The dispatch-news. [volume] (Lexington, S.C.) 1919-2001, 1921-11-09
aFrom Congressional Record, October
81, 1929

aFrom Congressional Record, October
81, 1929
Mr.. WATSON of Georgia. Mr..
president the Senator from Alabama
4Mr. Heflin), while delivering his elo-
sauent speech, express> 4 his wonder
at what was being thought, felt, and
said out at Kansas City a the great
meeting of the ex-service men of the
World War. A few moments after
he had taken his seat friend from
the press gallery handed me a copy of
the early issue of the Washington
Times of to-day, on the front page of
(which I find these headlines:
Legion demands bonus revived.
Criticism hurled at the President.
Mellon also accused by national COM
nander at convention of misrepre-
.senting the facts
Just beyond the Canadian border
Ihey have done and are now doing
the very thing which we have not
done in the past and apparently do
.not intend to do. More t.,an 100000
acres Of land have been allotted to the
.ex-service men who went from Can
ada to fight for their mother country
when her very life was at stake. That
magnificent policy is going forward
from day to day.
In this country we have adopted nc
such policy, and apparently do not
intend to do so. Why it was that
the President. of the United States
placed himself in antagonism to the
soldiers who fought under unusual
circumstances of sacrifice and suffer-
ing so many thousands of miles away
.Ironl home I do not know any more
s:han I know why Secretary Mellon
sc persistently n1isrepresents the
facts.
There is one thing about this SER
vice beyond seas which makes it diff
ferent from that of a soldier in any
r other war in which Americans have
taken a part. Thd wi6 ocean sepa-
rated them from home. They lost con-
tact with neighbor, friend, father
mother, children. During the War
between the States and all our other
vars the soldiers in both sides en-
'ioyed the advantage of furloughs
home. In this Great War they had
no such advantage. During the War
Ebetween the States, and all other
wars we have waged, they could re-
ceive comforts from home to supple
rnent the Army rations. In this wal
they could not, and the very boxes Of
comforts which were prepared for
them here and shipped to France
were sold to thsm; and it took the
soldiers pay to keep himself fed
and clothed. There was not single
letter he could write that was not
stereotyped. There was no censor
ship Of private letters during the Civil
War or the Revolutionary War OR
the War of 1912 or the Spanish
War. In this war beyond the ocean
the most rigid censorship prevailed,
and no soldier could tell his own
folks, who could spread it over the
'reighborhood, how they were being
treated. Our people hever learned
OF the barbarities practiced upon our
soldiers until the privates began TO
filter back into this country and to
tell a part OF what they had en-
perienced.
] have been impressed with the
fact, as various t;;-scldiers have com"
to my house. that there were certain
points at which they paused. There
were some things hey did not want
to tell, and those things have not
been told. Hard boiled Smith was
~
re men in his power when he was
so lar away that he cid not believe
his at ccious mistreatment of the
privat2s would ever get back to Am
erica.
How many Senators know that a
private soldier was frequently shot by
MS officers because Of some COM
psaint against officers insolence; and
that they had gallows upon which
men were hanged, day after day,
without court martial or any other
form of trial? How many Senators
know that? 1 had and have the
photograph of one Of those galloWs,
upon which 21 white boys had already
been executed at sunrise when the
photograph was taken; and there
n a c