Extent

Degree of impairment

Senator REED. It is scarcely likely that the tuberculosis had its origin in battle.

General HINES. No; not in battle. I would not say that. I mean at the front.

Senator REED. The medical testimony given us at the veterans inquiry in 1923 was that the effect of gas was rather to prevent tuberculosis than to cause it.

General HINES. We have had a study made of the effect of gas, in conjunction with the Army, and while it is not completed, we feel that although the statement you have made is correct, Senator, that it would probably, under certain circumstances, prevent tuberculosis, nevertheless there is a certain injury to the tissue of the upper air passages and of the lungs which might make a man susceptible to the infection to a greater degree than a man who had not been gassed. Senator REED. So, some of the gas cases may have developed tuberculosis as a result.

General HINES. Yes. Some of them may have.

Senator SHORTRIDGE. General, under the present law, those suffering from disabilities incident to service on the battle field receive larger consideration, do they not?

General HINES. Not always. We have men who have gunshot wounds that would probably receive, under our rating table, less than a man with arrested tuberculosis. In other words, the statutory award for arrested tuberculosis is $50. The compensation table takes into account the factor of a man's pre-war occupation, before he went into the service. That element might reduce it to the point where, due to his pre-war occupation, he would receive less than $50. You probably recall the example I gave of two men who had an amputation at the middle thigh. One was a bookkeeper before he went into the service and the other was a structural-iron worker. The bookkeeper, due to his pre-war occupation, and the variant. being lower than the variant for the structural iron-worker, would receive $39 a month, while the structural-iron worker, who has a greater industrial handicap, would receive $89 a month, under the compensation table. That table is built up with those factors-the degree of injury in the part of the body impaired, and the pre-war vocational handicap that he suffers as a result of that disease for injury.

Senator SHORTRIDGE. But under the law you take those things into consideration.

General HINES. Yes, sir.

Senator SHORTRIDGE. There is no question that that is the just and right thing to do, is there? Would anyone question the wisdom or justice of that?

General HINES. There seems to be some question as to the wisdom of taking the average impairment rather than the individual impairment, but after very careful study on the part of the committee that reported out that bill, it was felt that the average impairment was the fairest basis. It follows more nearly the theory of compensation. Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. They do not get compensation for gunboat wounds that do not produce disabilities. There are a number of veterans who have gunshot wounds who do not get $1 out of the Public Treasury. In fact, I know a case where men have gunshot wounds and have other disabilities, and are not able to

connect them with the gunshot wounds, and they do not get a dollar. Senator SHORTRIDGE. In that actual or hypothetical case, which the general gave, of the bookkeeper and the structural iron worker, with like physical misfortune, the two men would be left afterwards in a very different and unequal condition.

Mr. WALSH of Massachusetts. I know a case where a man has a gunshot wound in the face, and one of his eyes is affected very badly, but because it is not the other eye, he can not connect it with the wound, and he has not been able to produce medical testimony sufficient to trace the affliction of his eye to the wound he received.

General HINES. It is quite apparent, gentlemen, that if the proposition suggested by the Legion, that the chronic disabilities only be brought up to January 1, 1925, is adopted, you will not reach the group of men in the tubercular hospitals, and neuropsychiatric hospitals that have been making the great appeal, and upon which the Rankin bill was based, because those men, in nearly every case, I think, in the hospitals, have disabilities, but they originated after January 1, 1925.

I desire also to call your attention to the fact that by administrative rules in the bureau and by bureau regulations, while the law has fixed the date for connecting tuberculosis at January 1, 1925, in reality they are given another year, because if we discover a man with far advanced tuberculosis, for example, if we discover that in the fall of 1925, the rating boards are permitted, and, of course, they would presume, that a man with far advanced tuberculosis had had it some months previously. So, by these standards, we have really extended that presumptive clause almost another year when cases are brought in. But if the limiting date is fixed at January 1, 1925, then, of course, you are not taking care of those cases which Congressman Rankin called to your attention, and which are the basis, really, of his bill. His bill does this: It brings up the chronic. constitutional diseases on a parity with those brought in under the original presumption, and then extends to 1930 the presumption clause for those men and also for those who have tuberculosis, neuropsychiatric diseases, and the other conditions now presumptively connected if shown before January 1, 1925.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. That presumptive clause, and the fixing of the date as of 1925, does not mean that the veteran himself filed an application prior to that time. It means, does it not, that if he can furnish evidence that he had the disease prior to 1925, he comes within the presumptive provision?

General HINES. Yes, sir. That is correct either 1925 or 1930, depending on which bill you are discussing.

Senator SHORTRIDGE. I am glad you cleared that up for the record. General HINES. Many of the men who have been brought in under existing law filed their application after January 1, 1925.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. But he must go back to a date prior to January, 1925, to prove the possession of the disease. General HINES. Yes.

Now, to mention the matter of misconduct disabilities upon which Senator Connally has touched, that is a matter that has been of considerable concern in the bureau among the rating boards and appeal boards. They have been concerned with the question of whether or not there is some discrimination, and whether or not we are dealing

properly with the problem when we take in men whose disabilities, such as paralysis, paresis, and blindness, are due to misconduct disabilities, but we do not take them in until they are helpless. Then we pay them compensation. The thought has been suggested that it would be desirable that those men be taken care of earlier. But as soon as you approach the problem from that direction you immediately strike the proposition that Senator Reed mentioned the other day, of rewarding a man for misconduct. You can not escape it.

Senator REED. When you talk about taking care of them earlier, you do not mean that they are not taken care of in hospitals?

General HINES. No. They can go in under section 202 (10) anywhere if facilities are available and they need hospital care.

Senator REED. But they are not compensated for their syphilis? General HINES. No.

Senator GEORGE. General, there is a vast difference, I assume you recognize, between an intentionally inflicted injury and one that simply results incidentally from misconduct.

General HINES. Yes, indeed.

Senator GEORGE. Where the injury is intentionally inflicted, of course, there ought not to be any relaxation of the rule. But otherwise there seems to me to be a good deal of reason in saying that where the injury is not the proximate, natural, and ordinary consequence of misconduct, we might take a different attitude toward it. I imagine that is what Senator Connally has in mind. I think that is what the majority of those who would like to see some relaxation have in mind.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator, how could you differentiate between the two?

Senator GEORGE. Oh, very well.

General HINES. The section of the bill now, Senator, is so broadly drawn that it will take in the self-inflicted as well as the others.

Senator SHORTRIDGE. What do you mean by "self-inflicted"? Senator GEORGE. Suppose a man shot off his foot. That is an intentional injury.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. Everybody agrees that that should go out. There is no dispute about that.

Senator GEORGE. Certainly.

General HINES. Undoubtedly the author of the amendment intended to take in social diseases. There is no question about it. There can not be any question about it.

The CHAIRMAN. That is the object of it.

General HINES. It makes it so broad that it takes them all in unless it is modified. But even in the case of disabilities originating that way, as soon as you take them in you then, apparently, are rewarding men for at least neglect.

Senator CONNALLY. I do not want to agree to that kind of a doctrine, that you are rewarding them for it at all.

Senator GEORGE. No, general. You are simply not permitting the indiscretion and digression, and even offenses, to operate as a bar to those men where it is not the proximate cause. familiar with the general insurance laws, of course.

General HINES. Certainly.

Senator GEORGE. There is a wide distinction.

You are