Economy's End

March 1933--Heroic and invincible, planted foursquare on his platform and campaign pledge to cut the Federal Budget by 25%, President Roosevelt swept through a dazzled Congress the Economy Act of 1933, enabling him to lop an estimated $500,000,000 per year off Government expenditures. Most of this saving was obtained by separating veterans who had not been disabled in actual service from the pension rolls, by cutting all Federal salaries 15%,.

June 1933--The President quietly restored $50,000,000 worth of veterans' pensions, Congress $46,000,000 more.

January 1934--''Correcting inequalities," the President increased pensions for service-connected disabilities. Cost: $21,000,000.

March 1934--In the face of prodigious Federal spending, Congressmen found it increasingly difficult to explain what difference a few more millions for veterans and Government employes made. They overrode the President's veto of the Independent Offices Appropriation Bill, gave back $90,000,000 to veterans, $120,000,000 to Federal workers.

October 1934--Just before elections, President Roosevelt restored the last one-third of the 15% Federal pay cut, effective July 1. Cost: $60,000,000.

August 1935--Veterans of other wars had got back all they lost in 1933, but up to last week Spanish War veterans, including those who participated in the Philippine Insurrection and the Boxer Rebellion, had retrieved only 75%. A bill rushed through the House without opposition and passed by the Senate last fortnight with only one dissenting vote proposed to restore the final 25%. Last week the President signed it. The bill marked the death & burial of the long ailing Economy Act of 1933. It also represented a lobbying triumph of the first order.

Legion Lobbyist John Thomas Taylor once got a virtual bouncing for daring to enter the ornate President's Room where Senators and newshawks confer. But while the Spanish War pensions bill was pending in the Senate, gallery spectators observed another veterans' lobbyist in the Senate chamber itself, not merely sitting on the lounges in the rear but brazenly occupying Senators' seats. As a onetime (1925-27) Senator from Colorado, big. white-haired, black-browed Rice William Means had a right to be on the Senate floor. As tactful lobbvist-in-chief for United Spanish War Veterans, he was taking full advantage of that right.

In 1898, aged 20, Second Lieutenant Rice Means of the ist Colorado Infantry marched off to war in the Philippines. In the World War he was one of two officers not of the regular Army to be put in command of regulars. He was successively commander-in-chief of the Society of the Army of the Philippines (1913). of Veterans of Foreign Wars (1914-15), of United Spanish War Veterans (1926). After defeat for re-election to the Senate, he returned to Washington to look out for Spanish War Veterans' interests in Congress, help run their National Tribune and Stars & Stripes.

Up to last week roughly 165.000 Span ish War veterans, plus 39.000 dependents, were receiving pensions totaling $85.000,000 per year. The bill which Lobbyist Means put through Congress almost single-handed restores to the rolls some 37,000 veterans with no service-connected disabilities whatever -- including virtually all remaining veterans still alive -- plus 11,000 dependents, at an extra cost of $46,000,000 per year. For having groomed horses in Florida or peeled potatoes in California, hale heroes of 1898-1900 will get $42.45 per month for life, more than is paid some veterans actually injured in World War fighting.

Time & again -- in Chicago in 1933. in Roanoke, Va. last autumn, in Congress last May -- President Roosevelt has driven home one settled conviction: only the War-injured veteran can lay claim to special benefits from the Government. In view of that stand many a Washington observer confidently expected the President to make a last fight for his riddled Economy Act, veto the Spanish War pensions bill. Especially did that move seem likely since approval of the bill would apparently open the way for a vast pension drive by all World War veterans.

In a White House statement accom panying his signature on the bill, President Roosevelt last week denied any such precedent by laying down a firm distinction between World War veterans and those of previous wars. World War veterans, he pointed out, got insurance, hospitalization, compensation for dependents, vocational rehabilitation and the Bonus. Except for hospitalization in recent years, Spanish War veterans have had none of these. "The approval of this bill," declared Mr. Roosevelt, "establishes no ground or precedent for pensions for the World War group. Theirs is an entirely different case. . . . The President recognizes the fact that the Spanish-American veterans were once on the rolls, under prior legislation; that they are approaching advanced age;* that their disabilities are increasing."

Concluded the statement: "The President's action today is taken appropriately on the anniversary date of the occupation of Manila by the American forces." A hero of the occupation of Manila, who 27 years later received a Distinguished Service Cross for bravery on that occasion, was Lobbyist Rice William Means.

*Average age of Spanish War veterans: 61.

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