always do. We cannot reopen a case on our own motion, without additional evidence. I ought to add, also, that very few of the cases which are called for review upon their own motion are reversed as to their original judgment.

Mrs. ROGERS. I was just going to bring that point up, that the Board almost never reverses itself.

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Chairman, I move that Mr. Cliff proceed.

The CHAIRMAN. I see now we are in for a longer hearing than I thought, so we will take our time. This committee has been rather conservative and rather patient, we have been swamped with correspondence I am talking about all of the members of the committee-but we are not going to have legislation written outside of Congress. We might as well understand that now, we are going to write the legislation. In my opinion, I might just as well say this now as any other time: In my opinion, I think we have come to the time when we should possibly pass a law providing that when a man or woman has been on the compensation rolls for 5 years they shall not be disturbed unless there is proof of fraud or flagrant error.

Mr. MILLER. If anyone can show that disablement has increasedThe CHAIRMAN. I mean they should not be reduced except in case there is fraud or a mistake in the record. This way of going out and dragging a man in is something I do not like.

Mr. MILLER. In that kind of case, Mr. Chairman, too much reliance is placed on the technical diagnosis of the neurologist, and so on, who have much profound nomenclature, but where there is not very much profound or sure background to their science. Too little knowledge of the practical, day by day ability of a man to earn a livelihood is invoked.

Mr. ENGEL. The Veterans' Administration report or summary of activities as of September 30, 1936-from December 1, 1933, through to October 3, 1936, they have it here-there was 117,706 cases appealed. In 96,562 the benefits were denied; in 5,675 benefits were allowed; in 3,186, benefits were allowed in part; 52 cases were modified; 4,580 were remanded; 4,465 withdrawn; and 244 were dismissed. That is the report.

The CHAIRMAN. You may proceed, Mr. Cliff.

Mr. CLIFF. He has some service from the Government which, at best, is limited by practical and legislative restrictions. Thus it happens, we think, that many a man, as a direct or indirect result of military service, is without recognition. Our own experience in the handling of several hundred thousand cases through the years is eloquent of need for some such legislation as we are considering. This need becomes emphasized as time advances. We-in the Legion-have lately had considerable experience in the matter of settlement of adjusted-service-compensation bonds where veterans have died after application but before receiving the bonds or before being able to secure the funds in redemption of the bonds. The present law permits payment to heirs at law with administration and without administration in certain circumstances. Nearly every case we have had indicates deep distress. Our widows are passing the age where they can readily secure or retain employment. They are subject to somewhat the same restrictions as prevail against living veterans now at an average age of 44 years-in industry. These women have been keeping homes, making clothes, and training little

ones. Many have limited fundamental training. Few have special qualifications for office or other work. It is a little late for even those with some academic background to learn about stenography or secretarial work or business affairs. Even when they do the younger girls get the play. Perhaps that is understandable but understanding does not soften the pictures which are too often more than distressing.

I come from a broad area which has been devastated by repeated drought. Some of you gentlemen represent constituencies which have been devastated by floods or some other calamity. I know of no case among widows of World War veterans in the category we are thinking about who has not had to apply for relief. The whole picture is not very pretty.

At that point, Mr. Chairman, I am going to digress and say to you that I think, on that particular point, while I have not the information available here this morning, you can get some very valuable information on the amount needed by these people, if the relief agencies of the country had the opportunity to tell you what had to be done. I have in mind a particular widow, for whom I have now obtained payments under Public, 484, whose husband was wounded at 10:30 on the morning of the 11th day of November 1918. He served with the Thirty-second Division and only recently he died, leaving this widow and three children, for which she is now receiving $38 a month under Public, 484. At the same time I made application for them I had to make application to the relief agencies in the State of Minnesota, in order that she might have coal, light, and heat during the winter months in our severe climate.

So that I say to you, while there may not be a large number of complaints, I do not know how a woman with three children who has to clothe them, feed them, keep them warm, and have the other necessities, can possibly get along on the sum allocated under the provisions of this bill. And I think you will find that, in all of these areas and I am speaking now of the drought area, the flood area, and the other areas where these widows have had to seek relief from the relief agencies-you will find they have always had to add to the amounts allotted to them, in order to get along.

The CHAIRMAN. Who was in command of the Thirty-second Division?

Mr. CLIFF. General Hahn, I believe. The Thirty-second Division was from the Michigan National Guard.

The CHAIRMAN. It was thrown into action on the last day, the day of the armistice, was it not?

Mr. CLIFF. They had been in action a long time before that.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not mean that was the first time, but they went over the top on the day of the armistice?

Mr. CLIFF. Yes. I need not amplify. You are all aware of the dimensions of this problem. If you were not, you would not be here today. No one of you but has scores of necessitous cases of widows and children which present laws cannot reach.

No new policy is sought to be established under this bill. Since the beginning recognition has been of the plight of those from whom the defender and breadwinner has departed. Relief has been provided at varying periods after the several wars. Widows of the more remote wars generally had to wait for a long time. Perhaps this was because

of long deferred consciousness of duty to those whose significant hazardous duty had been well performed. Perhaps it was because competition had not begun to dominate or that life and livelihood were simpler. At any rate, in changing conditions relief has been more expeditious. Widows of Spanish War veterans were accorded some measure of assistance in 1918. Everbody familiar with this problem knows that even during the World War the people of America, speaking through your body, attempted to find a more intelligent and humane way to ease the distress of conflict than had ever been done before in the history of the world. The end so earnestly sought was accomplished. The Congress was not satisfied with a mere pension. Veterans wounded or diseased by way who had lost their work capacity were to be rehabilitated. Insurance against complete disablement or death was provided at modest cost. Measureable money compensation for disablement was granted. Hospital treatment of high order was set up, and during service family allowances and allotments were granted and supervised. It would not be within the powers of any government to do more for the individuals who were the substance of the forces which helped to terminate a war many months earlier than the most sanguine minds in Washington felt it could be concluded.

But the widows and children never received adequate treatment. The basic rate for a woman who has not only lost her husband and provider but her interest in what compensation he was receiving is $30 monthly.

Now, I would like to stop here and speak of this veteran that I have just referred to. You see, gentlemen, he was receiving $48 a month compensation at the time of his death. So that has reduced the widows' and orphans' pension to $38 a month. Now, the expense, as far as the Government is concerned, has actually been reduced by the death of the veteran.

The CHAIRMAN. But the veteran did not die of service-connected disability?

Mr. CLIFF. That is what has been determined. In my own mind, I think he did, Mr. Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I am speaking about what has been held?
Mr. CLIFF. Yes.

The CHAIRMAN. But if it had not been for Public, 484, and its twin bill that passed last year, of course she would not be getting anything? Mr. CLIFF. That is right. It has always been too meager in the circumstances. True, the Government insurance has helped, but much of it will be running out in a year or two. The Legion has several times suggested more considerate attention to the widows of veterans who die of service-incurred causes. No one has objection, but beyond an Executive order which grants small increases as age advances no relief has been extended. We have suggested a base rate of say $45 monthly, and we hope the Congress will come to some such conclusion before long. However, that element is not part of the present bill.

We now ask that World War widows and minor and helpless children be accorded some such protection as had been extended to these same groups of dependents of participants in other wars. It is a discrimination and it should come to an end. No matter what one may think of the theory of service pensions and no matter what relief of this sort may be called, we come to you honestly representing a picture which is based upon years of first-hand contacts with many thousands of women

and children. We know the conditions demand attention. We do not ask now for payments so large as those received by Spanish War widows, just as they did not get as much as the widows of Civil War veterans who are, of course, older. We are glad to ask you to assure that payments are not made to women who are well off by attaching the income-tax provision.

It is my recollection that at prior hearings on similar bills some consideration was raised to the effect that a fairly large percentage of the eligibles would receive the proceeds of Government insurance. Well, that was undoubtedly true at that time. The bills then under discussion carried provision for dependent mothers and fathers. The current measure does not. Just to demonstrate to the committee that war-risk insurance does not now enter this picture importantly, let me say that at the close of the last fiscal year payments were being made on term insurance of 122,974 veterans or soldiers who had died. Of these 18,255 were being paid to widows or widowers, 1,879 to or on behalf of children, and a scattering of less than 2,500 to groups involving payment of some parts of the insurance to children. Thus it will be seen that only about 20 percent was going to groups sought to be relieved under the bill to which we are now addressing ourselves. The balance involving nearly 100,000 items goes to parents, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews, and estates. Even that insurance is running out rapidly.

At that point, Mr. Chairman, I would like to call attention to the fact that the World War veteran, at the time he took out his insurance, or at the time he went into the service, in a great many cases he had not married and, consequently, a great many of the beneficiaries, particularly of men who died during the service, who did not come home and were able to marry or remarry, went to the father or mother or aunt or brother or sister, and these payments of insurance at the present time, are to great majority of that classification, rather than to widows and orphans, to whom we are trying to extend now some degree of help and compensation.

The CHAIRMAN. I am wondering what percentage of those insurance policies went to people other than widows and orphans and parents, and what percentage of them we really exclude. Of course, in some cases, there were some widows, orphans or dependent parents

Mr. MILLER. 80 percent, as Mr. Cliff has pointed out.

The left-hand column there, Mr. Chairman, relates to the living

men.

The CHAIRMAN. I see.

Mr. CLIFF. May I proceed?

Mr. ATKINSON. You say 20 percent went to widows and orphans? Mr. CLIFF. No; 80 percent of the war-risk insurance went to fathers, mothers, brothers, and sisters.

Mr. ATKINSON. Other than the widows and orphans?

Mr. CLIFF. Yes. Of some 155,000 term and automatic original insurance awards for death which had been made, about 108,000 began in 1919. The payments run for 20 years unless the beneficiary should die in which case the estate is paid the commuted value in cash-and so a great majority of these contracts will shortly have been fully discharged. Then, too, it is difficult to understand how any estimate can be made as to how any fixed number of those who

might be receiving insurance would apply or be able to receive the benefits of such a measure as this. To be sure the bills as to which these statements were made contained no tax provision. The matter is only mentioned to clear up any doubt which may exist as to the groups to which veterans' war risk insurance is really going. Certainly the widows and children are getting only a small share.

The Legion offers no estimate as to the cost of this proposal. The Administrator of Veterans' Affairs will undoubtedly make such calculations as may be required by the committee. We would prefer, that the suggestions advanced in the bill be considered with merit as the major stimulus. We believe that will be your attitude. However, costs must be calculated and the fiscal situation canvassed. These calculations as to futures are unexplored realms. The elements involved are literally impossible of accurate forecasting.

No impugning of any motives of the Government is to be inferred when I suggest these great difficulties.

In the past there have been some estimates made with reference to the widows' and orphans' legislation which have been inaccurate, and when I say that, I do not impugn the good faith of the Veterans' Administration, nor do I wish, in any case, to intimate that General Hines, or his associate, for whom I have great regard, have, in any way, attempted to mislead this committee. But in view of the fact that you are considering this problem, I feel that I should suggest to you that, at the time Public 484 was before the committee, there was an estimate made that the first year would cost $4,628,250, that there were 13,900 eligible veterans whose dependents might become beneficiaries under that act.

Well, now, we have found that, in the last year, in less than a year, I believe, it was, or when this committee met again to consider Public 484 that any possible amendments that might be made to it, that instead of 13,900 cases there was only 1,688 beneficiaries on the rolls at that time; and that, instead of spending $4,600,000 in that first year, or approximately the first year, it only cost $652,664. So that the committee may understand that those estimates

The CHAIRMAN. I lost those figures, Mr. Cliff.

Mr. CLIFF. Were not accurate, and up to the present time, under 484, there are approximately 9,000 beneficiaries on the rolls. Yet the Veterans' Administration, at the time this bill was enacted, had estimated that there were 13,000 veterans who might have beneficiaries and they might be one, two, three, or four. So that the estimates have not come up, as far as the expense is concerned, nearly to the amount it was first thought they would come to at the time of the passage of Public 484.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the expense now?

Mr. CLIFF. I have not that figure.

Mr. MILLER. The dependents, Mr. Chairman, are 3,340 veterans who are on the rolls, of which 2,808 are widows and 5,652 are children. The cost, I cannot give the committee offhand.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Cliff, let me ask you a question: Will you be here day after tomorrow?

Mr. CLIFF. I do not expect to, Mr. Chariman. I want to get back home.

The CHAIRMAN. You will be here tomorrow?

Mr. CLIFF. Yes, I will be here tomorrow.