Speech #920060098

Although it is unclear whether section 8 actually outlaws the combat enlistment bonus now contemplated in the billthere can be no doubt that it violates the spirit of the law. That provision in the bill has been in the law since 1918 when the first postCivil War draft was enacted. And it stemmed from a close perusal of the disorders which followed enaction of the Civil War draft. It was the bounty and substitute provisions of that earlier act which were blamed for the bloody riots among the immigrant sections of New York in July 1863. The results then were 500 dead and more than 1.000 wounded. The poor had understood what the bounty meant.