Evening star., 1936-05-19
BONUS DEFENDED
AS DEBT LONG DUE
Senator Clark, in Forum
Speech, Cites Fight
by Profiteers.

Us 1.-THE greatest profteers during the
period Of the war" in a talk on the
bonus made last night by Senator
Clark of Missouri in the National
Radio Forum, arranged by The Star,
and broadcast over coast-to-coaSt
network by the National Broadcast
ing Co.
In tracing the history of World War
recruiting by conscription and the
economic distress in which many Of
the draftees found themselves at the
close of the war, Clark said:
Every contractor with a claim
against the Government growing out
of the war could enforce and obtain
payment with per cent interest, but
the men who were prepared to bare
their breasts to the storm had only
=. moral and not legal claim. and were
left in the humiliating position of be-
ing suppliants to Congress for relief.
Cites Firms Fight.
Among the bitterest opponents first
of the enactment of the compensation
law and then TO provide immediate
payment was one firm which has re-
Gently been exposed by the Munitions
Committee of the Senate as having
held up construction of vitally needed
power plants during the crisis of the
war while it haggled with the Govern
ment about its own compensation and
demanded huge bonuses for its execu-
tives and civilian employees"
The bonus, Clark recalled, will be
payable June IS as q result OF
the Vinson- McC Cormack- -Steiwer law
passed in January over the presiden-
tial veto.
Text of Address:
The text of Senator Clark's address
follows:
Scarcely any subject of general pub
Lie interest within our times has so
readily lent itself to entirely honest
and patriotic divergency of opinion to
q greater extent than did the contro-
versy as to the immediate payment of
the adjusted service certificates-or in
popular parlance-the bonus.
Millions of Americans honestly re-
garded the proposition of paying the
face of the adjusted service certificates
on any terms except ordinary dis
count rates as raid upon the Treas
Wy. N1dLiy Va OIAlCi fAAAiSA
leans with equal honesty and more
reason regarded the payment in full
of the certificates as the tardy and
belated liquidation of debt which had
accrued prior to November II, 1918,
and which should have been funded
or hquidated promptly thereafter.
Other millions of Americans held to
varying shades of opinion between the
two extremes which have been stated.
+ With the changes in the financial
situation of the Nation and the devel-
opments In our national policy as to
expenditures, a multitude of our citi-
zens have had occasion to change
their attitude as to justice of paying
at once this debt now nearly twoscore
years old.
Let me for a moment recall to your
mind the circumstances which justified
the acknowledgement of a debt which
was embodied in the issuance of the
adjusted service certificates. It is to
these circumstances that. we must
look for the justification both for the
a original issuance Of the bonus certifl-
Gates and for their payment either
now or in 1945 or at any other time.
Conscription Decided on.
In April, 1917, the United States
declared war on Germany We had a
small and efficient Regular Army, in
conformity with our traditional ma
tional policy. We had a most excel
lent and devoted National Guard,
but the Regular Army and National
Guard combined of course formed a
force vastly smaller than our needs for
the prosecution Of war. 1t was neces-
sary to raise new Army of size un-
precedented in our history.
At the urgent insistence of the War
Department, Congress turned its back
upon our ancient and historic policy
of fighting our wars with volunteer
armies, and decided upon conscription
Millions Of our youth were drafted
from their civilian pursuits into the
military service in addition to the
several hundred thousand who had
enlisted in the Nationual Guard, Regu-
Lar Army, Navy or Marine Corps.
Altogether more than four million
Americans were called to the colors in
the less than two years of our par
ticipation in the great war.
It is not necessary in this brief
period to 60 into detail as to our mill
tary participation in that awful strug-
gle. The world knows and has ac-
claimed the story. Sufdce it to say
that all of our services-Army, Navy
and Marines-met every demand which
could be made upon them in a manner
to shed imperishable lustre upon our
arms; that on some of the bloodiest
and most decisive fields Of the entire
struggle our lads played gallant, i'm
portant and, indeed, decisive part;
that finally American troops were the
spearhead of the assault which
smashed the Hindenburg line amid the
greatest carnage in history and COM
PEELED the Central Powers to sue for
peace.
Undoubtedly if the war had been
prolonged until the next year, the
military contribution of the United
States would have been upon a scale
never equalled in military history. As.
it was. such experts as Grand Admiral
Won Trpitz and Gen. Won Ludendorf
attributed the final defeat and collapse
Of the Central Powers to the activities
of the American Expeditionary Forces
and to the potentialities of the huge
reserves already formed and forming
on this side of the Atlantic.
And so the war was won and within