Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-03-17
NO MONEY FOR
VETS; SCADS FOR
SHIP OWNERS
(By Charles nj. Kelley)

1t would be interesting to know
what thoughts came to small group
of crippled soldiers who were in the
House galleries when President Hard
ing made his fervid appeal for a sub
sidy Of millions of dollars to Ameri-
can shipowners.
These veterans who contributed
their limbs and many years of their
lives to the seemingly thankless task
of making the world safe for demo-
cracy hobble daily up into the Con-
gressional galleries, where they take
note of what is said and done in refer
ence to their adjusted compensation
appeals.
They are lobbyists" for four nil
lion other former service men. They
have no slush funds to lavish where
such funds usually do the most good.
They employ no eloquent advocates to
plead their cause. They have only
stumps of legs and arms, CHASTITY
scars and broken bodies to speak for
them. Eloquent as are these appeals
for justice, these mangled soldiers
find themselves caught in welter of
most disgusting politics and made the
football of scheming politicians who
are carefully balancing what should
be a simple and spontaneous act OF
decency against its possible influence
upon their personal fortunes.
The faces of these boys were a
study as they listened to the Presi-
dents demand for bonus for profit
eering and piratical shipowners. II
was possible almost to tell of what
they were thinking.
Some of them recalled that only 4
lew months ago the President walked
down to the Capitol and called togeth-
er IN private conference a few of his
former cronies and warned them that
the condition of the nations finances
would not permit the granting Of a
soldier bonus.
All OF them remembered that lust
few days before the President again
conferred with lawmakers and told
them that if a bonus were given, il
must be attached to the most odious
form of taxation that can be devised
NOT one of them could have been de-
ceiVed as to the Presidents real pur-
pose. In forcing Congress to adopt
tax scheme that would take food
from the stomachs of millions of peo-
pie and push over other millions who
are crowding the borderline of pow
erty, Mr.. Harding was attempting i'm
another way what he accomplished
last year.
But when Mr.. Harding wanted mil
lions for shipowners, he did not slip
IN the back door of the Capitol and
hold secret parley with the Senate
oligarchy. Bold and unafraid, he
looked the world straight in the eyes
and told it that it must do thus and
so. He was then the real Harding.
lie was the agent of the large bust
ness combinations that financed his
campaign. He was serving those who
elalm him as their own and exclusive
President.
1t must have struck those crippled
soiulers as most unusual that this
great and rich nation can, when ii
Sxilis, rake up any number of millions
s9i pig monopohes when it so readily
eaos poverty when any of its hum.
ton. "snins cohsluera-
t,a nslng human, they naturally con.
d ur;n~ N. sne service of the shipowner.
ANY .he war with that of tha col
sis. Az VINO offered up their lives on,
49,; .he respective rewards 49, a an,
WI gwen by their goyernraa,'+ "a
n r;s len 'hese boys were ha,na -,
mo 49, lhe shipowners W. Ply
steal,nss revel at home IT,, hoio
governma D0,lions Of dollars from t Wes
's''' -Four billion nun do Sher