out legislation under which it is provided that when a man goes in, a single man without dependents, and he has a service-connected disability, his compensation is reduced to $15 a month. If he goes in and he is drawing a nonservice rate of $30 a month, it is reduced to $6 a month. If he has dependents there would be no reduction. In past times we have had agitation to change that back. In other words, the claim has been made, and I have always been interested and willing to consider that, that $15 a month is not sufficient for service-connected cases while they are hospitalized. Necessarily they must be speaking of the single men because we have full compensation to a married man; also it is suggested that $6 is insufficient for non-service-connected single men.

Considering what we do in these cases, Mr. Chairman, a man in a hospital, in my judgment, does not require a single thing but what we furnish unless it be some personal item. Those who are unable to pay for their clothing under certain conditions, we furnish clothing. For those who are unable to pay within an amount less than $10, who need shaving cream, razors, or other of those smaller articles, they are furnished them. Personally, while there may be some contention worthy of consideration as to the amount I would not feel it is justified to recommend that we go back and give temporary total rating to those men while they are in the institution. I think the principle rather than the money involved is the thing we should give consideration to. And if the service organizations are able to show that the $15 or $6 is not sufficient in a sufficient number of cases to make that principle worth while then I would be in accord with considerations to change those rates.

The next section of the same bill, H. R. 7560, would restore 100 percent compensation to World War veterans with presumptively service-connected disability. That is paralleled by the American Legion bill, H. R. 2289 and section 24 of H. R. 7925, the Veterans of Foreign Wars bill. The proposal, of course, is to bring back the status that the presumptive cases had prior to the Economy Act. When the Congress considered the various regulations of the President and put back the certain benefits by legislation in the act of March 28, 1934, Public, No. 141, Seventy-third Congress, they placed back the presumptive cases at 75 percent of the prior rates.

You will recall that the presumptive cases contemplate two presumptions: first, that if the disability, neuropsychiatric disability or tuberculosis comes before January 1, 1925, that we would presume service connection and second, that the veteran would be conclusively presumed to be sound at entry into service except for defects noted at enlistment. It is true that they are called service-connected cases. They are brought in by a presumption. The Congress has had the matter before them many times. Initially they decided they should not make any distinction between service-connected cases by presumption and service connection directly due to service. Personally, I think there is in most cases a considerable difference. In other words, a man who is a directly service-connected case, and to go to the extreme of the example, say a combat case, obtains his 100 percent rating because there is no doubt as to how he obtained his disability. In the presumptive case the man has been given the benefit of the presumption established by law. Before the Economy Act, the pre

sumption of soundness in going into the service was not rebuttable. In other words if there was no indication of a disability on his record when he went in, he was entitled to the presumption of soundness. The Economy Act and Public No. 141, however, made that presumption rebuttable.

The CHAIRMAN. What is Public No. 141.

General HINES. That is the section of the appropriations act following the Economy Act.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, it did not come from this committee but from the Appropriation Committee?

General HINES. I think it came from the Senate Committee on Appropriations as I recall, without looking up its history. The Senate Finance Committee also collaborated and the language was added as a separate section to the appropriation for that year. Was that 1934, Mr. Birdsall?

Mr. BIRDSALL. Yes sir, March 28, 1934.

The CHAIRMAN. Under that provision they took a man into the army whether he wanted to go or not and pronounced him sound and then in after years, when his health broke down, they placed on him the burden of proof of going back and proving to the satisfaction of everybody that the Board that had examined him was mistaken when they took him into the service.

General HINES. That is not exactly it, Mr. Chairman. In other words the Act of March 28, 1934, Public No. 141, simply permits where the evidence is clear and unmistakable that the disability was not incurred during the period of his service, and we can show that, and the language is as I have stated, "clear and unmistakable evidence," we can rebut that presumption of soundness. There are very few cases where that is rebutted so that Public No. 141 does not do away generally with the provisions of the World War Veterans Act which granted that presumption except in this case where it is clearly shown that his disability was incurred before or after the service whether it is on record or not.

Now, the other feature and what is contended for now is not for any change in that but the change which is desired by these two bills is to pay the same rate of compensation for tuberculosis that is connected with the service by presumption as the case of tuberculosis connected directly with the service where the record was weighed and there is no doubt. I am frank to say, Mr. Chairman, there are good arguments on both sides. The Congress granted this presumption up to January 1, 1925. You will find many that will say that it was more than liberal for many of these disabilities. We have gone by that. At one time I recall on this committee we had under consideration extending that to 1930. I think the Chairman introduced the bill to do that.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; it passed the House and the Senate. It passed the House by 324 to 49, and it passed the Senate by 66 to 6, exactly 11 to 1. It was vetoed in 1930, I believe, by President Hoover and the veto was sustained. That is the history of that bill.

General HINES. And that was followed immediately thereafter with the famous Disability Allowance Act.

The CHAIRMAN. Within 30 minutes.

General HINES. Within a few minutes. That was then followed by the Economy Act. Not quite so soon, but soon after. But I desire to be fair, Mr. Chairman, in these matters.

The CHAIRMAN. General, before you go ahead, now, as I understand it, and I do not profess to know about all the veterans' laws that have passed this committee, we only restored 75 percent of the compensation of those presumptively disabled men but have restored all of the hospitalization rights and the rights of all the widows and orphans?

General HINES. That is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, if one of them dies, she is covered just as much as the direct service-connected case?

General HINES. She is covered just as much as the directly service-connected case.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, all right. The bill that created such a furore back in the gay twenties or thirties which was known as the Rankin bill, to which you referred, extended the presumptive period to January 1, 1930.

Suppose we were going to pass a law covering the veterans and widows and orphans up to that period, would you consider it better just to pass a straight pension bill covering that period or to extend this presumptive period?

General HINES. Mr. Chairman, that is a very difficult question to

answer.

The CHAIRMAN. I am not expecting the General to answer from the standpoint of the Chairman.

General HINES. I might say, Mr. Chairman, if we were not faced with some unusual conditions, I am sure that the administrationand I might say both the President and the Budget would probably feel a little different about extending the benefits that were contemplated by this program.

The CHAIRMAN. What conditions are we facing, General, which we have not always faced?

General HINES. I feel that there are some conditions which require consideration of the Budget to defer the building of more hospitals because of demands for funds for national defense and other things that seem to be "first things first" at this time. It might cause a different attitude. I think, Mr. Chairman, that what we should do, whatever you consider necessary to be done this year, is to consider out of this program what legislation will do most good for the veterans' group.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me say this to you, General; here is what has disturbed me ever since the passage of the so-called disability-allowance bill. It was brought in, as you know, under a suspension of the rules. Not a member of this committee, with the probable exception of the chairman, I do not think has seen that bill. They did not have time to read it. There was only 20 minutes' debate on each side. The Members of the House on my side appealed to me to know what they should do. I said every man is responsible to his own constituency but my advice is to vote for it and we did, because I thought it was the only chance we had at that time since the veto on the other bill had been sustained it was the only chance we had to get anything for disabled veterans that I honestly believed many of them were entitled to service-connected. But that, of course, was cut down with the economy bill to where they get now $30 a month where they are entitled to permanent total disability.

General HINES. That is right.

The CHAIRMAN. But that group of men who broke down between 1925 and 1930, those of whom I am thoroughly convinced received their disability in the service, not only were cut down to $30 a month but their widows and orphans were entirely excluded unless they had a service-connected disability that they could prove and which had been established.

Now, we have come to a point where those widows and orphans are knocking at the door of this committee. To me they are knocking just as loud as the demands for additional armaments or additional Navy or for additional anything else. And I think possibly that statement is expressing the views of the majority of the Members of Congress. From my viewpoint, something must be done to relieve

that situation.

General HINES. If I may defer answering your question until I get a little further along, I will probably have the same proposition. The CHAIRMAN. Yes. What year did you come into the Veterans' Administration?

General HINES. 1923.

Mrs. ROGERS. You have weathered a lot of storms.
General HINES. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. General Hines, I want to make this statement for the record and I will absolve the General because he did not get there until 1923 and I certainly will not charge him with any of the acts of the Administration or any one of his predecessors but up to the time you became Administrator of the Veterans' Administration we did not get a square deal, the veterans of the Southern States did not get a square deal. I have said that repeatedly and I say it now. We never have been used to pensions or compensation and what compensation was paid was paid by the State and every county had to go to the aid of the veteran and the veterans knew they were responsible for them and it was extremely critical when the State did not have any money. These men in charge of the Veterans' Administration, the then Veterans' Administration Administrator enlisted their aid. The Northern States were used to it. They had the advice of older men and had experience in the physical proposition. I know, I could go back and show you some States, namely, the State of Arkansas and the States of Tennessee, South Carolina, and Mississippi, it was just like crawling through the eye of a needle. Those men, many of them, were turned aside when they were suffering from service-connected disability. Well, about that time we passed this presumptive law which went into effect about the time you became Administrator. General HINES. Probably, in a number of cases.

The CHAIRMAN. Then until after they had this law passed and then this bill, in those States they did not know it from that day to this so far as the presumption is concerned because the presumptive law terminated, I believe, January 1, 1925, did it not?

General HINES. No; they can still to this present day, they can still

show it.

The CHAIRMAN. I understand.

General HINES. But I think we have reached the peak in this case. The CHAIRMAN. They can come in and make their proof, that is

true.

General HINES. It is difficult.

The CHAIRMAN. It is extremely difficult. Many of them have gone on and others have become discouraged and many of them have died. That is one of the reasons that prompted me, and I was supported by an overwhelming majority of the World War veterans who are interested in the proposition, that was one of the things that prompted me in attempting to extend the presumptive period to January 1, 1930. Now, we felt that to put these men on $30 a month and to leave their widows and orphans without anything was not just. Ever since I have sponsored legislation to try to cure by degrees as rapidly as we can proceed to try to cure any of this injustice.

General HINES. I hope you do not find at this time that there is any discrimination against the veterans in the Southern States. I think the figures of our compensation rolls will show they are pretty well taken care of and will support that thought in about an equal number in all the States.

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, I will say when the disability allowances bill was passed some people marveled that so many men in the South got on that. And the reason for that was one of the very things that I have complained of, that they have not been properly taken care of immediately after the war and, therefore, they lost the chance of getting anything out of it, or any share of the distribution.

Mrs. ROGERS. Is it not true that a great many of the physicians who first treated the men when they first came out of the service have died and so the veterans cannot secure any affidavits from them?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes.

General HINES. I think one of the early difficulties of the Veterans' Bureau was that, and I am not charging there was any desire on their part that it should have happened, the load was terrific and the organization was new, but I do feel that the contact there was, by that I mean the work of advising the veterans of his rights under whatever laws they had, was rather weak. That brought into being, I am sure, the large organizations that the service organizations themselves built up. In more recent years they tried to strengthen that. In other words, there might have been a feeling that if the man had a claim it was his business to indicate that. There was some thought that the Government agent ought not to have any business to initiate a claim against the Government. I feel that legislation was designed as beneficial legislation and the right to it should have been made known as best they could. But we must all consider that in these early years there was great confusion because of the new problem, the constant change of legislation that was taking place and the difficulty in getting anything started before they had to reorganize to take up something else. But I do hope in the present time and in the years following that we have built up more efficient organizations and that the veterans do feel that when they come to us with anything in the semblance of a good claim we assist them to perfect it. And I believe the service organizations will give us credit that we try to do that. I believe that is the policy, and especially my desire and that of my assistants.

The CHAIRMAN. What I am driving at is to get the same kind of World War veterans in every section of the country But there is a skip in those early years that we were not getting justice and we