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Newspaper Page Text
mn nuiyywmmmmmm9mmmmmmsm OUR GRANDCHILDREN WILL STILL BE PAYING IF WE WAR ON MEXICO Flag-Draped Coffins of Bodies BY HERBERT QUICK Charles A. Smith, a seaman, fell in the service of his country at Vera Cruz in the first day's action there in April. In less than a week his mother filed an application for. a pension. She is deserving of the pension, and will no doubt receive it. Nobody would deny it to her. It is a part of our humanitarian policy to put the government in the place of the bread winner when he falls in the service of the nation. We have not the con science to do less. But it makes our war horribly ex pensive. The fact is war is not business for a conscientious people. If we are finally drawn into a gen eral war with Mexico, the first cost will be staggering; but the first cost will be only the smallest sort of a be-, ginning. We are now paying for the tenth time or more the cost of the civil war, fought fifty years ago. The 'OvmceRMwp imwiwMt f Vera Cruz Victims Being Carried Fromi 5. Montana. pe'nsipn list, instead of decreasing, has steadily grown. So tender are our legislators on this subject that the bars have been let down so often and so low that the pension outgo has been at times a scandal and a shame. If we occupy Mexico, our grand children will be toiling to pay the ex pense in the year 1975. The wages of laborers will be lowenon account of it. The cost of living will be higher. The poverty of the poor will be greater. The hovel of the struggler with penury will be lower and colder and darker. The chance of the weak to survive will be smaller. The strug gle for existence will be more tense. The pensions paid to the survivors of the Second War with Mexico and to their relatives and dependents will have to be paid by some one and that some one is the man who works in increased cost of living, in de creased freedom of activities. The mother of Charles A. Smith 4 1.