PENSIONS FOR PEACE

The ingratitude of nations is proverbial. History overflows with stories of geniuses starving in garrets, scientists tormented by superstitious contemporaries, prize-fighters languishing in Idaho or Nebraska. The fickle crowd chooses its favorites capriciously, often banishing Aristides merely because he is called "the Just."

In general, however, those who have been most neglected have been the artists, the philosophers, the peaceful scientists, those who caused improvement, development, progress. In all ages, the warriors have held the public eye. Expense is not, and of course, should not be an objection when war pensions are considered. No one regrets the pensions still being paid to the forty-nine widows of men who fought in 1812, even if all of them must have been born after the war was over. In England, pigeons that carried messages under fire in the War have been pensioned, and will receive proper care for the rest of their lives. This is extremely humane and eminently fitting, and it illustrates admirably how the fighting forces are cared for, even to the pigeons.

It is just that nations should reward those who sacrifice so much in their defence, and there is little complaint to make on this score. But how long has it been since a noted British scientist bitterly accused his government of casting its geniuses on the scrap-heap." His point is too fully confirmed by history; it is Turner who dies in poverty, not Wellington; Socrates who drinks the hemlock, not Pericles.