Pro Bono Politico

Last week the Congressional tide for paying off the Soldier Bonus at once and in full continued to rise.* At the Capitol pro bono publico became pro bono politico. In the House 167 members were said to be down in writing as ready to support Bonus legislation, more than enough to force a roll-call vote. Fifty more members were reported as "favorable"' while only 91 were definitely ''opposed." Somewhere in the House background was said to be a colossal petition signed by two million veterans calling for Bonus cash. Though the American Legion was nationally committed against further payments, individual posts throughout the land clamored louder & louder for them. The Veterans of Foreign Wars, frank lobbyists, wangled energetically. The Ways & Means Committee set next week to begin hearings on Bonus legislation. House leaders warned that further cash payments would hopelessly unbalance the Budget but declared themselves impotent to check a House once stampeded by the "soldier vote." President Hoover usually waits for a troublesome Congressional issue to come to the White House before acting on it. His friends in the House, however, told him that if he followed such a course on the Bonus he would be engulfed before he knew it. They urged him to bestir himself early and start beating back the Bonus tide before it reached its legislative flood. This the President decided to do last week when, in a sharp emphatic voice, he read to the Press: "Informal polls of the House have created apprehension in the country that a further bonus bill for $2,000,000,000 will be passed. I am absolutely opposed to any such legislation. ... I do not believe any such legislation can become law. Such action would undo every effort that is being made to reduce Government expenditures and balance the budget. The first duty of every citizen is to build up and sustain the credit of the Government. Such an action would irretrievably undermine it. That's all." Congressman Wright Patman of Texas is the House's loudest advocate of full Bonus payments.* His bill for that purpose was the first introduced at this session. He proposes that the two billion dollars be raised by straight currency inflation, that is, the issuance of unsecured paper money. His arguments for the bonus are the same as those used last year for the 50% loan law: 1) discharge of a recognized debt; 2) stimulation of business; 3) relief for needy veterans. Said he of the Hoover statement: "The millions released by the Reconstruction Finance Corp. went to the big boys by way of New York. The millions involved in the full payment bill will go to the little fellows in every nook and corner of the nation. ... It will mean increased revenue in the form of taxes to the Government. Mr. Hoover is misguided. . . . If he counts noses he'll find 90% to 95%, of the Legionaires are in favor of this legislation." Another red-hot champion of the Bonus is small, fuzzy-headed Congressman John Elliott Rankin of Mississippi, chairman of the House Veterans Committee. Last week he gave the country this advice: "Unless we inflate the currency and restore commodity values, we'll have a deficit next year and the next and so on. Let us pass this bill to inflate the currency, pay these boys what we owe them and restore the prosperity of our people. The Budget will balance itself through increased revenue. Of course we're going off the gold standard and the sooner the better." Calling at the White House to tell the President that his statement had already "beaten the bonus" (a view not concurred in by responsible House leaders). Congressman Hamilton Fish suggested that the proposed "bonus currency" carry the pictures of Messrs. Patman & Rankin.

*Latest bonus statistics: Total number of adjusted service certificates outstanding, 3,542,625; certificates pledged under last year's 50% loan law, 2,477,012; outstanding loans by Veterans' Bureau, $1,247,785,108; 1945 cash value of all certificates less outstanding loans, $2,270,126,367. *Last week the New York Sun discovered that of the 255,452 persons in Mr. Patman's district in Northeast Texas, only 1,659 in 1929 ''stared into the cold white face of a [Federal] income tax blank."

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