STATEMENT OF JUDGE DAVID B. WILLIAMS, NATIONAL COMMANDER, DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS; ACCOMPANIED BY JOSEPH R. HAROLD, EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT; ELMER M. FREUDENBERGER, ACTING NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF LEGISLATION; AND JOHN W. BURRIS, NATIONAL DIRECTOR OF EMPLOYMENT RELATIONS, DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS

Mr. WILLIAMS. I want to thank the Senators, both Senators from Delaware, on the hospitality shown to me by that State on Memorial Day when I was the speaker at the exercises at Wilmington and at the bridge, a most impressive ceremony all around, and certainly the people of your State are most kind and magnanimous.

Mr. Chairman, and members of the Committee on Finance of the U.S. Senate:

My name is David B. Williams, and I am the national commander of the Disabled American Veterans, an organization of over 200,000 wartime disabled veterans of the Armed Forces of the United States. The Disabled American Veterans has been in existence for nearly 40 years and, for more than 25 years of that time, has been operating under a Federal charter granted by the Congress of the United States.

With me today are Joseph R. Harold, my executive assistant, also of Boston, and the acting national director of legislation, Elmer M. Freudenberger, originally from Ohio, but since then he is a resident of Maryland, and also originally from Ohio, our director of employment relations, John W. Burris.

All of the officers and members of our organization appreciate the opportunity afforded me to appear before your committee and to discuss the subject of H.R. 7650, although our primary concern is legislation for the welfare of the war disabled, their widows and orphans. We know that much is now being said and done about revising the laws pertaining to non-service-connected pensions and, despite our specialized field of endeavor, the Disabled American Vetrans must necessarily be especially vigilant with respect to developments in that legislative area. We must measure any proposal on this subject by the basic criteria which should govern our attitude on all veterans' legislation, in other words "What effect will the pension proposals have, either directly or indirectly, upon the service-connected disabled veterans and those claiming under them?"

It is necessary that we carefully examine the philosophical basis of any pension legislation, to preserve the identity of the veterans' programs and prevent any consolidation with a general welfare program. While not losing sight of our original aims and objectives, we are not insensitive to the needs of our wartime comrades who can qualify for disability pensions but who have not established serviceconnection or whose compensation payments for service-connected

disease or injury are wholly inadequate to maintain that disabled individual who has been rendered unemployable by reason of all his disabilities, both those due to service and those not in that category. Such a one should, indeed, be awarded the greater amount of pension, but why should he have to waive all right to compensation? Why should not compensation be considered along with pension under a fair and suitable formula in determining the total amount of monetary benefits payable? I desire to revert to this subject later on in my statement.

At this point, with your indulgence, I will refer to the Disabled American Veterans' legislative policy. It is as follows:

POLICY OF THE DISABLED AMERICAN VETERANS

Because the Disabled American Veterans was founded on the principle that this Nation's first obligation is to its war-disabled veterans, and their dependents, the DAV believes that our Government should provide:

(1) Proper medical care and treatment of veterans for disabilities incurred in or aggravated by active service in the Armed Forces of the United States;

(2) Adequate disability compensation for service-connected disabilities; (3) Vocational rehabilitation and education to restore employability of wartime disabled veterans in gainful, useful employment; and

(4) Adequate death benefits for the widows, minor children, and dependent parents of veterans who die as the result of service-connected disabilities and of veterans who were handicapped by service-incurred disabilities. It therefore follows that the DAV believes that the Congress of the United States (1) should extend priority of consideration to proposed legislation which aims to provide benefits for veterans with service-incurred disabilities, and for their dependents, and (2) that the DAV will consider giving its support to proposed legislation for the benefit of other veterans, and their dependents, only if convinced that its enactment will in no way jeopardize existing or proposed benefits for veterans with service-incurred disabilities, and for their dependents. In connection with item (2), last paragraph, of the above quoted policy statement, we have viewed with much concern and, indeed, alarm some of the bills that have been introduced in this 86th Congress. It is our considered opinion, however, that the proposed legislation, H.R. 7650, deserves the support of the Disabled American Veterans in view of what is desired to be accomplished for the war veterans, their widows and dependents, at the same time keeping in mind the welfare, security, and stability of the United States in these trying and critical times.

It is fully realized that the exceedingly great number of veteran potentials under any pension system, the vast and increasing costs of the program, and its accumulative effect upon the national economy in the years to come, admittedly give good cause to pause and reflect. The Disabled American veterans most certainly does not relish the thought of the compensation program being relegated to the rear or perhaps smothered or practically snuffed out by costly developments in the pension field far beyond the needs of the situation.

In our opinion, there is merit to the proposal designed to insure that those who are in desperate circumstances or in dire need should receive the full amount of pension payable, but we do not subscribe to any theory that such payments should be based upon abject poverty or computed on a public assistance or social service criterion.

If there is to be a graduated scale based upon income, then there should be not more than three steps, as now provided in H.R. 7650,

with reasonable amounts as to income specified, and the rates of pension payable in each step should not be so low as to remove the last shred of dignity and self-respect left to the permanently and totally disabled veteran. We believe that a reasonable maximum income figure to qualify for full pension benefits constitutes a sound approach if the present pension system is to be superseded.

Relative to "annual income" for pension purposes we most emphatically did not agree, and still don't, with the concept in the earlier proposal, H.R. 6432, in our appearance before the House committee, that only public assistance payments should be excluded. That, of course, should not be included as income but in addition there are other items which should be excluded. The status of those items now excluded under existing law should be retained. In fact, the Disabled American Veterans has a mandate calling for the exclusion of insurance payments of $10,000, or under, received from private insurance companies. Government veterans' insurance is now excluded. If a wife's income or any part thereof is to be considered "income" along with the veteran's, then provision should be made for those cases wherein the income of the wife is not made available for some good reason for support of the veteran.

Any pension bill with a "wife's income" provision should contain an additional clause to insure that there will be machinery set up to resolve such cases equitably and not work undue hardship upon the veteran because his wife has some income of her own, ever keeping in mind the importance of preserving the morale and dignity of the

veteran.

A widow should be given preferential treatment as to income for the 12-month period following the death of her husband, so that she can meet the obligations incident thereto without being barred from pension benefits because her income exceeds the maximum.

The terms "net worth" and "corpus of estate test," if applied should be clarified to the maximum degree to insure that they will be understood and applied liberally. Such provisions in the law will undoubtedly be a considerable source of irritation and controversy, at best, and great care must be exercised to avoid reasonable cause for criticism in their administration.

Still on the subject of annual income the Disabled American Veterans believes that death benefits received by parents for the loss of a son, or daughter, in service should not be considered as income. The fact that a widow's income is over the amount specified by law should not prevent payments to the child or children of the deceased veteran-and that is now in the proposed legislation.

This organzation is very much in favor of the provision placing the widows of World War II and Korean conflict on a parity with those of World War I in the matter of eligibility for pension. In the interest of equity and uniformity the World War II and Korean widows should be placed under the rule now applicable to World War I widows who do not have to show service connection and "ascertainable residuals" at the time of the veteran's death in order to qualify. Your committee is urged to retain the grandfather clause now included in H.R. 7650. In any such far-reaching changes of the pension system the dictates of equity and justice require that those now on

the pension rolls be protected from any adverse effects of the new system.

Reverting to my earlier statement about the desirability of awarding compensation along with pension, with due allowance made as to the total amount, I wish to state that we firmly believe that the present waiver requirement is most unfair. We feel that some provision should be made in the law to insure that a veteran, who is entitled to pension benefits for all his disability, should not be required to waive compensation payments due him for the service-connected portion of his disability in order to receive pension consideration. We advocate a formula that will enable a veteran to retain his service-connected disability compensation and at the same time receive non-service-connected pension on the basis of a graduated scale, depending upon the rating assigned. Such a disposition of the issue would not only promote the feeling of pride and satisfaction on the part of the service-connected veteran, but would also benefit the Government through enabling the Veterans' Administration to make a better breakdown in their claims statistics. When seeking its budget appropriations a much better case could be presented to the two Congressional Committees on Appropriations in arriving at the actual figures of compensation and pension beneficiaries and the amounts paid in each category.

As an example of what we mean about a formula, I invite your attention to the following table:

Under the principle as employed in this table it will be noted that the final amount is computed by subtracting the service-connected percentage from 100 percent and adding the remainder percentage of pension to the final amount. The pension rates under the provisions of existing law were used in preparing the above table but if these are changed by new legislation the formula could be easily modified accordingly.

In concluding this statement I must reiterate again that the primary concern of the Disabled American Veterans relates to legislation in the field of compensation. It is our hope that in considering pension legislation the Congress will keep uppermost in mind at all times the importance of according priority to those programs directly affecting the wartime service-connected disabled veteran, inasmuch as the first duty of the Government in the field of veterans' legislation is to the wartime disabled veterans, their survivors and dependents.

On behalf of our entire organization I thank you most sincerely for your courtesy and this friendly reception, Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Judge Williams.

Are there any questions?

(No response.)

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you.

Senator FREAR. I would just like to say to the commander that you did make many friends when you went to Delaware this past Memorial Day, and there are many of them hopeful that you will return again. Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank you very much. I certainly enjoyed my visit very much. They are certainly most hospitable.

The CHAIRMAN. We appreciate your appearance.

Mr. WILLIAMS. Thank you very much.

The CHAIRMAN. The next witness is Mr. Joseph Mazur, of the American Veterans Committee.

Will you take a seat, sir, and proceed.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. MAZUR, CHAIRMAN, VETERAN AND ARMED FORCES AFFAIRS COMMISSION, AMERICAN VETERANS COMMITTEE; ACCOMPANIED BY IRVIN LECHLITER, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, AMERICAN VETERANS COMMITTEE

Mr. MAZUR. Mr. Chairman and Senators, my name is Joseph Mazur, and I am chairman of the veteran and armed forces commission of the American Veterans Committee. I thank the committee for the opportunity to present the testimony here today.

As you may know, AVC was founded during World War II and now includes members who served in World War I and in the Korean conflict. During the last 16 years we have adhered to the principles of citizenship upon which our organization was created, namely, that the duty and obligation of the citizen-soldier who fought for his country in time of peril is to continue to serve his country in peacetime as a citizen-veteran.

The American Veterans Committee has always been concerned with the welfare of all the people of our country and not just the welfare of the veteran. While we deeply believe that what is good for the country is good for the veteran, we do not necessarily agree that what seems to be good for the veteran is always good for the country.

AVC views the recipients of veterans benefits on the basis of two categories: First, the veterans who have suffered disability as a result of military service and the survivors of those killed in service or who died from service-connected causes; second, the group of veterans who incurred no disability in service.

For the first group, we believe that the Government should provide such aid as will enable them to maintain the position in society to which they are entitled. The proposed legislation before this committee does nothing to provide for much needed increases in disability compensation to meet the rising costs of living.

For the second group, those who were not disabled, AVC feels that the Government's sole obligation is "to provide such financial, medical, vocational, and educational assistance to all veterans as is neces