MARCHING TO GLORY

The latest demand of the Legion that the Government spend $2,466,060,000 on World War veterans and their families within the next ten years has gone the limit. It gives ample evidence of the organization's determination, to use a glamorous name for the purposes of obtaining cold cash, and of its complete disregard of where the money is to come from. "It is not our problem to say how the money is raised," but we must have it, is the bald manner in which they will approach the convening Congress.

There can be little doubt that the demands for aid for disabled veterans, widows, and orphans is legitimate enough. The question this time, however, is not only whether the other members of the Legion deserve the bonus, but whether husky legionnaires should shoulder onto overburdened tax-payers debts which are due them neither legally nor morally, as the bonus bill calls for no reimbursement before 1945. To be sure, in their eagerness to put through immediate legislation for pensions and medical care they generously declare, "The bonus can wait a while," but with these bills passed, it will be only a matter of time before they resume their demands.

It is an insult for the war veterans to demand that a generation which has lost patience with them pay their bills; for them to expect a nation, which is suffering as well, to subordinate itself to their wishes is insolence.