The Ward County independent. [volume] (Minot, Ward County, N.D.) 1902-1965, 1921-06-30

Title v, Farm or Home Aid, allows
the veteran to receive the adjusted
pay plus an additional 40 per cent, TO
be applied toward the purchase price
Of home or farm.
Title vi, the Land Settlement Aid,
gives the veteran preference rights
to take lands on the opening Of pub
lie or Indian lands to entry, or the
restoration to entry Of public lands,
and on all reclamation projects now
in existence or hereafter established.
The veteran at his option may select
any one of these plans.
The compensation bill will meet
with determined opposition, as was
presaged recently by the stand taken
by the Chamber of Commerce. How
ever the attitude Of the Finance Com
mittee in giving the bill a favorable
report to the Senate may serve as
a criterion to the situation. When
the Fordney bill came up in the last
congress the real fight was staged in
the Ways and Means Committee it.
self. Secretary Houston was oppos-
ed to the bill and the Democratic
members of the committee stood with
him in fighting the measure to the
last ditch. This was likewise true of
some Of the Republican members and
it was only through the uncompro-
missing stand taken by Chairman
Fordney and men like Representatives
Young, North Dakota, and Frear,
Wisconsin, that the bill was reported
at all. When it reached the floor of
the House the rest was easy. Action
in the House, however, came so late
in the session that the bill was never
reached by the Senate and it died in
the Finance committee with the ex-
piration of the Sixty-sixth Congress.
In a way the situation now seems
to have reversed itself for when Nc
Cumber and Penrose came out in fav-
or Of bonus the other members of
the Finance Committee soon fell into
line and Senator McCumber secured
favorable report for the bill almost
as soon as it has passed through the
hands of his subcommittee.
In speech on Thursday Senator
McCumber opened the fight in the
upper chamber and in mastery fash
ion told the story of the returning
soldier who, upon receiving his dis
charge at the end of his wartime SER
vice, was thrown out upon the world,
jobless, out of touch with affairs of
the day, and unsettled by his exper-
fences, forced to balance against the
upward trend Of living costs his $50
bonus.
In part Senator McCumber said:
ITO bring home to you the justice
of this proposed adjusted compensa-
ton I want to picture to you just
what these soldiers looked upon day
after day. I can better illustrate it
by describing what you and l looked
upon every day in the construction of
the hundreds of temporary buildings
which were being erected upon the
Capitol grounds and down on the Mall.
"What we there observed we found
to be the almost universal rule over
the whole country-in every shipward
and wherever Government work was
being conducted and at time when
the very life of the cause for which
we were battling depended upon our
getting ships afloat to meet the U-boat
ravages. Any man who could saw
a rough board or drive a nail could,
and did, qualify as a carpenter and re-
ceived his SO per day whether he was
so per cent efficient or 5 per cent
efficient. OF the force employed in
the construction of the buildings
have mentioned, not more than one
third were in action at any given mo-
ment. never saw single shoveler
in digging shallow trenches for the
foundations move more than three
shovels of earth before stopping to
take rest or visit, and generally not
mbre than two. I have seen eight
men-as many as could hold of 2
by 6 fourteen-foot joist- slowly move
one after another from loaded truck,
carrying them some little distance and
gently laying them down. Two good
men could have unloaded them in half
the time.
"These carpenters of whom I am
speaking received their $40 day for
week days and 500 day for Sundays
and holidays, so they all worked Sun
days and most Of them laid off on
Mondays to make the snap last longer.
Testimony shows that work in our
shipyards was far below so per cent
efficient, though the wages were in
creased 800 per cent and more.
"The blood of the patriotic soldier
must have boiled with indignation to
feel that while his Government esti-
mated his services, including his
board and clothing, at about SO per
day, with all the riss and all the hard
ships, it supinely submitted to-nay,
it invited by it's form Of contract, the
immense increasn in tho uzanaa of