Public Morals

The U.S. House of Representatives, whose members cannot be bought with mink coats, last week prostituted itself for the veterans' lobby. Everybody, as the saying goes, loves a soldier, and a Congressman yields to no man in showing how deep his love goes.

The U.S. (as it should) pays generous pensions to disabled veterans who can show that their disability is in some way connected with their military service. Recently, Congress passed a bill based on an entirely different principle. Under it, the Government would pay $120 a month to certain disabled veterans whose disabilities are in no way connected with military service. This bill, which may some day cost the taxpayer $400 million a year, was contrived by the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, of which Mississippi's John Rankin, a brazen spoilsman, is chairman.

Harry Truman vetoed the bill for what it was: a barefaced grab of public money. He said that veterans with disabilities not connected with military service should be cared for under measures that apply to the whole population, not merely to a special group. Truman is a politician, probably a candidate for re-election and, therefore, his stand against the veterans' lobby grab took a certain amount of moral courage.

Congress could have sheltered behind the President and quietly let the bill die. Instead, John Rankin's committee unanimously recommended that the bill be repassed. Rasped the old demagogue: "I am unalterably opposed ... to balancing the budget on the veterans."

The House repassed the bill by the shocking majority of 318 to 45. The 318 included 166 members of Truman's party. It included 152 Republicans whose party is going to the people next year on a platform of economy and morality in Government. Harry Truman will be able to say that most of these Congressmen are liars and hypocrites when they babble about economy and public morality. There is no doubt that most of the men who voted for the veterans' grab know that the bill is a bad one; privately, many of them will admit it in so many words.

The U.S. this year is deeply worried about its moral climate (see below). Last week's cynical prostitution of the House of Representatives was a striking example of what ails the nation.

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