Political Bonus

We tend to think the people in Congress today are a bit looney, but it all started way earlier.

In 1936, Democrats took over Rhode Island’s state senate and began giving out $100 bonuses to veterans. A Republican was concerned at this liberality and quietly recommended a bonus for Sgt. Evael O.W. Tnesba of the Twelfth Machine Gun Battalion. A Democrat seconded the bill and it passed immediately, sending a ripple of laughter through the chamber.

Sensing they’d been had, the Democrats referred the bill to a committee for study. There they discovered that Evael O.W. Tnesba spelled backward is Absent W.O. Leave.