Cuts Compromised

Much Congressional shoe leather was worn out over the White House doorstep last week before President Roosevelt and the House could compose their differences over reduction of pensions for disabled veterans. Day after day Democratic Representatives traipsed down from the Capitol, spent long hot hours dickering and bickering with the President. What they and their colleagues wanted, what the President flatly refused to let them have, was a Senate amendment to the Independent Offices Appropriation bill which would have limited the President's cutting power to 25% of the old payments and kept on the pension rolls not only veterans with battle injuries but also veterans with peacetime ailments which a generous law "presumed"' to be connected with the War. This Senate amendment would have whittled the President's savings on veterans down from $460,000,000 to $290,000,000. He would agree to this set-back of his whole economy program only if Congress would raise the $170,000,000 difference by new taxation. Last week's steps toward a compromise: The President issued an executive order limiting pension cuts to 25% for veterans directly disabled in the War. Additional cost: $60,000,000. The House, through its leaders, demanded that the 154,000 veterans with "presumptive" Wartime injuries also be put back on the pension rolls. Additional cost: $160,000,000. The President agreed, provided he was allowed to re-examine the "presumptive" list and weed out all veterans who could not definitely prove that their disabilities were connected with their War service. Additional cost $80,000,000. The House was willing but only on condition that the President would give the veteran the benefit of doubt in borderline cases. Additional cost: $100,000,000. The President agreed. Thus was developed a plan which: 1) restricted pension cuts to 25% ; 2) kept all disabled veterans on the rolls until Oct. 31; 3) gave those with post-War ailments a chance to convince examining boards that their disability was due to military service; 4) left Spanish War pensions entirely in the President's hands. The President had done a $100,000,000 backtrack under pressure from 435 politicians thinking only of their own skins in the next Congressional election, but he had maintained the principle that only veterans with War injuries should draw pensions. Before the House accepted (243-to-154) the White House compromise in place of the Senate amendment. North Carolina's Pou, chairman of the Rules Committee and dean of the House, joyfully declared: "Now I can go home and look my people in the face with a better feeling."

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