Evening Republican, Volume 23, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 March 1920 — VARIED OPINIONS ARE EXPRESSED ON BONUS ISSUE [ARTICLE]

VARIED OPINIONS ARE EXPRESSED ON BONUS ISSUE

* Washington, March 4.—Flat opposition to financial relief legislation for former service men, the first to be expressed by a former soldier, was asserted today before the house ways and means committee by Walter W. Burns, of Green Point, N. Y., a former artillery captain. A “money handout” to the ex-service men, he said, “would simply be thrown away.” Practically no former soldiers or sailors are without employment, Burns said, adding that most of them do not know the effect the payment of, a bonus would have. Outstanding government obligations would depreciate if a bond issue was authorized, Burns said. All soldiers would take a money grant if congress authorized it, he told the committee. Representative Rainey, democrat, Illinois, replied that this was even true of numbers of congress “who talk and vote against salaries and mileage allotments but always take the money.” \ Burns contended that the satisfaction of having fought to defend

the country was sufficient reward. “If the war had continued two weeks more every American soldier would have been so tickled they wouldn’t want any bonus,” he added. Representative Garner, democrat, Texas, said not a former service man in his district had written in favor of the proposed financial relief. “They don’t know you are in congress then,” a representative of a soldier organization, seated in the committee rooom, interjected. Even the American Legion is divided on the question, said, adding that he was a member of that organization and had talked with many others opposed .to the legions plans. Those who need a bonus would squander it and those who don’t need it would put it in ! a bank, he argued. (Reclamation of arid lands in the j west and south with preferential right to all former service men to entry on existing drained public lands was urged by a delegation headed by Representative Smith, republican, Idaho. Mrs. Ida Pierce, of Greencastle, came Thursday for* a visit here with relatives and friends.