Existing comment:
Lobbying for a Bonus
As soldiers returned home, Americans considered the question of what the country owed veterans for their war service. In this letter, veteran Herbert G. Poland of Maine wrote his congressman urging him to support a bill granting a year's pay to all ex-service members who had served during the war. A common argument that veterans and their supporters made to advance such a postwar bonus was that the United States had prospered economically during the war and that those serving had missed out on economic opportunities enjoyed by other citizens. By 1924, Congress had passed a bill that provided veterans a bonus in savings bonds that would not mature until 1945. |