Economy Lobby

Last week the National Economy League, organized last summer by Archibald Roosevelt & friends to lop some $450,000.000 from the $1,000,000,000-per-year appropriations for veterans, went into action at the Capitol for the first time as a political lobby. Pitted against the League is the full force of the American Legion and its super-lobby.

William Marshall Bullitt, onetime (1912-13) Solicitor General of the U. S., appeared as N. E. L.'s volunteer lobbyist before a joint Congressional committee investigating veterans' legislation. Amid a barrage of statistics he set forth savings proposed by N. E. L.:

P:$140,000,000 by eliminating all civil disability payments to veterans. P: $125,000,000 by eliminating all payments made on the legal presumption that every disability prior to Jan. 1, 1925 was connected with the War. P: $40,000,000 by barring reinstatement of lapsed war risk insurance. P: $42,000,000 by limiting hospitalization to veterans actually injured in service. P: $7,000,000 by eliminating retirement pay to disabled emergency officers. P: $30,000,000 in administrative savings.

Bullittins: "The Spanish War cost $582,000,000, yet the Government has already paid its veterans $715,000,000 or at the rate of $45,000 for each man who was wounded or died or suffered from disease. . . . For the World War the Government has already paid to veterans $3,430,000,000 for their war service and over $7,000,000,000 for deaths and disabilities --an average of $2,300 a piece. . . .

"There's no more reason for the Government to pay these huge sums to veterans who suffered no injury or disability than for the Government to make a similar gift to widowed mothers, retired ministers, unfortunate farmers, unemployed stenographers."

Lobbyist Bullitt was severely heckled by committee members on N. E. L.'s weakest political point--the benefits its active leaders derive from the U. S. Treasury. The same criticism was leveled at N. E. L. by January FORTUNE. Another cogent charge against the League is that it is politically inept in concentrating its fire on the single front of veterans' expenditures rather than developing a comprehensive plan of attack against all Government spending. Into the record went the following pensions paid the following persons who were advocating pension cuts: General John Joseph Pershing,

member of N. E. L.'s Advisory

Council . . $19,880

Rear Admiral Richard Evelyn Byrd,

N. E. L.'s chairman $4,500

Major General James Guthrie Harbord,

prime N. E. L. member $6,000

Admiral Byrd was shown to have drawn special compensations from the Government since 1916--once for a sprained ankle.

Lobbyist Bullitt insisted that there was a "decided difference" between the retired pay of regular Army & Navy officers and the pensions to veterans who served only briefly during the War. In Boston where he was recovering from influenza Admiral Byrd rose up to reply: "I'm proud of being a naval officer. ... I will not be muzzled, intimidated nor stopped. . . . The principle of the right of liberty itself is involved. . . . Whether or not General Harbord, General Pershing and I are on the retired list makes no difference. . . . The movement will sweep forward."

Chief heckler was Indiana's loud Senator Robinson, a War veteran and ardent pension booster. "Outrageous!" he cried when Lobbyist Bullitt called most disability payments "doles, pure and simple," and pointed to Civil War pensions as a "bad principle." Senator Robinson tried to discredit N. E. L. by showing that Lobbyist Bullitt also represented Associated Gas & Electric, "one of the most reckless units in the power trust." The Indianian insisted N. E. L. was being supported by wealthy taxpayers trying to shirk their share of War costs.

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