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because both committees, the House committee and the Senate commitee, in reporting out the bill, reported it out as a temporary expedient. Mr. BRADLEY. Rather as an expedient but not temporary. It lasts intil it is revoked.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Yes.

Mr. BRADLEY. Or something replaces it.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Yes.

Mr. BRADLEY. All right.

Further back in that same paragraph we find the statement that in he event of illness or injury resulting from war risks and certain warelated marine risks, payments are to be made at $100 a month while ospitalized and $150 a month thereafter up to a total of $5,000. Now, we are considering continuing payments. In a similar case f a man in the military service, under the same conditions, would he be ble to get $150 a month if out of the hospital until he got $5,000, the ame as this merchant seaman is entitled to?

It seems to me we have an inequity and I am trying to bring it out s to whether or not we have. We have a condition here where a merchant seaman, disabled, would get as much as $150 a month up until 5,000 was exhausted, possibly $7,500. Now we are asked to continue ayments from that point on. How does that compare with a similar ondition for a man in the Army or Navy?

Mr. MCCANDLESS. It is substantially less than a man in the Army or avy. The payments which would be authorized under similar cirumstances in the Army or Navy would extend payments to as much s $300 a month. If the proposed statute becomes law there would be maximum payment of $116.66 per month plus $50 a month in the vent that the individual required the constant attendance of an assistnt of some sort, which would make it, then, $166.66 a month as a aaximum under this legislation, under this proposed legislation. Mr. BRADLEY. If a seaman of the Navy were injured in the same way, lo you know what he would get?

Mr. MCCANDLESS. It would depend upon the extent of his disability. Mr. BRADLEY. But we are not making this dependent on that, are we? Mr. MCCANDLESS. Yes, because under the Employees' Compensation Act the right to compensation is dependent entirely upon the differential between what his wages were and his earning capacity, so that of an individual is in a position to rehabilitate himself the burden on the Government is thereby reduced, whereas, under the Veterans' Administration laws the rehabilitation of the individual has nothing to do with the compensation that he receives.

For instance, we had an example in California of a gentleman who was district attorney and later a lieutenant governor who is receiving a substantial pension because he received a substantial injury. But the gentleman was able to overcome his handicap and probably made a great deal more money after his injury than he did before but, nonetheless, the payments to which he was entitled because of his disability continued because the system by which the Veterans' Administration classifies disability cases is entirely different from that used by the United States Employees' Compensation Commission. They use the percentage of the disability of the individual in determining the amount to be paid, whereas, under the United States employees' com

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pensation standards it is the impairment in earning capacity, which is a very, very different story.

Mr. BRADLEY. Now, let's take the case of death, to bring out the comparison there. Let us take a seaman of the Navy, for example, who was killed in action, we will say. What is the rate of pension which his dependents get.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. I think I have that here some place, sir.

Mr. BRADLEY. I would be glad to have you give us a hand, Mr. Levine. You are familiar with those things. I am just trying to get information.

Mr. LEVINE. The table was presented in last year's hearings. Do you happen to have a copy here?

Mr. MCCANDLESS. I have a copy here, I thought in a more readily accessible form.

Mr. LEVINE. It is on page 263 of part 1 of the hearings last year, "Comparisons of Veterans' Benefits Under the United States Employees' Compensation Act," and so on.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Starts at the top of page 264.

Mr. BRADLEY. Yes. And we find that if the veteran left a widow without children the benefit would be $50 a month; with one child, $65 a month.

Under the contemplated law what would be the similar benefit for a merchant seaman under the same circumstances, killed under the same circumstances?

Mr. MCCANDLESS. It would be under the second column.

Mr. BRADLEY. These are hearings for last year. Are they the same for this year?

Mr. MCCANDLESS. I have heard of no change in the law and I am sure there is no modification in that provision.

Mr. LEVINE. Exactly the same.

Mr. BRADLEY. In other words, for the same conditions the merchant seaman would collect more all the way through than the veteran would on the ratio of a widow with no children, veteran $50; merchant seaman $61.25. Widow with one child, veteran $65; merchant seaman $78.75. It continues that way all the way down the line up to the provision H, where I notice mother and father, the veteran would get $50 where the merchant seaman would get $70.

How would we justify such a condition? Even though we are granting the fact that the man who goes to sea in a merchant ship would have the same risks and the same dangers involved, how do we justify the paying of more benefits to him than we do to the man who is in the armed services, or their dependents?

Mr. MCCANDLESS. I think the answer there is that this does not tell the entire story. You will notice that the dependents of members of the armed forces have certain benefits for nonservice-connected death. which is not true with regard to the civilian employee. We mentioned yesterday during the hearings certain privileges of hospitalization if the facilities are available, which are of substantial value.

Mr. BRADLEY. This bill has nothing to do with non-service-connected conditions.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. That is right.

Mr. BRADLEY. I do not want to get into any such argument and bring in things which are not pertinent. We are talking about the

war conditions, and I am trying to find out how you can justify the payment of more and larger sums to dependents of merchant seamen than you can members of the armed services under similar conditions. Mr. MCCANDLESS. Because I think there is an accommodation. One person under one set of circumstances receives benefits in four categories and other persons in another situation receive benefits in only one category. The total of the benefits in four categories may far exceed the benefits which may be available only under the one.

Mr. BRADLEY. You are begging the question all around. We are not attempting to compare the fact that in time of peace, and so forth, merchant seamen are not in the category at all of military people because miliary people are under military discipline; they go where they are told to go and do what they are told to do; whereas, the merchant seamen do not.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. I quite appreciate that, but there are non-serviceconnected deaths and disabilities for which compensations are paid during the war.

Mr. BRADLEY. That is due them from their peacetime service and has nothing to do with the war, nothing to do with it whatever. Mr. MCCANDLESS. But it occurs during wartime.

Mr. BRADLEY. They earn that during their peacetime service. One goes to sea and gets killed. The other goes to sea and gets killed. You are trying to pay more to the merchant seaman than you are to this Navy seaman or Coast Guard seaman or an Army man.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Another way of answering it is this: The provision set forth in the second column here, under the United States Employees' Compensation Act, are payable to the crews and officers of the War Department Transportation Corps seamen; they are paid to the janitors; they are paid to all, of the civilian employees of the United States Government.

Mr. BRADLEY. I appreciate that.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. At war or at peace.

Mr. BRADLEY. I appreciate that the civilians in the United States Government have a better break under pensions than the military forces do. I have appreciated that for a good many years. But now we are in a case where civilian workmen on ships are trying to get certain things which are given to military personnel and they want a better break. Why should they get it?

Mr. MCCANDLESS. I think that is not consistent with the facts, sir. The civilian employees on vessels owned and operated, covered by the bill, are seeking only civilian benefits. They are seeking only the benefits that are presently provided under the United States Employees' Compensation Act which was enacted in 1916. This bill repeatedly has been referred to as being an effort to get military benefits and that, of course, is, in our opinion, a misconception and a misnomer because the benefits that are provided in the bill are benefits which are presently established and have been established for a great many years for civilian employees of the Government which were applicable to seamen on Government owned and bareboat chartered vessels prior to the passage of Public Law 17, and in main, rather than being an effort to seek military benefits or benefits which are accorded to the members of the military forces, it is a means whereby Congress may give to these gentlemen essentially the same benefits.

which they received prior to the passage of Public Law 17; also, the same benefits that these gentlemen received during the last war, the same benefits which the members of the Army Transportation Corps presently receive and have received throughout the war.

Mr. BRADLEY. Do you indicate we are giving nothing more to the Army Transportation Corps than they now get? If so, why do they appear in the bill; why do we have them in it?

Mr. MCCANDLESS. We were speaking of the compensation benefits, sir. With regard to that they will receive no more under the bill than they are presently receiving.

Mr. BRADLEY. Then we can eliminate them from the bill without harm to them.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. I think you can eliminate them from the bill without any harm to them if the only enactment which may result from the consideration of this bill were to cover merchant seamen under the United States Employees' Compensation Act.

Mr. BRADLEY. I still am not in agreement with you on your question of civilian benefits. They are what you are calling civilian type benefits, but they are certainly not civilian benefits in my opinion. You are asking here for more benefits for civilians than you are giving for military personnel under exactly the same conditions.

Mr. LEVINE. May we get the union's position on the record here! I thought I made it clear and I would appreciate a moment to explain it.

Mr. BRADLEY. Yes.

Mr. LEVINE. We originally asked for the veterans' standards on exactly the same basis. The members of the committee strongly dissented from the concept of granting veterans' benefits to members who were of a civilian volunteer service. So we then proceeded to go to a civilian type benefit which is the United States Employees' Compensation Act. It so happens that the Employees' Compensation Act is more favorable to death cases but much less favorable on injury cases. You look on the injury list and you will find there is a much more desirable type of scale of benefits under veterans' law than there is under the United States Employees' Compensation Act. It is a ques tion of balancing one against the other; perhaps, frankly, if we could go back maybe to the veterans' standard we would be just as well pleased. We did not ask for this system. This system already is in existence. I do not think you can change it for a small number of people. There are 3,000,000 people covered by the United States Employees' Compensation Act now.

Mr. BRADLEY. I am not indicating we will even try to change it, but I am merely indicating that my feelings with regard to the different grades of compensation given you. I happen to see service-connected disability, page 2; for the veteran, $115, plus $50; for the civilian, $166, plus $50.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. That is for service-connected

Mr. BRADLEY. Let's take service-connected partial disability first. Ten to ninety percent, $11.50 to $103.50 for the civilian. That is a sliding scale. I cannot give you the answer to that.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. It is less in 90 percent of the cases.

Mr. BRADLEY. It could be. In veterans' cases it runs from $11.50 to $103.50.

Mr. LEVINE. Yes, veterans' benefits have been increased 10 or 15 percent since.

Mr. BRADLEY. We cannot make a comparison here definitely because of a sliding scale.

Mr. LEVINE. On all loss of limbs, the veteran gets more, because the veteran gets

Mr. BRADLEY. I think we have developed the case.

Mr. LEVINE. I just wanted to get the facts. On all loss of limbs the veteran gets more.

Mr. BRADLEY. I am glad to have them.

Mr. HAVENNER. Are there any statistics in the record as to the percentage of veterans who sustained loss of limbs to the percentage of seamen who sustained loss of limbs?

Mr. LEVINE. I know of no such thing. I might say these questions, of course, can best be answered by the United States Employees' Compensation people themselves because they are familiar with that. Mr. BRADLEY. Yes, we will have them here.

Will you proceed, Mr. McCandless? I would like to finish this morning if possible.

Mr. MCCANDLESS. Title VI: Administrative Provisions.

Section 601 establishes a Division of Wartime Service Benefits within the Maritime Commission to which can be delegated all powers and duties of the Chairman under this bill, except that of appeals from such Division.

Section 602 provides for a Board of Wartime Service Seamen Appeals within the Maritime Commission to be appointed by the Chairman. This Board may be divided into sections for the purpose of handling appeals of different classes and for review by the Chairman of any decision of the Board which is appealed. The Board is authorized to issue regulations governing applications for review and procedures in connection therewith.

Section 604 provides that individuals entitled to benefits under the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944 or other acts administered by the Administrator of Veterans' Affairs shall not be entitled to identical benefits under this bill for the same period.

Under section 605 findings and decisions made under the bill shall not be subject to review by any other administrative or accounting official of the Government, except as therein provided.

Section 606 (a) limits the payments of fees to any attorney or agent representing seamen or their beneficiaries under this bill to the amount approved by the agencies adminstering the benefits and provides punishment of any person violating this section.

Section 606 (b) provides for punishment of persons making sales

claims.

Section 606 (c) provides for punishment of persons accepting benefits after their right to benefits cease.

Section 606 (d) provides that persons receiving benefits to which they are not entitled are punishable.

Mr. BRADLEY. If you will, pause there for questions by the various members. I noted on page 28 of the proposed bill, commencing with line 10, such attendance of witnesses and production of evidence may be required from any place in the United States or any Territory or possession thereof at any designated place of hearing.

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