VETERANS' BUREAU CODIFICATION ACT.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1924.

UNITED STATES SENATE,.

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE COMMITTEE ON FINANCE,

Washington, D. C.

The subcommittee met at 2.45 o'clock p. m., Senator David A.
Reed presiding.

Present: Senators Reed of Pennsylvania (acting chairman), Ernst,
Simmons, and Walsh of Massachusetts.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. Mr. Miller, will you proceed?

STATEMENT OF MR. WATSON B. MILLER, CHAIRMAN OF
THE NATIONAL REHABILITATION COMMITTEE OF THE
AMERICAN LEGION.

Mr. MILLER. Gentlemen of the committee, the American Legion
recognizes in the codification presented in the form of Senate bill
2257 many proposals of an excellent and constructive character.
It may be that the bill is in proper structure as an administra-
tive measure, but this is not for the Legion to decide. The law
officers of the Veterans' Bureau are in a better position to judge of
these characteristics.

Under instruction of the chairman of the subcommittee, I will
confine myself to a brief consideration of the 22 changes, expansions,
or contractions, as set forth in the first preliminary report of the
Select Committee on Investigation of the United States Veterans'
Bureau.

1. The Legion is in full sympathy with the suggestion that disability
should be ascertained, service connection or the lack of it developed,
and ratings made in the field as near to the disabled claimant as it
may be possible to function, and requests that authority be extended
to the Director of the Veterans' Bureau to extend to the field his
services in these matters.

2. We feel that the presumptive clause for service connection in
cases of tuberculosis and neuropsychiatric diseases should be extended
to five years, and that no provision be inserted in the law which require
that the showing of these disabilities shall actually have been made
within that period.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. You mean before a Veterans'
Bureau physician?

Mr. MILLER. Or other qualified medical authority.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. If the disease is shown to have
been incurred within the period you state.

Mr. MILLER. Yes; that is right.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. But any evidence of either a Veterans' Bureau doctor or anybody else should be brought under the presumption.

Mr. MILLER. Yes; we agree about that, and you will notice that we have taken out the requirement that the Veterans' Bureau doctor must examine.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. In your judgment is the need for the extension of the period equal in both classes of cases or is it particularly needed, in your judgment, for tuberculosis cases?

Mr. MILLER. I think it was equally needed in both cases; but the suggestion as to neuropsychiatric diseases is more or less empiric and not based upon an actual canvass in the field, made by my committee. With respect to tuberculosis, may I say that in the tenth district, beginning last August, there were called in for clinical examination some 500 men, an examination of whose case files showed that there were suggestions of pulmonary difficulties, although these men had not been rated for tuberculosis or other pulmonary difficulty. The men were brought in and beds were secured, and deliberate and careful examinations were made and of the entire group of 500 there were something like 389 who were discovered actually to have pulmonary tuberculosis, although a few only had been so rated. Where any doubt existed, beds were secured in other hospitals, so that the examination could be more studious.

The average of this group of men were removed four years from the date of their discharge from the service; and so, unless they have some law of a more liberal character to invoke, they are not in luck.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. It has been suggested that the period be extended to five years for tubercular cases, but that it be left at three years for mental cases. Has that suggestion ever been made to you?

Mr. MILLER. It has never been so made. Was that all, sir?
Senator REED of Pennsylvania. That is all.

Mr. MILLER. Paragraph 3 suggests that where a veteran dies leaving a widow, or a widow with children, the compensations be slightly increased. We believe that these compensations should be greatly increased. The rates which we ask are, briefly, as follows:

(a) If there is a widow but no child, $50.

(b) If there is a widow and one child, $60.

(c) If there is a widow and two children, $70, with $10 for each additional child up to two.

(d) If there is no widow, but one child, $35.

(e) If there is no widow, but two children, $55.

(f) If there is no widow, but three children, $75, with $10 for each additional child up to two.

We think that the rates as they exist now are too low, particularly in view of the fact that deplorably only a few of these men seem to have insurance at the time of their demise.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. What percentage do you think have insurance?

Mr. MILLER. I expect the only way that I can answer that question and I expect that the Director of the Veterans' Bureau can answer it much more intelligently-is to detail the ratio between the number originally and the total in existence now; there is a total of less than 500,000 out of an original number of 4,500,000.

General HINES. About one to nine?