have never been able to overcome the disadvantage that those conditions imposed

General HINES. I hope we may be able to do it, even yet.

Mrs. ROGERS. May I make a suggestion, General Hines, that some of your letters that go out may be a little clearer. Sometimes a question comes up about a total and permanent rating and the latter says if he is not satisfied with that rating he may appeal.

General HINES. I certainly want that very clear.

Mrs. ROGERS. May I send in some suggestions to you?

General HINES. Yes, I would like to do everything I can to make it clear.

The CHAIRMAN. Let me say to the members of the committee, I am going to have to appear before the Military Affairs Committee in the morning. If you want to proceed with General Hines or if he wants to proceed in the absence of the chairman, it will be all right if one of the other members will preside If there is no objection, we will adjourn until Thursday morning at 10:30.

(Whereupon the committee adjourned until Thursday, February 15, 1940, at 10:30 a. m.).

PENSIONS FOR WORLD WAR VETERANS' WIDOWS

AND ORPHANS

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1940

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

COMMITTEE ON WORLD WAR VETERANS' LEGISLATION,

Washington, D. C.

The committee met at 10:30 a. m., Hon. John E. Rankin (chairman) presiding.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

General Hines, you may proceed with your statement.

General HINES. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, when we adjourned I had reached on page 2 of the summary of the bill, section 4 of H. R. 7560.

Section 4 proposes to liberalize the granting of emergency officers' retirement pay to include direct service-connected cases.

Recently a bill (S. 134) passed the Senate proposing to do the same thing and there is pending in the House in the Committee on Military Affairs H. R. 2005 on which the Veterans' Administration has been collaborating with the Subcommittee on Military Affairs with a view to work out some legislation that will take care of the meritorious cases and will not put us back where we were before the Economy Act.

The CHAIRMAN. General, the Military Affairs Committee has jurisdiction of all retirement legislation?

General HINES. Yes; that is my understanding.

The CHAIRMAN. Originally it got to this committee by mistake, as I was informed by Speaker Longworth. And it has been considered that such matters were in the jurisdiction of the Military Affairs Committee ever since, and we refer them to that committee.

General HINES. As a matter of fact, this is one section of a general bill and that is how it gets before this committee.

The CHAIRMAN. I was just wondering if we could not get the T. V. A. before this committee by wrapping it up in veterans' legislation?

General HINES. You probably could.

The CHAIRMAN. If we would do like the rest of them and exercise our prerogatives and wrap up other legislation under a lot of camouflage and bring it before this committee then we could pass on it.

General HINES. Mr. Chairman, in order that the committee members may have some idea of the men who head up the various services of the Veterans' Administration I am going to ask you to grant me permission to let the Directors of some of the branches of the Veterans' Administration and some of the Assistant Administrators that

have control over some of these items analyze some of the sections of these bills. In that way you will get undoubtedly a clear statement of the detail and will have an opportunity of sizing up the caliber of men that head up these services. I would like the members of the committee to get better acquainted with them.

And for the next section, section 5, I would like to introduce to the committee with your permission Mr. Brown, Director of the Veterans' Claims Service, and ask him to take up the sections of the bill that pertain to his service.

The CHAIRMAN. All right, General.

We are glad to hear you, Mr. Brown.

STATEMENT OF GEORGE E. BROWN, DIRECTOR OF VETERANS CLAIMS SERVICE

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed with your statement, and you may extend your remarks in the record if you desire.

Mr. BROWN. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I shall start where General Hines left off, discussing the provisions of H. R. 7560.

Section 5 is a provision that is somewhat similar to H. R. 7707.
You have this outline which I am following.

This particular section would enact into law what is now contained in the regulations of the Veterans' Administration. Our regulations, particularly the provisions of 1144, practically sets forth the same requirements that are proposed in this legislation. Whether it is wise to enact into law the provisions of these regulations is questionable. At the present time the Administration may change in the light of experience, and they are oftentimes changed in the direction of liberalization. If they were enacted into law, it would be more difficult, of course, to make changes.

Section 6 of H. R. 7560 would increase the service-connected disability compensation of World War veterans, exclusive of statutory award upon the basis of age.

I might say that this is a definite departure from the basic principles of the World War Veterans' Act. That act provided and provides, as a matter of fact, a compensation will be payable for disability resulting from service. It is difficult to form any logical basis for holding that age could be in any way connected with the man's service. In other words, service has nothing to do with age. We pay for disability resulting from injury or disease that develops during the period of a man's service.

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, you think that his disability from old age would come under the head of a pension or disability allowance?

Mr. BROWN. That is right. It is a pension concept. The CHAIRMAN. And would not be an increase? Mr. BROWN. In his service-connected condition; that is right. I might state that our valuations now for disability, take, for instance, 10-percent disability. The World War veteran's average age was about 25 when they were discharged. Now, on an average expectance of life we would pay these men during their lives $4,800. For a 50-percent disability the total payment on a 40-year expectancy

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of life would be $24,000. And, of course, for total disability it would be twice that amount, or $48,000.

The legislation, as a matter of fact, intermingles the service-pension theory with the disability-compensation principle. General HINES. That is, the proposed legislation.

Mr. BROWN. The proposed legislation; yes, sir.

I shall now discuss section 8 of H. R. 7560, which provides or proposes that the permanent and total service-connected disability rate of the World War in effect for 5 consecutive years would not thereafter be reduced.

Under the present regulations it is very rare indeed when a permanent and total disability rating or, for that matter a lesser rating is reduced and we do not reduce unless the evidence is conclusive that there has been permanent improvement in the man's condition. There is right now, I think, before General Hines a proposal that goes as far as anyone could reasonably expect the Administration to go in freezing rates. There is nothing in any of these proposals that will in any way prevent the Administration from raising the man's rates when there is a changed condition.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Brown, I find this, that men on the pension rolls with even a small amount of compensation seem to feel a much greater degree of security and have greater peace of mind because they know that unless they ask for it to be reopened their cases will not be reopened except for fraud or mistake. And I am of the opinion that the mere fact that these cases are subject to be reopened at any time result in a disturbed state of mind. That is detrimental to him and annoying to the service. I am not sure that I agree with you on that proposition. It seems to me the time is coming when we are going to have to freeze these allowances and probably the sooner we get to it the better it will be for the Bureau and for the veteran and for the future of Congress.

Mr. VOORHIS. I would like to know how many cases he would have which have been raised permanent and total for 5 years, which would thereafter be changed, where there would be just reason for a reduction, how many cases would you have?

Mr. BROWN. I could not give you the figures.

Mr. VOORHIS. I mean, would it be one out of a thousand, or one out of five thousand. What percentage would it be?

Mr. BROWN. I would not want to hazard a guess. However, I can explain to you, I think, the kind of case you have in mind. For instance, we will put a man in for active tuberculosis. We concede that he is permanently and totally disabled. He may go to one of the hospitals and spend 2 or 3 years there and he comes out completely restored. After that man has had an opportunity to adjust himself to life, if he goes back to work, of course, we would not concede that he was permanently and totally disabled.

Mr. VOORHIS. Now, I understand what you state is perfectly true. My question is more of a practical question, I mean, taking into account the age of these men and the fact that at their present agehere is a man who has actually had tuberculosis for 5 years and has actually been rated permanent and total. Under all these practical circumstances, with a real existing situation, I just wonder how many there would be who after 5 years, where there would be reason, would be rerated.

Mr. BROWN. Very, very few, I imagine, in the course of a year I would see not over 10 cases of that kind.

General HINES. May I interject and answer there. The policy, of course, for some time, Congressman, has been to get as many of these veterans on permanent ratings as possible.

Mr. VOORHIS. Yes.

General HINES. The Congressman's question is directed primarily at the permanent and total cases as I understand it, so that I would hazard a guess that there probably would not be more than one in three thousand which would be that type of case. However, we should keep in mind, and I am a great believer in the policy of leaving these ratings alone, if we can do it. At the same time we should not, unless we are prepared to do so, throw overboard the principle of the rating policy adopted by the World War Veterans' Act, and that is that the ratings will be given for the handicap the man has for the disability due to service.

Many of these cases are not reopened on our motion. They are reopened on the motion of the veteran himself, sometimes not wisely. But as Mr. Brown has indicated, even now we are considering the very factor that this particular section applies to, that is, what we can do to assure these men who have permanent disabilities that they will be left alone. We have already covered somewhat the question of the breaking of service connection. Now the next move will be to cover the ratings themselves.

Mr. VOORHIS. You still would be opposed to this, would you not, General?

General HINES. Well, in principle it is not sound, taking into account the basic rating policy of the World War Veterans' Act. But I am not opposed to the principle of leaving those cases alone. No; I agree with you; I think we should find a way to do it. If we cannot do it by way of regulation, then I say, let us put it into the law. Personally, I think we can do it to a degree which will be in keeping with the rating policy and the rating policy set-up which we have followed now for a long time and not violate or do violence to those policies.

Mr. VOORHIS. Do you not think there might be some advantage in the point the chairman raised about having these men in this permanent and total group know that the thing was not going to be disturbed anyhow?

General HINES. They know pretty well now, and I think Mr. Brown should explain to you the policy with reference to permanent ratings. I think you will find they generally know that, for instance, in the cases of statutory disabilities which we know will not change, we do not reexamine. There are other disabilities which very seldom change and they are left alone for 5 years and sometimes longer. There are other disabilities where it is in the interest of the veteran to examine him. But certainly no one can object to the principle that this is endeavoring to establish. I think we should do it, administratively if we can, in keeping with the rating policy, and if not then I will say it is time to legislate.

The CHAIRMAN. General, as applied to service connected cases, would not limit it to total disabilities.

General HINES. No.

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