Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1917-10-05

and to secure the progress of civilization We can
not permit our soldiers while they hold the front
to be stabbed in the back by uncertainty as to
what is being done for their loved ones at home
Our tomorrows are in their hands--theirs in ours
The national conscience will not permit Americas
soldiers and their dependents to go unprovided
with everything that just, generous and noble
people can do to compensate them for the suffer
ings and sacrifices they make to serve their
country.
Aside from the care and protection of their
dependents while the soldier is alive, the pro-
posed war insurance act provides for definite COM
pensation for his dependents in of death, for
definite and adequate indemnities in of total
or partial disability and for re-education of the
MANNED and disabled man, so that he may take up
a new occupation and makes himself useful men,
Der of society. We must restore their efficiency
and adjust their still available faculties and func
tons to suitable trades and vocations which the
injuries of the battlefield have not wholly des-
troyed The heavy depetions in man-power re-
sulting from this conflict, which is without pre-
cedent in history or imagination, will place new
and greater values upon all forms and degrees of
human energy and demand as first duty of in
tegent government that every remaining useful
sense and limb of the blind and crippled shall be
reclaimed under the benevolent processes of edu-
cation and reapplied to economic uses for the ben
eft of society The millions we shall be called up
on to spend to support the dependents of the sol
diers while they are in the ighting-line for in
IDENTITIES and for re-education of the crippled are
in the last analysis investments of the best sort
they sums of capital advanced by the nation to
promote utility, self-respect and economic devel-
opment. More than all, they are essentially hui
manitarian and in the highest sense discharge
by the Government of an essential duty to society.
Military service is now obligatory; those who
imperil themselves have no election. The insur-
ance companies do not and cannot permit this fact
to affect their calculations. They must protect
themselves by charging premiums so high that
they are secured against loss no matter how Sc
we're the rate of mortality may be. Consequent
ly, the very men who are called into the service
because their physical condition is of the best and
who as civilians would for that reason be able to
secure the most favorable insurance rate in peace
time denied as soldiers the necessary life in
surance to enable them to protect their families
and dependents. The tremendous rates charged
by private insurance companies to protect them
against the extra-hazardous risks of war put in
surance entirely beyond the reach of the con-
scripted soldier.
Military. necessity has, therefore, subjected
the most fit subjects for insurance to an unsur-
mountable discrimination unless the Government
itself supplies insurance at cost and upon peace
basis 1t would in fact be dastardly and undem-
soldier who is forced to render the highest duty
of the citizen by its failure to provide war insur-
ance upon peace terms and at net cost, first, be-
cause the pay of the enlisted men in the Army and
Navy is less than the wages and salaries generally
earned in private life, which reduces their invest
ing capacity; and, second, because Government
insurance is an essential war and emergency mea-
sure, inaugurated for the specific benefit of our
military forces, and cannot and should not be
conducted for profit
Such overhead charges as agents commits
sions, advertising promotion, local rentals, ETC.,
are eliminated. The Government must assume
the cost of administering this benevolent agency,
just it bears the cost of administering all other
Government agencies established for the benefit
of the people. -
This legislation will be great step forward in
the recognition of the Republics duty to its he
roes. | consider it the most significant and pro-
gressive measure presented to Congress since the
declaration of war 1t Immediately affects the
well-being of a greater number of persons than
any act with which am familiar. 1t deserves the
earnest and vigorous support of the country 1t
provides the broadcast and the most liberal protec-
ton ever extended by any government to its fight
ing forces and their dependent families. The
United States, the most progressive and prosper
Gus nation on earth, setting an example in the
ideals for which enlightened humanity is fighting
should set the highest example of all the nations
in the treatment of those who do and die for
their country and for world freedom.
We are proposing to expend during the next
year more than ten billion dollars to create and
maintain the necessary fighting forces to rees
tablish justice in the world. But justice must be-
gin at home; justice must be done to the men who
die and suffer for us on the battlefelds and for
their wives and children and dependents who sac
rifce for us at home. To do justice to them re-
quires only 1.-THE of the money we are expanding