Vinson Vote

Last week the American Legion lobby, most potent in Washington, once more demonstrated its power. Of 25 Bonus bills on which it has been conducting hearings, the House Ways & Means Committee voted null to report out the Legion-sponsored Vinson Bill. Into committee discard went the famed Patman Bill, long House Bill No. 1, backed by inflationists and Veterans of Foreign Wars, twice passed by the House and rejected by the Senate. Down from his place as the House's No. 1 Bonuseer stepped Texas' Wright Patman, to be replaced by Kentucky's Frederick Moore Vinson.*

Big, long-faced Bonuseer Vinson, 45, was still in an officers' training school when the War ended. A lawyer with a vast distaste for politics, he first went to the House in 1923, lost his seat in 1929, returned in 1931. Matter-of-fact and publicity-shy, he remained an inconspicuous Congressman until his Bonus bill projected him into the headlines.

Theoretically, the Vinson Bill is a piece of legislation regularly originated and sponsored by an elected representative of the people of the U. S. Actually, it is child & chattel of the American Legion. Of that fact, in the final hearings before the Committee vote last week, the Legion's Commander Frank Nicholas Belgrano Jr. and its No. 1 Lobbyist John Thomas Taylor made no bones. "Our bill," said they, and "the American Legion ... its bill. . . ." But when the question came up of how to raise the $2,137,975,157 called for by the bill, Lobbyist Taylor modestly referred that problem to the House Appropriations Committee and the Treasury. Snapped Commander Belgrano, "We don't care how it is paid."

Like the Patman Bill, the Vinson Bill calls for full and immediate cash payment of the Bonus, plus remission of interest on the $1,500,000,000 veterans have borrowed on their certificates since 1031. Unlike the Patman Bill, which specifies payment by a new issue of currency, the Vinson Bill offers no method of financing.

The Ways & Means Committee decided (14-to-9) to let the full House choose between the Vinson and Patman Bills. That vote and a vote on the measure chosen were scheduled for this week. The House seemed certain to pass one measure or the other. That the Senate would follow suit and the President would veto seemed equally certain.

*Not to be confused with Georgia's Carl ("Big Navy") Vinson, roly-poly chairman of the House Naval Affairs Committee.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.