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Age at time of separation, by color and sex, of post-Korean ex-service men and women1 who returned to civil life through Dec. 31, 1958

Age at separation

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Total White Non- Total White Non- Total White Non-
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All ages....

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Percent Percent Percent Percent Percent Percent Percent Percent Percent 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0

100.0

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1 No service before Feb. 1, 1955, and separated by Dec. 31, 1958.

Branch of service and officer-enlisted status of men and women1 separated through Dec. 31, 1958

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Length of service as related to date of entry into the Armed Forces

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Length of service of those who entered Armed Forces during Percent of period specified

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Length of service as related to age at time of separation

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Mr. PATMAN. Mr. Chairman, the VA survey from which I have quoted provides a great deal of relevant information concerning the educational and other characteristics of the cold war veteran, and I request permission to have it included in the record at the end of my remarks.

Every projection on our economic growth over the next decade shows that we will require workmen of ever-increasing skills and educational attainments. Let us not, in effect, by denying these young men the benefits of this legislation, set them outside the main stream of Ameri

can industrial progress, particularly since they have provided the national security needed to nurture that progress.

Because of these limitations and general inadequacies, the student loan program will not help the cold war veteran. As a matter of fact, the student loan program-because it helps the student take advantage of the student deferment policy of the draft law-has added another inequity to the already unfair situation of today's veterans. This new inequity arises because every time the Federal Government puts up money for a college student loan, it is helping that individual stay in college and stay out of active military service.

If the student becomes a father in his third or fourth year of college he manages to escape the draft altogether-all with the aid and abetment of the Federal Government. But fatherhood is not the only to do to escape the military obligation is to obtain a NDEA fellowship grant, which would enable him to continue in graduate work until age 26, the maximum age on inductions under present operation of the draft.

So I think we will find many situations under NDEA where a student gets a 4-year college degree on a Government loan and then gets a graduate degree on a Government fellowship. And as an extra bonus gets a Government-sponsored escape from the draft. I am not complaining about these fortunate students but I am bringing them to your attention to disclose the need and justification for this bill.

As if this were not enough favored treatment for civilians who have not performed military service and who, incidentally, are not required to perform military service or any other public service in exchange for these benefits, the National Defense Education Act has another valuable benefit to confer upon the loan recipients. This benefit is in effect a direct grant of money amounting to as much as $2,500 in each individual case. The grant can be earned simply by teaching in a public school for a period of 5 years, because the student loan is canceled automatically at the rate of 10 percent of the loan for each year of teaching up to a limit of half of the loan.

Now I am not contending that this cancellation feature was not a wise thing for the Congress to enact, because I believe it is in the national interest to encourage more qualified persons to enter teaching. I do believe, nonetheless, that paying out this $2,500 under the National Defense Education Act without giving the cold war veteran any educational help constitutes a gross inequity to the young veteran who has performed one of the highest types of national service.

EDUCATIONAL ALLOWANCES ALREADY MODEST

The educational allowances provided by the pending legislation are already set at modest figures, and are the barest minimum needed to cope with the educational problems of post-Korean veterans. In view of the fact that average tuition costs of college education have increased 71 percent during the last 9 years, it is thoroughly impracticable to consider offering loans or otherwise offering less help than that proposed by the pending legislation. The fact is that the proposed allowances are already about 20 percent less, in terms of actual value, than an identical allowance provided in 1952. Furthermore, and again because of the high cost of education, the cold war veteran

will pay a much greater proportion of his educational allowance for tuition than was the case with similarly circumstanced veterans enrolled in school in 1952. The comparative percentages are these the cold war veteran will pay 43 percent of his educational allowance for tuition, as compared to only 28 percent paid by the Korean veteran in 1952.

Mr. Chairman, the facts and proof on the high cost of tuition and increase in the cost of living are brought out rather sharply in exhibits A and B, which are attached to my statement and which I have receive permission to insert in the record.

SELF-LIQUIDATING LEGISLATION

The cold war GI bill will be a sound, self-liquidating investment. The training afforded veterans by the educational allowances will greatly raise their earning power and the resulting increase in their income tax payment will more than pay the cost of the program. This self-liquidating characteristic has been demonstrated by actual experience under the WWII and the Korean conflict GI bills, and we know that the same thing will happen under the cold war GI bill. Since the budget has already taken care of the Korean veterans program without difficulty, and since the Korean is now phasing out, there is every reason to conclude that the cost of the cold war legislation will not upset the budget. The cold war veterans educational program should more properly be regarded as a replacement item in the budget, for it will simply move into the place previously occupied by the Korean program.

Another favorable fact in regard to budget considerations, concerns the reallocation of moneys in the unemployment compensation program presently available to cold war veterans. The experience under the unemployment program for the last year showed that each veteran applying for the unemployment benefit averaged 8 weeks of benefits for a total Federal outlay of $66 million.

For fiscal year 1960, the Labor Department estimates that initial claims will approximate 260,000 for a total Federal outlay of $70 million. Since almost all of the applicants for next year will be post-Korean veterans and since many of them can be expected to enroll in school under this legislation, it is certain that a good portion of the $70 million now allocated for unemployment compensation will actually be channeled into education of veterans. This, in my judgement, is not only a helpful fact in terms of the budget, but it is also a far, far better use of Federal funds to give a young man money for doing something, rather than money for doing nothing.

TIME OF ESSENCE

Finally, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I should like to stress the need for early action of the cold war GI bill. Time is of the essence to the thousands of young men who are trying to make up the time lost in the military service.

It is already too late for many of them to take advantage of the educational program. Marriage, children and other obligations have closed the door on their educational opportunities forever. Every day that passes, circumstances change and economic hardships grow

worse, causing large numbers of these young men, from all across the Nation, to march through that door of lost opportunity. We cannot reopen this door, but we can lock it from this side and open another door of opporunity for those men still able to take advantage of the program.

I therefore urge you to give this legislation your most prompt, sympathetic consideration, so that a cold war GI bill may be favorably reported at a very early date and so that simple justice and equity may finally be afforded our cold war veterans.

Now, Mr. Chairman, there is one thing on cost that I would like to speak to briefly.

Every time a bill affecting veterans and their dependents comes up, the item of cost becomes a paramount one with many people in official positions in this country. Naturally, we should consider the cost of anything, but may I invite your attention to the fact that World War I and World War II cost this country about $300 billion, I mean in the form of a national debt. That is over and above what was paid by the taxpayers during the time the wars were going on. In fact, a large part of World War I was paid as the war progressed and only a small part of World War II, but the Korean war, I guess, is the only war in all of our history which was fought on a pay-as-you-go basis. It was paid for as we went along. But the national debt that we owe now is because of World Wars I and II.

Now the urge for men serving in both of those wars at a low wage, we will call it, was because other people were making sacrifices and they were considered as hot wars and that everybody should come in and do their part and should not think too much about wages or salaries or things like that. Secondly, we had the people who furnished the money. It takes two things to run a war, men and moneyso the men were not getting too much. And the people who were furnishing the money, their interest rates were low, too, around 2 or 212 percent; so they felt that was a pretty good deal. The men going into the service were going in for wages that were only about a small percent of what they could have gotten on the outside, say in a munitions plant, and the people who furnished the money received only a low rate of interest.

That certainly looked like teamwork, men and money, the men not asking too much and the money not asking too much.

But after the war is over, this national debt of ours becomes the biggest business in America, not only in the way of refinancing but for speculation and even almost gambling on the rational debt, someparts of it, and it is becoming the biggest business in our Nation.

Also, in the last several years we have been increasing the interest on this national debt nearly $1 billion a year. Now the same people who screamed to high heaven that the little cost that will be entailed here because of this bill, why are they not saying anything about this increase on the interest rate on the national debt that was caused by the two major wars, World War I and World War II? They are not saying anything about that. So in 1952, I think the veterans for all purposes, and their dependents, for service-connected compensation, for pensions, for hospitalization, for benefits to all dependents of all types and kinds, and for all purposes, the moneys paid to the

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