PROFITEERS DEFEAT SOLDIER BONUS
Reed, James A.
Profiteers Defeat Soldier Bonus Men Who Offered Lives for Country Are Now Sacrificed On Altar of Great Wealth By JAMES A. REED (United States Senator from Missouri) LET me tell you the real...
...If it was made here upon the floor of the Senate upon the ground that nothing ought to be paid to these young men, because the sacrifice of the soldier is the sacrifice of duty, and that every citizen should on behalf of his country be prepared to sacrifice his life and his health, without any hope of compensation or reward—if that were the argument advanced, while I would not accord with it, I could have some sympathy with it, for it would be based, at least in part, upon a noble impulse, an impulse that springs from the patriotic sentiment that every man owes his all to his country...
...Then we knew why it was and in whose interest the soldiers' bonus bill was being retired and slaughtered...
...that his great fortune is invested in mighty financial institutions, in great industrial enterprises, in the various institutions, sir, that have been waging war against the payment of any kind of excess-profits taxes or any kind of surtaxes upon large incomes...
...They do not like to vote on the question in that way, and accordingly they have talked about it and agreed that as soon as the amendment comes up they will, by making a motion to lay it on the table, permit nobody to talk on it...
...arose and with an unctuous and sympathetic piety assured the soldiers that the bill would receive prompt and sympathetic attention in the committee...
...and WHEREAS, The nation should pay, and is paying, all of its other obligations...
...You will have to vote on it one way or the other before you get through with it and you may just as well put up your courage, gird your loins, harden your hearts, and stiffen your necks, and as well do it now as a little later on, because the problem is coming...
...We have been told that big business effects its purpose by the influence that it exerts in an indirect way on legislation in Congress...
...But when, after the bonus bill had been sent into "cold storage" or into eternal sepulcher, the Secretary of the Treasury disclosed his financial program, then we discovered that the Secretary of the Treasury proposed to take the burden off those best able to pay, and that it was because he was taking the burden off those able to pay—the rich, the powerful, and the profiteer—that there would not be enough money for the soldiers' bonus...
...That was the initial movement...
...and WHEREAS, The obligation of the nation to its soldiers arises by reason of the economic handicap suffered by them because of their service, which economic handicap is at this time felt wth especial severity because of wide-spread general unemployment...
...A man who would have suggested consideration of the soldiers' bonus bill in that committee, hoping that it would receive any consideration by the majority side except from one Senator, the Senator from Wisconsin (Mr...
...it was in the interest of great corporations...
...Now, you can not have both ends of that argument...
...That is a sort of vicarious relief that does not commend itself to my judgment...
...now, therefore, be it RESOLVED, that the American Legion in convention assembled reaffirms its stand upon adjusted compensation and asks that the Congress of the United States pass this measure without further equivocation or delay...
...We are running along toward that latter date very rapidly...
...President, that applies, if it applies at all, not alone to the bodies of men but to the fortunes of men...
...The men who had offered themselves in sacrifice for their country were now to be stretched upon the altar of great wealth and to be sacrificed for its benefit...
...The first time you dodged it was when, instead of voting the soldiers' bill down and saying that you were accepting the command of the President and obeying his orders, you referred it back to the committee...
...My understanding is that the Secretary of the Treasury is the second wealthiest man in the United States...
...therefore it might as well be paid by the common people at the beginning as at the end, in one way as in another...
...I do not say that for the purpose of saying anything unpleasant or anything harsh, but the artful dodger will not be artful enough to dodge the vote upon this question...
...That, of course, was to apply to the vast mass of the people of this land, for nearly all of our business now is done through bank checks...
...They have stood here pretending that the money could not be obtained to pay the soldiers, and while they were saying that out of one corner of their mouths, out of the other corner they were promising to remit $450,000,000 of excess-profit taxes to the great profiteers of the country...
...and as they filtered through his office of course they paid some tribute on their way to the ultimate consumer, the customer who buys these securities...
...1 and Senate resolution 306, a measure to provide adjusted compensation to the soldiers, sailors and marines of the great war, and WHEREAS, This adjusted compensation provides for the payment of the nation's just obligation to the service men and women for the financial and economic handicap suffered by them incident to their service...
...Wealth Escapes Burden A LONG last winter I happened to be in the city of New York...
...You will not fool anybody by a motion to table the amendment...
...They would have been laying the war on the table and they would have been crawling under the table...
...A friend of mine extended me an invitation to go with him down to the Economic Club...
...It was in the interest of big money...
...and then he told us in the next breath, as we have been told on this floor, that the burden upon business is so great that business can not prosper...
...He is a good broker...
...That is to say, they tell you in one breath that business does not have to pay the tax at all, and in the next breath they tell you that it is so oppressive that business can not live if you exact it...
...If soldiers who fought the war had been made of the same sort of metal they would have begun running at Chateau Thierry and never would have stopped until they had been drowned in the Atlantic Ocean...
...He proposed, moreover, other taxes of similar nature, but all the time he was taking the taxes off the great fortunes of this land...
...But, viewing the question from his standpoint, it was but natural that he should think in the terms of his clients' interests, and his clients were the great institutions engaged in floating vast blocks of stocks and of bonds...
...Profiteers Defeat Soldier Bonus Men Who Offered Lives for Country Are Now Sacrificed On Altar of Great Wealth By JAMES A. REED (United States Senator from Missouri) LET me tell you the real trouble on the other side of the Chamber...
...If the tax is all passed on it hurts nobody...
...They are afraid to face the issue, to look the soldiers of the country in the face and vote down their bonus bill...
...You may dodge it again...
...The only reason in the world why anybody ever conceived the plan of offering such a motion was because ho thought he could cast that sort of a vote and then go out and tell the people of the country, and especially the soldiers, "I did not vote against your bonus...
...When we seek for the real opposition, the opposition that crowded the President into coming to this Chamber and making his speech asking that the soldiers' bonus be postponed, we find it in the Treasury of the United States...
...All I did was to vote that you should not even have a vote as to whether you should have a bonus...
...that was all...
...The Secretary of the Treasury himself, a man of unimpeachable integrity, is nevertheless a man who is connected with so many of the great, wealthy, powerful, and oppressive financial and industrial institutions of the land that when he speaks his thoughts and writes his sentiments into a law the bill is written by big business itself for big business...
...All the officers would have been running with the soldiers...
...it was, if you please, the kick-off in the great game that was proposed to be played which had for its purpose the removal of excess-profits taxes, surtaxes, and corporate-stock taxes...
...President, We have heard much about the indirect control of big business in legislation...
...this is the third time you have dodged it...
...He proposed, among other things, that we should raise the postage upon letters from 2 cents to 3 cents...
...I did not have nerve enough to stand in the open and say you shall have no bonus...
...I have an idea that if we took a million dollars taxes off the steel combination for the purpose of benefiting the country generally I would never get my part of that million dollars during this life and that I might wait through the ceaseless cycles of the never-ending eternities and not a 5-cent piece of it would ever flow down where I could get my shadowy hands upon it...
...If I can never be benefited except by having the taxes taken off those who are able to pay, then I know that the benefits will never flow down to me during my lifetime...
...This is the second time you have dodged this matter...
...This extra session is about to expire by limitation of time, for it will run into the December session in a few days, provided we do not adjourn...
...As I always have been obliged to practice economy, I thought I would learn something that would enable me to continue the habit of my life...
...He may be sick and be absent...
...A motion to table an amendment of this kind is a coward's motion...
...I am saying to Senators upon the Republican side of the Chamber, and to those of this side who do not agree with me, that a vote to table this amendment will be worse than a vote against the soldiers' bonus bill, for it will be a vote against the soldiers and in favor of the profiteers at the same time...
...that it was proposed to take $90,000,000 off the taxes of those who make incomes in excess of $68,000 a year...
...but, Mr...
...Must Make Record YOU will have this question to discuss during the pendency of this bill and after the bill has passed...
...but when I reached this assemblage, a very costly banquet—I make no point of that because my friend paid for the ticket—I think I can say that there were several billions of dollars represented around those tables, and a speech was made in favor of a sales tax, and the leading speech was made by a broker who is said to be the largest broker in the world, and to have transactions in a single day which frequently equal $50,000,000...
...that applies, if it applies at all, not only to the living, breathing human being but to the accumulated wealth that is protected by the bodies of the living...
...What is the reason for this fight on the soldiers' bonus bill...
...but, sirs, the Treasury of the United States to-day is not merely affected by big business...
...he will cast a vote in a way to save himself from a direct vote, but if he does it he will vote to kill the soldiers' bonus, and at the same time he will vote to take off the excess-profits taxes, and that would be worse than to vote directly on the proposition...
...President, they have been seeking to escape, and have been making a great battle along that line...
...The second time you dodged it was when the chairman of the committee Official Message From Soldiers AT the annual convention of the American Legion held at Kansas City, Missouri, November 3, a resolution was immediately messaged to Congress where the big financial bill was under consideration in the senate and where an amendment was pending which would grant adjusted compensation...
...There never would have been an order given to advance...
...The real trouble is that they do not wish to vote on the soldiers' bonus bill...
...Then we found out that the Secretary of the Treasury did not end his scheme there...
...And if he happens to be Secretary of the Treasury, why should he not have the same desire...
...See roll call in editorial...
...A stream can not rise higher than its fountain head, and the employee can not do other than the bidding of his chief...
...That was July 15...
...Therefore it becomes important to inquire as to the source of this bill, the brain from which it emanated, and the environment of that brain...
...Not one single breath of sympathy has been wafted from the icy regions where the Republican members of the Finance Committee sit at the long table in their committee room over toward the Democratic side in regard to this measure...
...We might as well talk plainly for a little while this morning...
...then it was that we discovered that it was proposed to take $75,000,000 off the corporate stock tax...
...that we should add 50 per cent to letter carriage, which is paid by all the people of the land, and that this pence—not Peter's pence, but Mellon's pence—was to be collected in every habitat in this land for the benefit of the ultra rich and in order that they might be relieved of their taxation...
...LA FOLLETTE), would be a fit subject for a mental examination...
...He proposed to impose a tax which has been regarded as one of the greatest "nuisance" taxes ever levied upon a people, to wit, that every man who draws a check on a bank must lick a 2-cent stamp and put it on that check or the check is not good...
...The only reason for making it is to avoid the issue...
...Senate Turns Down Soldiers 38 to 28 TWO days after the passage of the reso-lution by the American Legion at Kansas City calling upon Congress to grant adjusted compensation to soldiers, sailors and marines, their request was defeated in the senate by a vote of 38 to 28...
...He may, of course, arrange his pair so that he will not be put on record...
...Of course, they make that sort of fight...
...In other words, the way to remove the burdens of taxation from the common people of the land is to take the taxes off the great wealth of the land...
...If the tax is not passed on, then the other argument fails, and it becomes apparent that the common people of the land who have but little pay only a little, while those who have much must pay in proportion to their wealth...
...Vested Interests Win THERE they sit, ranged along the table, the "thin white line" that defends every vested interest in the land...
...I desire to make no personal attack upon any man —personalities I abominate—but when a man gets into a public office his environment in life, the conditions under which he has carried on business, the friends and counselors that he has about him sometimes become of very great importance...
...And, Mr...
...it is big business...
...that it was proposed to take $450,000,000 off the taxes of the profiteers, and that that tax was to be taken off of profits made in excess of 10 per cent net...
...it is run by big business...
...once more you must put aside your own claims and demands in the interest of the common weal...
...If, sir, the Secretary of the Treasury had been able to come before Congress and make good his pretense that the money could not be raised, he would have had a sympathetic support from every man who considers the welfare of his country, and a situation might have been presented of so critical a nature with reference to our finances that we should have been obliged to have turned to these soldiers and said to them: "Once more you must sacrifice...
...Following is the resolution adopted at the Kansas City convention, November 3, 1921: WHEREAS, there is pending in Congress House resolution No...
...Substantially every line of this bill was written in the Treasury Department, written by employees of the department, who had to do that which their master above them commanded them to do, and their master was the Secretary of the Treasury...
...August 15 and September 15 have passed...
...Senators may vote to table this amendment when it comes up, but I repeat, every man who votes to table it will vote against it, and I have no hesitancy in saying that he will cast a coward's vote...
...Shift Burden To Poor OF course he said the tax was passed on, like all taxes...
...I only voted to table it...
...I did not vote 'nay,' but I simply voted that it should not even be considered at all...
...So anxious was he to have great wealth relieved of its burdens that he proposed to compel the common people of the land to sacrifice still further in the way of taxes...
...He is not at all a bad citizen...
...There would not have been enough trees in all Belleau Wood to have supplied a shelter for the colonels, to say nothing about the privates...
...When he told that multitude of a plan that would distribute the taxes everywhere, so that everybody would have to pay, so that there would be no escape, and that the taxes would not be paid by the great institutions of the country, but would be borne by the entire mass of the people, the champagne glasses were put upon the table and highballs sat uncon-sumed while the assembled enthusiasts cheered the sentiment to the cho...
...That is the best and the worst yon can say of him...
...it was in the interest of profiteers...
...November 15 is at hand...
...But somebody will vote on this question, and I say to you that you will gain nothing whatever by the device of moving to table the consideration of my amendment...
...They do not like to have it presented to them in a way where it is perfectly clear that the tax which they propose to remit to the profiteers of the country shall be continued and that that amount of money shall be paid to the soldiers...
...Why should not the very wealthy seek to escape...
...As long as we have free speech on the floor of the Senate you will have this matter before you...
...Comparison of Courage HOW high the tides of courage run on the other side of the Chamber...
...From that day the propaganda has been carried on...
...particularly it does not hurt the man who first pays it and passes it on...
...and WHEREAS, After careful consideration of all the arguments advanced in opposition to the measure, including the letter of the Secretary of the Treasury and the address of the President to Congress we still firmly believe in the justice, fairness and immediate necessity of the adjusted compensation measure...
...Plain Talk Given WHY is this...
...Why should not the president of an institution that is making 100 per cent profit and is compelled to disgorge a part of its excess profits into the Public Treasury, being merely a human being having the ordinary selfishness of the ordinary human being, desire to have that tax removed...
...The only reason for voting for it is to run away from meetng the issue...
...Sacrifice Soldier For Wealth THEN it was that we learned that the soldiers were not to be asked to sacrifice for their country, but that they were to be asked to sacrifice for the rich and the powerful and the profiteer...
Vol. 13 • November 1921 • No. 11
