The Connecticut labor news., 1924-10-04
ADAM COALDIGGER
 DISCUSS PENSION
 OF GEN. PERSHING
Army Head Retires at $13,5O0 Per Year While Doughboy Still
 Has His Coming.

see by the papers that General Per shing was retired on a pension of $13,- 500 per year" says Adam Coaldigger i'll the Illinois Miner I am not opposed to soldiers pensions. 1 believe the marine who stood on the burning deck, when all around the shrapnels cracked, IS en- titled to more than the customary thirty silverlings per month, I believe that the dough boys, who faced elimination, ex- termination, hell and damnation, to say nothing about hard tacks, trench rats, cooties and Y. M. C. A. secretaries policy, To pay man with due bill, payable after death, is the kind of joke that his undertaken may enjoy but t don't buy beans for living heroes
 Therefore, I say, give the common soldiers who bled and died for their country all that is coming to them, but for heavens sac, don't pension gen. erals
 
 ever was handed out by providence If there IS anything Ill re-incarnation, hope they let me come back a general. Nothing would suit me better than sit on prancing steed, point brave sword toward the blue horizon and shout, over the long distance phone: Soldiers, the enemy is before you. Go and die like heroes"
 The General is the first gentlemen of the army He's the first man you meet when following an army in advance and he IS first again when the army Is com ing back from a rout, When an army is defeated the common soldier gets the wooden cross and when the army is vic torious, the General is decorated with | the congressional cross.
 "Generaling" in war time is the safest and healthiest trade on record. During the late unpleasantness, 50,OO0 of our wounded but the experience table of thirty-n1ne American life and accident insurance companies show that not single general was killed, wounded or even missed.
 There IS rumor that one General was seriously injured by the prerna ture explosion of a champagne bottle. An her, 1 heard, contracted out in a French wine cellar and a third, SO they say, succumbed to an attact of sleeping cf~ speaker in Cincinnati But outside of the above mentioned casualties, our generals had royal time fighting for democracy and the abolition of their trade. They had good pay, short hours and pleasant working conditions, in tranquil and refined surroundings tar from the turnult and carnage of war They had free board, lodging, laundry and transportation. If their chauffer kicked for raise, they sent him to the guard house. When the cook threatened to leave, they called in the firing squad and when a bill collector came around they had him shot for a spy
 Of course there were air raids and
  trate so far to the rear as to disturb the sleep of a general, but no opposing commander was ever mean enough tD break the "gentlemens agreement" and drop bomb on a slumbering colleague So everything was smooth and pleasant and comfy around general headquarters until the armistice broke out and over whelmed the general with peace
 To save my life, 1 can't see why we should pension a hale and hearty general like Pershing and deny pen sion 10 my old buddy. Sam Cartwright, l who is vegetating down Herrin way. i Sam entered the mine when he was nine | years old. He has faced death a thou sand times and gladly would face It again If they'd let him, But Sam Is too | old 10 dig coal and besides, he's all | ''s-ove up" and rh eumatic and wheezy | with asthma; and he is blind in one eye and has blinkers in the other, and | a fall of rock disIocated one hip and the spinal column, and he is 3 little wobbly OH his legs, being that he was shell shocked by gas explosions and one of his lungs is gone on account of the poison gas he inhaled for fifty nine years, And besides, Sam wouldn't look well ;n modern mine no how, because 1iS face is all Scarred up and blue from oowdter marks
 But We cant pension Sam Cartwright We even forget co sive h5m -he Croix 1e Guerre when he hattie. for three lays and nighrs without sleep or eats after the Cherry mine disaster, trying
 CTTV CA\ITNCC