Mate's Mate's Fate

"One of history's most heroic acts . . . an act of perfect courage" was what President Theodore Roosevelt called it when, during target practice off Pensacola in 1904, Chief Gunner's Mate Mons Monssen of the battleship Missouri* crawled into the magazine after an explosion had already killed 29 men and injured five, and with bare hands beat out a fire which would have killed 600 more had it reached the powder room. Mate Monssen got a Congressional Medal. In 1925 he retired, a lieutenant. In 1930 he died. This spring the Navy Department notified Hero Monssen's widow that one of its new destroyers will be christened U.S.S. Monssen.

Last week, Widow Sadie Monssen, 50, had not been forgotten by other agencies of her Government. From the Veterans' Administration she has been getting a $30-a-month widow's pension. From WPA her daughter has had $24 a week relief pay. From HOLC she received a notice that her home in Brooklyn would be foreclosed because she could not raise more than $35 of the $65.56 due monthly on her loans and owed $967 back interest.

*Commanded by Theodore Roosevelt's brother-in-law, Captain William Sheffield Cowles.

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