Hyblaean Honey

Mr. Neely, who hides his Christian names (Mathew Mansfield) by the initials "M. M.," is Senator from the State of West Virginia, a state which breeds an eloquence as odorous as the honey of the Hybla* bees. What is more, he is a Democrat and nothing loathe to attack in the Senate the Republican President who vetoed (TIME, May 12) the Bursum pension bill: "I arise to charge the President of the United States with having become a lobbyist. As such, his activities are being carried on at the breakfast table of the White House, where his power ful and penetrating propaganda is being delivered to Members of the Congress who have been previously feasted on buckwheat cakes saturated with New England maple syrup. "Since Eve was tempted by the serpent with the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden, never has there been offered to weak and erring humanity such an irresistible temptation as buck wheat cakes and syrup, sweeter than the honey of the Hybla bee. "The seriousness of my charge against the President is accentuated by the fact that the victims of his attack are the veterans of our various wars and the dependent widows and children of those who fought and sacrificed and suffered for their country. . . . "If the President believes that there is no justification for paying a needy surviving defender of our country as much as $72 a month as a pension, how can he justify his receiving from the Treasury a salary of $75,000 a year, or, to be more specific, a salary in excess of $205 a day? . . .

"Since President Coolidge has taken the position that it will be too costly to the country to pay the beneficiaries of the Bursum bill pensions of $72 a month, I hope that our veterans and the widows and orphans of soldiers will decide that it will be too costly to pay Mr. Coolidge $205 a day to be President for the next four years."

*One of three towns in Sicily--which one, is no longer known--celebrated by Latin poets for its honey.