Pension Muck

SOLDIERS WHAT NEXT?--Katherine Mayo--Houghton Mifflin ($3.50).

Muckraking in the Augean stables of U. S. politics was at its height in the day of Theodore Roosevelt, who coined the phrase. But it still goes on and there is always a man with a hoe, a gentleman with a duster or a lady with a new broom to do what by definition is an endless job. Muckraking Katherine Mayo, not content with trying to tidy up one sty, has gone a-raking into other people's barnyards. Her Mother India, a sensational account of conditions among women in India, still rankles in many a Hindu breast. Isles of Fear, a survey of the Philippines, annoyed Filipino patriots. This time Authoress Mayo, with sleeves rolled up and muck rake firmly in hand, has waded into the U. S. soldier-pension mess. Statistics and indignation darken her pages like pitch forked dung. By the time she has finished turning over her unsavory material its odor is strong enough to make even a standpat Congressman hold his nose.

Authoress Mayo was fond of the A. E. F., still is. "In eight months spent Overseas in the company of our private soldiers, not once did I hear from an American doughboy a phrase coarse in spirit, or an oath." She thinks the boys came home bursting with patriotism, eager to continue serving their country. Since understanding, idealistic leadership was lacking, the returned crusaders disintegrated into citizens no better than stay-at-homes. Distressed that the A. E. F. should have degenerated into the American Legion and the Bonus Army, Authoress Mayo sought the answer in the pension system, investigated French, German, English, Italian methods, then compared them with the U. S. She found that:

European pensions are decreasing while U. S. pensions are increasing. No European nation thinks of pensioning an ex-soldier simply because he was drafted to fight for his country. Yet the U. S. provides pensions for Federal veterans of the Civil and Spanish Wars, and voted (over the vetoes of Harding, Coolidge) an extra bonus, payable in 1945, to all honorably discharged men in the World War. The reason why U. S. pension figures are rising while those of other nations show a gradual decrease is because pensions in the U. S. are a political issue. Though the basic law regulating U. S. World War pensions was passed in 1917, it has since been subjected "to some 240 changes, the great majority being 'liberalizations' effected by political interference to create new bodies of dubiously entitled favorites."

Authoress Mayo charges that the real "forgotten man" in the U. S. pension muck is the actually disabled veteran who is often too self-respecting to join the scramble for aid. Pointing indignantly to European pension systems, Authoress Mayo asks: "Did they, too, profane the name of their War-disabled, using it as a mask for racketeers? Did they, too, bestow the title of 'veteran' on men who saw no service beyond a training camp or a draft board office? Did they class with battle casualties persons kicked by a mule or frightened by a tree-toad ten years after the War was over?"

Who is to blame? Authoress Mayo looks threateningly at a number of candidates, lays her finger on none. She excuses Congress as only human, the Legion lobby as a paid bureau, the Legion itself as playing "the great Game of the Nation ... by the Nation's own long-accepted rules." She sums up her indictment by quoting the Bible story of Samuel's interview with the God of Israel, implies that the whole U. S. is to blame, because it has rejected God.

The Author has been taking quick but searching looks at different terrains since 1896. After eight years in Dutch Guiana with her father, a mining engineer, she went back to the U. S., settled down to do research for other people's books. With one Moyca Newell, her intimate since 1910, she built a house in Bedford Hills, N. Y. In the course of construction the contractor's payroll carrier was murdered. Incensed and alarmed at the inadequacy of the rural police, Companions Mayo and Newell carried a campaign for a State police force to success. Out of that campaign grew Authoress Mayo's first book (Justice to All), which the late great Theodore Roosevelt commended strongly. During the World War Companion Newell went to France with the Y. M. C. A. and with her, Companion Mayo, now in full cry, to investigate the much-criticized "Y." Her motive in investigation is always the same--a strong feeling that "people have a right to know." Methodical but rapid, Surveyor Mayo's conclusions are quickly reached. She got the material for Mother India in four months. Often mistaken for an Englishwoman, middle-aged Katherine Mayo is proud of being of old American stock. Her boast: "Ten of my ancestors came here on the Mayflower."

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