, except the few who wore the shonlder-strap's-r-except in their- own party." THE QUANTJTIVE THEORY , Most tolerant-minded persons have looked back on Mr. Bryan's advocacy of free .silver in 1896 with more of sadness for a youth they were firmly convinced was misguided and too en thusiastic to be trusted as a leader. They' have been willing to forget their ancient belief that he deliberately sought to ruin our currency sys tem because of his. later proof of his rel in terest in the future and wolfare i Z his fellow countrymen. Mr. Bryan was for free silver be cause its unlimited coinage by the mint on a parity, with gold would have at least doubled the amount of money in circulation and thus given us what in those hard, times we needed, a larger per capita. His arguments in support of free coinage were based upon the quantitive theory of money, that is to say, that the prices of pro ducts were accurately measured by the amount of money available for paying for them. With money scarce it took more goods to get it; with money plenty it took less goods. We are forced to admit, in the light of the confessions of the federal reserve bankers,, that Bryan was a lot nearer being right than' many were. The bank has retired about half a billion of its own notes within the last sixteen, months, and it did so- for the purpose of forcing down prices. Its gov ernors frankly say that they made money dear m order to make goods cheapand that is the" WSXe S-'eUraskl Z Political chickens have also a habit of return-nig-to the family roost. During the last leftist, tivo session in Nebraska the Republicans omitted nothing that was calculated to make unde .dogs of .the .nonpartisan league and organized labor Now the party leaders are talking' of hohlinu ay -extra-legal-convention to winnow the SSfl of candidates for governor and senator -so tha one jnanjor e?ch office shall confront the leagi e labprt candidates :in the primary. " - ' - '- ,. -r ',., . ,,,v Prohibition, it Is true, is, hot a-ctfnipKte suoV eess'after two years, but neither is-whf&y drfnkV ing after centuries. Exchange." "nr TO MY WIPE ; r preacher, tender comrade:' wife " lf' 'Fellow farer, true through I& " ' , Heart whole and soul- free v Thp August Father gave to me " Robert Louis Stevenson THE ''OAiRBUNCLE" OF? BOYLE'S THlRTv ? - h ; .-f- " ' 'AORiES ' "jTlU ; lX , "A mWal Carbuncle""is'the denunciatory do. scription given by t)r. John. Roach Straton i prominent Baptist minister of New York, to thp recent Dempsey-Carpentier championship figM and a chorus of religious, editors joins him in rebuking the "90,000 criminals" who. witnessed the bout and the two "brutes" wfto bloodied each other's noses. The fight occasioned, of course a deal of softer thinking among those who wera interested" only in. the 'moral effects it migty produce, and, as will be recalle.d by our readers several vain efforts were made to prevent the exhibition, Dr. Straton, who- saw Xhe fight as a .witness for the International Reform Bureau, is quoted in the, New York Times. as saying that it proved to him that "we haye relapsed into paganism." It attracted, he, said, "all those elements whose influences are making for the overthrow of our American ideals and customs' "Of courae, it was not a boxing-match," says The Christian Work, (Undenominational), "and no one supposed ij was." Later on, thinks this Journal, "bull-fights and gladiatorial combat3 will probably be revived." Now, remarks a writ er in The Intelligencer (Reformed Church), "it is easier to make a pugilist than a preacher," and he exclaims: "How much need. there is of red blpoded Christianity .which, faces! th,e task of !; forming a brutal world and turning energim to the welfare of the race." But The Christian .Century .(Undenominational) thinks that thoro was "a certain 'disgust in the .attitude of mind with which a large portion ,ot the. reading public recejyed the, news of the results already dis counted' by expectation." ' , .It believes, then, that-- . . , "The prize-fight, no matter, what the stakes or. how,. distributed, is. an outlaw, 4ii';the civilized world,- It must pppose -an... evergrowing and he.a!thy: publje opinion. It rhjns.t'seek furtive1.? an area wjere the conscience, of the; community, or of public officials, is -lax and corruptible. Like the. saloon, it wjll .not ;. long', be;. able to find a place ylier,ejmm,unity, from, a. proper, regard for law. orderand decency c.ah.besectfred. it is an outlaw and a pariah.'.' ., n'. . "Thanks be to God; the ?great'-day of shame, . nationaL , shame, . is over! V exclaims, the Daily American Tribune, a.OajUiQlio'ptfperrof Dubuque. "The bloody sport in which two. human brutes pounded each other according to the rules of the 'game' in the presence of th,e assembled thou sands, was made the center of public attention for weeks, owing to the news agencies and pub lishers of the thousands of lilies that served the financial interests, pulling the strings, espe cially the purse-strings, of the American public." Suclr exhibitions are disgraceful, asserts The Uni versalist Leader: "But the prinxe evil-is the conducting of this school of crime, and forcing tfts text-books into the hands and homeg of America. And we, the dear people, as we see the laws against -gambling-swept aside, and all .the finer traits of mankind smothered in a delirium of passion and greed, must suffer for it; It will take years to bring back our youth to sober sanity from these months of beastly 'intoxication incited by our newspapers." . -.'-' However, the New Haven Journal-Courier is convinced that these 'critics V.tallt this way, im pugning motives here and blackening characters inee, Decause tney have lost their tempers ai the disinclination of people to, follow them." It recalls that neonlp wr nhiidi "TMnnmios" be- neonip wr CailSe tlieV '''Oimnftfirt tlia vaHflnnftnW st flio TCicrh- teenth' amendment, and ''now others are catch- ..., , v jfcuuu uiuugiu or an inuepenciMiu at once, finds himself or herself - shpt fall of Imaginary5 holes by .these intemperate guudians of other people's business, these' self -rnst't'ited administrates, of other petfp'l mqraia... . 'We may perhaps suggest tO'tlieW'Peppi'1 that they are increasingly driving r the same and sober peoplp away from their .stiiriilavd because of the vulgarity, of their ineffibds. It is ttm they learned t.liat American citizens do not pro nose to be .refoimed by their TmecUoda, lJcl1 have been teyred and found Van ti !.' A bi'n'J man can. sea the'vesentmeht .that is exnvoinf,' itself in ev.eiy section of ,thO' country. b'" cause they la'ck.. human uy-mpathy .' with the marked condition, these exhuhei-aRt f piles are blunderingly tryjftHo setMjftitJoause tftoy l!?e. ntePewfs and 1nsoYentf6Vel?ea,rin& and dictatorial.-ilLiterary Digese: ? ' ' ''Dogs ndver6;mdd," sayWerist,: ''if the cangeti) entydt ink,' -A-Wof men woiildn' get 'mad-'uxfiletfiri -nirlna .I'WVmffrfihV.i Nev rk Morning. Telegraph!. '. :rr'" MLJkdiA