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authority, we do hope there will be a holiday, and further legislative and administrative proposals will not be made, in order to give the reorganization plan the opportunity to prove itself, to prove its effectiveness, and to have a chance of success.

Experience has shown us that there is a record of errors in the location and the number of certain types of Veterans' Administration hospitals. This recent issue of Collier's, on February 14, documents some of these errors. I have checked with members of my rehabilitation staff, and they have stated that the facts, in their opinion, are materially correct.

We believe that there is a need for a Federal Board of Hospitalization with the authority to prevent a repetition of this problem. We would oppose, however, that this agency should ever become a superagency exercising control over the administration of the Department of Medicine and Surgery in the Veterans' Administration.

We believe that the veterans' program should be stabilized. The cost of the benefits and services to the veterans has declined 38 percent since 1947, and this is in a period of growing veteran population and a higher cost of living. We urge a stabilized plan of operation be granted the Veterans' Administration by Congress. We particularly urge that the nonprofessional control of the administration of the Department of Medicine and Surgery by the Bureau of the Budget be removed.

We believe it is imperative that the Veterans' Administration be provided with adequate funds, particularly to operate the beds that are already provided. No agency can provide a full measure of service if it is constantly beset by reductions in force and threats of reductions in force. This, of course, would mean insecurity, and it would mean unstable conditions and lack of confidence in the future.

Our program of legislation is presented to cover authorization of Federal benefits. Really there is nothing new in it. It will liberalize the basis for service connection of certain chronic diseases, adjust certain disability compensation and pension rates, establish parity for the award of death pensions to widows and orphans of World Wars I and II and Korea.

Our resolutions covering this legislation are filed with your committee.

To summarize:

First, the reorganization plan of the Veterans' Administration deserves attention, and if approved we urge it be given the opportunity to prove its worth with a holiday to contrary legislative reorganization plans.

Second, a stabilized program for the Medicine and Surgery Department of the Veterans' Administration is long overdue. It is inconsistent that the Bureau of the Budget should be the nonprofessional dominating control of a professional program of medicine and sur

gery.

Third, a Federal Board of Hospitalization should be established to state where and the number and type of hospitals the Veterans' Administration and other Government agencies should have.

Fourth, a realistic appraisal of the methods for stabilizing employment of the Veterans' Administration should be made.

Fifth, if specific programs or specific employees do not live up to the promise of performance we recommend that they be reexamined

specifically, using a telescopic lense type of approach rather than the mortar, to remove the attitude of distrust and suspicion and to replace this with confidence and security.

Sixth, it is basic to us that the veteran is a special class. He has earned special distinction of being a veteran during armed conflict in military service, and the title of veteran is a conferred badge of honor. It denotes and connotes that a man or woman has presented himself and offered all to defend home and country.

Eighth, we ask that funds necessary to operate the benefit and services program be provided by Congress. This means that we need a restoration of funds for an adequate program, particularly to operate the hospitals that are constructed.

There are over 20,000 applications which have been certified for veterans' hospitals, but the applicants cannot be admitted because the beds are not available. In the sense that there are not the facilities or the personnel to staff them, there are 10,000 beds unavailable for this reason. We consider this to be false economy.

The problem is one which will become more acute with the rotation out of service of 100,000 veterans each month-over 1 million this year-from the Korean war. Already 4,000 Korean veterans are in hospitals.

I have members of my staff here this morning. I know that they will be more than happy to answer questions along with me and to provide any assistance that they can in the days ahead. I say with pride and with a degree of prejudice, of course, that I believe we have a staff of experts, with 34 years of experience in the field of rehabilitation. This field is the guiding principle of the American Legion, the primary reason for our existence.

I should like to present some of the members of our staff to you: Mr. T. O. Kraabel, who heads our rehabilitation division; Mr. Stevens, assistant director; Dr. Shapiro, senior medical consultant; Mr. Olson, assistant director of legislation.

It is a pleasure to present this statement to you, and I will be more than happy to endeavor to answer any questions you may have. The CHAIRMAN. That is a very fine statement, Mr. Commander. Mr. GOUGH. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. I am delighted you could come today and present your program early, in order that it may go out all over the country. Mr. GOUGH. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I think we have a battle to hold what you have secured for the veterans.

Mr. GOUGH. We are alert and vigilant.

The CHAIRMAN. I know that. I hear that everywhere. I hear what a wonderful commander you are.

Mr. GOUGH. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. I should like to say for myself and I know for the members of the committee-who will speak for themselves, undoubtedly that we have a feeling of gratitude to your very able staff here in Washington. I have watched them for 34 years, and I can testify to their ability and their willingness. They do not ask for things which are too much to expect.

Do the members of the committee have any questions?

Mr. MACK. I have just one question along the line the commander mentioned.

The Hoover Commission report, when it was presented to the Congress several years ago, recommended that the hospital services of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force, Public Health, and Veterans' Administration be consolidated into one organization. Will you state the position of the American Legion on that?

Mr. GOUGH. Yes. We have a position that all services and benefits to veterans should be in the hands of and administered by a single Federal agency to avoid the necessity of duplication of effort and records that would be required if there was, in our terms and in our thinking, a dismemberment of the Veterans' Administration to place the separate functions of the Veterans' Administration in separate agencies.

Mr. MACK. The position of the American Legion is that you want a one-stop agency to serve the needs of the veterans of the Nation? Mr. GOUGH. Yes, sir; that is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. You have fought for that since the very beginning of your existence as an organization.

Mr. GOUGH. We have a long record and history of fighting for that very principle; yes.

Mr. MACK. Mr. Commander, the fact that the American Legion is opposed to that particular recommendation in the Hoover Commission report does not mean you are opposed to the entire report concerning all of the other recommendations?

Mr. GOUGH. No; and we have stated that position publicly. There are many things in the Hoover Commission report that we feel are really and truly in the interest of efficiency and economy. We do feel almost sensitive, you might say, over the fact that we offered them the services of our experts who have had great experience in the field of rehabilitation, and it was not used. I think I can say that our men have had great experience, without fear of contradiction, greater than any other group of individuals. We offered to give the benefit of this experience and our thinking to the Hoover Commission. Although the office of the Hoover Commission in Washington was in the 1600 block of K street, the same as our headquarters here, we were never even given the opportunity of presenting our thinking or the result of our experience at all.

We feel that there are certain phases of the Hoover Commission report which are not directed either toward efficiency or economy. We have asked them to give us where economy would actually result, and we have never received it from them.

Mr. MACK. I agree completely with your statement. The reason I wanted to get it on the record is that in some of the local posts in my State they have had the impression that the national organization of the American Legion was opposed entirely to the recommendations of the Hoover Commission report. I know that is not true, and I am glad to hear you say it.

Mr. GOUGH. Congressman Mack, I am glad we have that on the record. It has been on the record before, but we will reiterate and emphasize that this morning because we are very much for efficiency and economy in government. We think the Hoover Commission has done a splendid service in leading in this direction in general. It is only on these particular phases where we do not feel it would result in efficiency and economy that we take issue.

Mr. MACK. I agree with that, also.

Mr. GOUGH. Thank you.

The CHAIRMAN. The gentleman from Indiana?

Mr. ADAIR. You have indicated that your organization, and you are speaking for it, prefers the reorganization plan of the Administrator. By that I assume you mean the one announced in November of last year.

Mr. GOUGH. Yes, sir.

Mr. ADAIR. Are we then to assume that you prefer that to the Booz, Allen & Hamilton report, and the implications of that report; or do you regard them as one and the same?

Mr. GOUGH. That is a very fine question, and I am glad we have that for the record, too, Congressman Adair, because they are two separate things entirely, and must be studied separately. We are continuing studies of both.

The Booz, Allen & Hamilton report is so voluminous that it is difficult to comment on it in a general way. I will say this: We feel that the recommendations of the Administrator carry much that is positive, and that we have championed, and I am restricting our recommendations to his reorganization plan particularly as it calls for an autonomous administration of the Department of Medicine and Surgery, with such services under this Department; and it calls for the 71 regional offices in the field, to carry the service out in the field where it should be, with death claims under this type of service. Those are things we have championed ever since we have been an organization. Those are the things that we are supporting.

I am awfully happy to be able to clarify that. The press frequently confuses the two. They are two separate things.

Mr. ADAIR. Then am I correct in understanding your position to be that they are two separate aspects of one question, and you feel that the Administrator's plan as announced last November is the means by which the program should be put into operation, but many of the recommendations of the Booz, Allen & Hamilton report should be borne in mind? Is that a correct statement?

Mr. GOUGH. You have correctly stated my position. As a matter of fact, going even further, many of the recommendations of the Booz, Allen & Hamilton Report are incorporated in the recommended plan of the Administrator.

Mr. ADAIR. You have anticipated my next question, which was going to be along that line. It was a question as to whether you did not find a considerable amount of duplication in the two reports. Mr. GOUGH. Yes.

Mr. ADAIR. I have a second general question, if I may, Madam Chairman.

The CHAIRMAN. Please do.

Mr. ADAIR. You have spoken about this hospitalization board or hospital board. I am not clear as to the exact name.

Mr. GOUGH. Federal Board of Hospitalization.

Mr. ADAIR. I am not clear in my own mind as to how you proposed that should be constituted.

Mr. GOUGH. I would like to refer that question to Mr. Kraabel, who heads our division, because he has given considerable study to that very phase of it, and can give a more specific answer.

Mr. KRAABEL. Madam Chairman and Mr. Congressman, the principle of the Federal Board of Hospitalization was one brought out in an Executive order of some years ago, when the construction of hospitals for the Federal Government of many branches was a gigantic program, and coordination was required to bring out the most effective placement of these hospitals and also to avoid duplication. However, that was an executive agency at that time. On June 30, 1948, it was abandoned and the functions of that Board were inherited or reposed in the Bureau of the Budget.

We commented in our annual report of that year that we might see the after effects of removing this one step, where interested parties might go on behalf of certain hospitals of the Federal Government, and in our case in behalf of hospitals for veterans. With that removal, that step or that place was no longer in existence. We soon found that with the coordination in the Bureau of the Budget it became an executive thing, and no hearings were held at which we might

appear.

We believe in the findings of our own field service, our own Department service officers, and the task force of the Hoover Commission, that there was a duplication in some areas of Federal hospitals. Our purpose in this bill is to have a Federal board which will survey all of the situation. They will not run the hospitals, but where there is an Army hospital proposed and a Navy hospital nearby, they would say: "Hold on. How is this?" so as to eliminate duplication.

We had that worked out in two or three instances during World War II. There was a case at Hines, Ill., where the Army needed a hospital, the Vaughan Hospital. It was built at the corner of the reservation on which the Veterans' Administration Hospital was located, with the understanding that when the war was over and the Army no longer needed it the Veterans' Administration might inherit it.

The same was done at Richmond.

Another instance was the Navy hospital at Houston, where the Veterans' Administration had planned to build a hospital, and here was a brand new Navy hospital. That was brought to the attention of the people interested, with the result that the Veterans' Administration inherited the Navy hospital and did not build one.

Our purpose in reviving this as an agency for Congress is to see that the building of any Federal hospitals, or the location of them, would be coordinated so as to avoid duplication and at the same time we hope there will be a minimum sufficiency of beds for the veterans of this country.

Mr. ADAIR. Well, that would seem to be meritorious. How do you propose that the board be designated?

Mr. KRAABEL. The Federal Board of Hospitalization would be created by Congress, with appointments by the President, and with the Administrator of Veterans Affairs and the Administrator of the Federal Security Agency and other Federal agencies having hospitals being members of the Board.

Mr. ADAIR. How large a board does that make?

Mr. KRAABEL. The proposal calls for seven members of the Board. They would also have the right to bring in specialists at a per diem rate, whenever they needed them in the matter of medicine, engineering, construction, or allied fields.

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