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About The Columbia sentinel. (Harlem, Ga.) 1882-1924 | View Entire Issue (July 25, 1921)
Senator Thomas. E. Watson’s Speech On Soldiers Bonus Bill. In The U. S. Senate, July 13, 1921. (Continued from Page One.) ican soldier wanted a tip, like a Avaiter at the hotel, like a servitor in the cafe, like a coach¬ man on the box, like a servant in the hall? Why insult the American soldier by saying that he wanted a mere tip? That phrase is repeated five times in the speech of the Senator fyom Montana (Mr. Myers). I knqw some of those soldiers. Some of them have my oAvn blood in their veins. Some of them have my own pride in their make up, and I hope I have some of their patriotism which they displayed on battle fronts, and those words “a mere* tip”, a tip that you hand to the man who gives you your umbrella, or your hat, or your overcoat, seem to me peculiarly inappropriate when you apply them to the men who went 3,000 miles from their homes at the behest of their Government, fo fight battles AA'hose causes they did not under¬ stand. I cannot comprehend this abomination of the word “cash.” Does the Senator from Mon tana draw land warrants for his pay as Senator, which really ought to he doubled. He bad come in here the morning of his speech and asked unanimous consent for a bounty, a governmental favor, to the farmers of his own State, and npbody here objected to it, and he got it. Did the Senator think he was asking a tip when he asked that they be relieved of forfeiture, or that they be given a year’s time on their payments? Unanimous consent Avas given, and under the same cir¬ cumstances would be given again, and it is no disgrace to the Senator who asked for it; it is a merit. It is no disgrace to the farmers who will get it; they deserve it. Every time any such measure is proposed for the East or the North or West I stand ready, as one of the representatives from the South, to grant it without hesitation. The Senator from Montana in the early part of his speech stated that long after the Revolutionary War the soldiers of that war who volunteered Avere paid in land warrants or were given land warrants. The loose Con federation of the Colonies had no money, had no gold reserve, had no power to tax the States or the individuals in the States, but they had public domain. It was all they had to give, and they gave it bounteously to the soldiers who volunteered, from Lexington Bridge to Kings Mountain and Kettle Creek, in my own State, on whose battlefield, I am proud to say, one of my great-grand uncles lies entombed. Wanted a tip? Many of those soldiers could not go to the Ohio and settle on their land. They sold their land warrants and con verted them into cash, the despised cash which takes (he place of everything in commerce, the cash which you can use Avhen you cannot use the land, the cash whiclpyou can use when you cannot use the bank stock of the bond or the promissory note or the horses or the herds of cattle. They took the cash, much of which they got from the Father of his Country, George Washington, avIio, being a land survey or experienced Fairfax in the surveying of wild lands for Lord and others, knew exactly what he was doing when he bought those land warrants. If the Senator from Montana has not read the classic life Lodge, of George Washing ton by Henry Cabot, now the senior Senator from Massachusetts, Avhom we all and honor as a Member of this body, he should do so. He will learn that a thriftier business roan than George Washington never drew breath. With the possible exception of Ste phen Girard, he was the first American mil lionairo, and much of his wealth consisted of the lands he had bought from his comrades in arms. (jmup mention has been made here of conscripts during the Revolutionary War. There were no conscripts at Lexington Bridge, there Avere no conscripts at Bunker Hill, where they burned the poAvder which the Georgians had sent them from Savannah. There were no conscripts at Valley Forge, where Wash ington’s shivering army Avas partly clothed and feci by clothing and provisions sent from Georgia. Not until the very last were con scripts added, and they came in too late to ren¬ der effective service. Every battlefield of the honor Revolutionary and War is a tribute and a monument to the volunteer sol¬ dier, the men avIio rode from the South some under Col. Elijah Clarke, of Georgia, Col. Jim Williams, Gen John Sevier, Col. Shelby, and some under Col. Cleveland. Those men were volunteers. Washington knew nothing of their movements. They financed themselves, They furnished their oavii arms, they furnished their own ammunition, they planned their OAVII campaign, and when the silver whistle of Fer¬ guson ceased to sound the commands on the summit of Kings Mountain those men knew the battle had been won, that the opposition was wiped out, and that the flank of George Washington was secure for the victory of YorktoAvn. That was the turning-point battle of the Revolutionary War, fought by the vol¬ unteers of the South. The Mexican fought hy -mlnn teers. There was not a conscript in that army, not a single conscript fought at Cerro Gorda or at Buena Vista, or in seizing the heights at Mexico City. They were volunteers, every one of them. In the Civil War, who won the victories, of Gens. Grant, of Meade, of Sherman, of Sheridan, -of Thomas, of Lee, of Jackson, of Johnson, of Beauregard? Who won them? The volunteers won them. The moment the South had to resort to conscripts the bottom fell out. I was a boy then and I know. The monaept it ceased to be a volunteer movement the bottom fell out and the conscripts filled the swamps with deserters and shot down the en¬ rolling officers who tried to carry them back against their will. W T ho -won the victories of Great Britain and of France? Volunteers did it. For a thousand years Great Britain never had a conscript law. There was not a single con script who followed the flag of Wellington, not a single one who followed the standard of Marlborough, not a single Quebec. one Avho followed Wolfe at the heights of They were volunteers. They did ha\ r e “crimping” in the navy, seizing men and carrying them off to ships; and we all remember the pathetic inci¬ dent where a gang seized a bridegroom as he Avas leaving the church in which he had taken the vows Avith his bride, and she never saw him again in all her life, and she never kneAv wheth¬ er he died under the lash of one of Nelson's ships, whether he died under the bullets of a Spanish or a French gun, whether he was SAvept overboard and drowned, or whether he died in some pestilential hospital. Talk about the victories of France! The great victories that carried that Republic up the heights, where the soldiers said they felt like they were marching into the sunrise, were fought and won by volunteers. The Great Committee would have the hells ring, the toe sin sounded, and the lion voice of Danton would go out, and all Frenchman who loved their country came to the colors, as thev Avould come from every hamlet and village and every town and city, from farm and shop, and no army which England could hiye Europe to send against them could beat them down, The Senator from Montana said that ho believed the conscript system is the very*best system—selective draft,’ he chooses to call it. I saw the workings of that draft. I was in the midst of it, and I was opposed to it and I am opposed to it now. Why? Because I believe that as long as this country is able to tell her people what her cause of Avar is and convince her people that that cause of war is just, we will never need to conscript a soldier.' They will come by the volunteer instinct of patriotism, The conscript is necessarily an unwilling sol dier, forced, into service without regard to his circumstances, his wishes, or his knowledge of what the cause of war is. The Senator from Montana Avould have us believe that nearly every one of these con scripts came hack home greatly improved by his training, bis physical exercise, by the land scape he witnessed’ by the scenerv ’he viewed, That Mine is his opinion, and he is entitled to it! is different. There were some soldiers Avhose parents had influence with the powers 'that were doing the selecting and the powers controlled the soldiers when they got abroad, but most of our conscripts were car ried across the seas in cattle ships. I have had them tell me about it themselves. We paid Great Britain an enormdus sum of money, if the newspaper reports are correct, for carry iug over there in cattle ships the very soldiers who saved her Empire. They were all well treated, we are told. I deny it. I can prove by a thousand private soldiers that that statement is not correct, al though the Senator from Montana doubtless believes it to be so. Does the Senator from Montana know what those soldiers had for breakfast? I could tell him. Does he know what they had for dinner? I could tell him. Does he know what they had for supper? I could tell him. Does he know that some of them Avere saved from starvation by the Chinese coolies who dug their sewerage trenches around the camps? I can produce the soldiers avIio would swear to it and who were saved from starva¬ tion bv those Chinese coolies. We repaid the Chines coolies by taking away Shantung and 38,000,000 Chinese and giving them to the merciful keeping of the Japs, avIio did not turn a finger during the war except to feather their own nest by seizing the German posses¬ sions in the»Orient when the Germans were so busy that they could not lift a hand to prevent it. “Jap me no Japs”—not yet. Has the Senator from Montana eA'er had a private soldier describe- to him the conditions in which the soldiers camped at Brest? There was a Senntor and a Senator’s wife aa-Iio saw those conditions and testified as to them. There they allowed those soldier boys, who had been reared in the same comforts in Avhicli you and 1 p^£,«e,W orL r ”V 1 ’ ^dlas.’ leaving Xitc V-.J..O «•».>« A Sw.v 3 l ii 1 !—i*, iii n, GA. the imprint of their bodies on the marsh, and with the frozen ice making a perfect mold where they had lain the night before. Did the Senator ever have one of those soldiers tell him about it? Of course some of them came home well. Out of 4,000,000 the Senator would not expect that we should lose the whole 4,000,000, would he? Why are the Zulus such a su perb race of men, physically? It is because the weaklings are not allowed to live. In Flanders and in France the weaklings did not live; they did not have a chance to live; died; and, in my judgment, no accurate port has ever yet been made of the number of men who either died in the cantonments of this country or in the camps and on the bat¬ tlefields of Europe. The Senator from Montana, to do him justice, wants to compensate the man who lost his eyes. What does the Senator think would compensate him if he lost his eyes? He talks about land. What can a blind man do with a piece of land? He talks about life insurance. What can a blind man do with life insurance? He can not eat it; he can not drink it; he can not pay his board with it. He does not make himself welcome anywhere on earth; he is a burden to himself; and if he has some faithful dog or some affectionate child to lead him around hv a string he is fortunate. Compen¬ sate a blind man whose sight was destroyed In¬ gas or the exploding bomb! There is not money enough on earth to do it. Take the man whose features were gassed out of all human recognition, made hideous to himself as he sees reflected in the mirror a countenance which to him at least, was once not repulsive; take that man, against the sight of whose face tenderhearted people will in¬ stinctively try to screen their eyes—what com pensation can you give that man? What hope can you give him? When hope is gone out of this life, what is there, left in it f When you lose the feeling that you are welcome to your friends as you visit their houses, and when you sit in their circles talking with them them as in the old time friendly way—when you lose that, do you want to live? I do not. , Take the man whose arm was torn from his body by a bursting shell or one of whose limbs Avas or boil} of Avhose limbs were torn away, how are you going to compensate him? But we will come to the well men; the men who did not get hurt; the men who got enough to eat and who managed to get back. What about them? If they had farms, they left the plow in April, 1917, as did the farmers of New England in our Revolutionary War more than 100 years ago. The crop was lost; the land was lost; everything they had was lost; and they came back to start life over. How is a man going to start life over without cash? If the Senator from Montana should so far forget himself as to take lunch today, he had better take some cash with him. Take the crossroads merchant with his lit¬ tle store of goods, bought partly bn credit, perhaps, and partly with cash; a little stock of $500 or $600 or $1,000 on which he was trying to do business and to lift himself in the world. Where was that business and where was that stock when he got home from the war? They were gone. How is he going to replace them ? Ho can not do it. Take the young laAvyer who was building up a clientele; his clients went to other lawyers and they .are permanently lost to him. He has got to start all OAmr again. Take the young doctor; the same statement applies to him. His patients who were trying him, g-iv ing him a chance, had to go to other doctors; now they are attached to those other doctors, and the returning ex-service man, if he he a doctor, has to choose a new location and start his practice o\ r er again. Is it not so! Mr. President, I am not exaggerating any¬ thing. I lived in the midst of such circum¬ stances, I lived in the midst of the Civil War, and I know that I am not oAmrdrawing the pic¬ ture. We are told that the ranks of the unern ployed are swelling. Some estimates put the number as high as 5,000,000 or 6,000,000, which may be too many; I think it quite likely that that estimate is too high; but the lowest esti¬ mate puts them at 2,000,000, and I think pos¬ sibly that estimate is within the bounds of reason. When we give these ex-service men vocational training, AA-hat are they going to do after they get it? Where is the job io be found for them, when there are 2,000,000 peo¬ ple hunting for jobs? There is another point of view in which the conscripted soldier sent to Europe to fight 3,000 miles away from home may be distin¬ guished from the soldier who fought near at home. “The embattl’d farmers” of New Eng¬ land, whose glories I hope will never be dimm¬ ed, fought within sight of their homes; and oftentimes were supplied with arms and ammu¬ nition by the loved hands of Avives and daugh¬ ters, a second loaded gun being furnished as the first had been emptied against the enemy. from They their were supplied homes; with good provisions own their neighbors vied with one another in supplying those soldiers. They Aver proud to do it, and they did do it; and when the Army was in its extremity at Valley Forge every colony of the original 13 that had a surplus pound of bacon or a surpus garment of clothing sent them to the American soldiers under George Washington. Always, under George Washington. Always, President, there was the sight of home and firesides for which they were fighting. They had only to look, and there avhs the anxious face of Avife or mother or sister or sweetheart looking from a window or a door cheering them on to battle. No wonder, amid those en eouragements and inspirations, they fought as they did. Every housekeeper in America said to her son, as the Spartan mother of old said in handing her son his shield, “Return with it or on it”; alive with it, or dead upon it. In the war of 1812, who won the victory that made Henry Clay say, “Mow 1 can go to Paris and London without a blush upon my cheek”? It Ava s the volunteer soldiers from Alabama. Kentucky, Mississippi. Georgia, Ten¬ nessee. No conscripts fought under Andrew Jackson; they were volunteers. When a man volunteers he does not have to be*disciplined by any “Hard Boiled” Smiths and does not have to be fed by any Chinese coolies. When, you send him 3,000 miles from home there is no telling Avhat may happen to him. He can tell you about it afterwards in words that make your blood leap and which are hard¬ ly fit to print. The Senator alluded to the Civil War as “the Rebellion.” There was a Senator from Tennessee here a few years ago by the name of Carmack, and he had Congress pass a law that made it illegal for the word “Rebellion” to be used in any public document; and, of course, when a Senator speaks here, Mr. Pres¬ ident, he necessarily puts his speech into a pub¬ lic document. When a dozen States go oat of a Union into which they have voluntarily gone under certain conditions, and they retire when they say those conditions have been broken, that is not any more of a rebellion than the War of the Roses Avas in England. No rebel¬ lion ever had a Robert E. Lee at the head of an Army of Northern Virginians. No rebel¬ lion ever had a Joseph E. Johnson, or a Long street, or a Wheeler, or a Jackson or a For¬ rest—never. As I say, Mr. President, these men in Eu¬ rope were not volunteers. The administra¬ tion refused to accept the services of ex-Presi dent Roosevelt and his volunteers when they AA’ere tendered. He claimed to have a quarter of a million men enrolled and ready to go, just as they Avent in the Spanish-American War. How many conscripts were in the Span ish-American War Avhen a Southern General put backbone into the command, as Gen. Wheel¬ er did, and gave victory instead of defeat? Not a single conscript was there. Three thousand miles away from home! Any motherly faces looking upon them with encouragement and in spiration as they marched! No. Any face of sweetheart looking upon them, pinning faA'ors to their uniforms, and saying, “Fight in my name and conquer for me. 1 want to embrace you and marry you Avhen you come home”? Not a bit of it. There were no letters from home that were censored by officers. There Avere no letters from camp to homo except the stereotyped-letters that were approved by officers—not one. No soldier, unless he was able to slip a letter throus^, could freely write to his mother or his wife'< or his sweetheart; and the mountains of food, that Herbert Hoover piled up with his absurd meatless days, and his absurd wheatless days, and his absurd regulations of smokehouses -? and larders, and his absurd regulations of AA'Jieat mills and private stores—those* moun taians of food did not go to our soldiers. They were virtually given away to the French .■ Government; and we now learn that the Red Cross speculated—speculated!—in those chari¬ table gifts, coming from the loving hearts of the American people who wanted to feed their’ boys at the sacrifice of themselves during! those terrible years of the Avar. They were speculated upon by the very agencies of charity that were going to feed them and see that they lacked for no necessary or comfort of life! I think there is some difference. The Sen¬ ator says that it would be degrading to give ■ these men $600 a piece. If it is a degradation, Mr. President, it is because the amount is so small. I would give them a thousand dollars apiece today, if I could. Yes; Avrite 'it down, and get up and make a speech t about it when I get through, and maybe will make one about yours when you get thyough. Mr. MYERS. I will, in due time, and the . Senator is entirely welcome to reply to me. Mr. "WATSON of Georgia. Yes; and you , need not doubt that I will reply to you, too. I would give them a thousand dollars apiece. Something vvas said here yesterday by the > Senator from New York (Mr. Wadsworth)' about the $60 given to the soldiers to buy them a new suit ( of clothes. That was a fine bonus, , was it not—$60 to buy a now suit of clothes! ; Why, I do not know how it is in other States,'' but down in Georgia after a criminal serves out bis term of penal servitude we make him a gift of a good suit of clothes to start civil life again and to make himself a better man if it is in his power to do it. Talk about putting the soldier, at the end of his service, on the same footing with a criminal competed of ar¬ son or of murder or of larceny after trust, or of forgery or some other felony! That kind of thing is shocking to me, with my sense of honor, when applied to the man who takes his rifle and faces a man who has a rifle. j j .We hear of fellows avIio can snuff out a iC«BtinB£d m J’agfl Four.), J
