Capt. WOLFE. That applies to officers, enlisted men, and members of the Army Nurse Corps, female, and members of the Navy Nurse Corps, female.

If he should leave a widow and one child, they would get 35 per cent of his pay, with a minimum of $40 a month, and so on through the various relations into which I will not go.

Now, these four parts of the bill to which I have referred are independent of any contribution by the man himself. It requires no contribution upon his part except the allotment of pay in the first part, which is simply a transfer to his family. The point which I wish to make is that none of the Government benefits outlined up to this time require payments by the man as a consideration for their receipt.

It was felt, however, that these benefits did not fully compensate the soldier for all of the damage which the Government had done to him by bringing him into service. The theory underlying the proposition is this: The Government is taking these men from their usual walks of life in a perfect physical condition. It is the duty of the Government to restore them to civil life in equally as perfect condition or to compensate them for the damages which the service has resulted in, and these measures to which I have referred are an attempt to measure scientifically those damages. But there is another damage which has not been cured up to this time, and that is the damage which results from the inability of the soldier, in view of his having been called into service, to obtain insurance at normal rates, such as you or anybody else who does not go into the service could get. Mr. SIMS. And such as he could get if he had not gone into the service.

Capt. WOLFE. Yes. Now, that is a distinct damage. It is measured by the extra war premium which insurance companies very properly have decided to charge in order to preserve their solvency.

The CHAIRMAN. The purpose of that part of the bill is merely to preserve to him the same right he would have had if he had not gone into the Army.

Capt. WOLFE. Yes, sir; and therefore the Government requires him to pay the rate for furnishing the insurance and the Government agrees to stand the damage which it has inflicted upon that man by calling him into service.

The CHAIRMAN. The Government pays the increase in the rate which has been caused by the Government calling him into the Army?

Capt. WOLFE. Yes, sir; that is the proper way of expressing it.

Now, during the progress of the war it is proposed that the insurance granted shall be of the kind known as term insurance-that is, mere protection against death. You might call it fire insurance, almost. It is almost exactly the same kind of insurance you take on your house for a certain term.

Mr. RAYBURN. Are you discussing some specific section of the bill?

Capt. WOLFE. Yes, sir: article 4. V

After the war ceases the man returns either in a perfect physical condition or in a condition which will prevent his obtaining insurance at the normal rate. He may be a substandard risk and no

company will take him at the regular rate, if they will take him at all, and therefore the Government will have to continue to restore the damages which it has inflicted. Now it would be manifestly impossible for the Government to say, "We will do that only in the case of those men who return in a perfect physical condition," because that would leave the Government holding the bag, as it were, having only the impaired risks. The proper carrying out of this plan requires that the Government shall benefit by the law of averages to as great an extent as possible, and therefore it takes the entire group which is called into service and gives that group the option of obtaining its insurance at the normal rate without attempting to separate those in perfect physical condition from those who have been damaged as a result of war. This whole thing aims to carry out what Mr. Gompers so eloquently expressed, namely, the payment of compensation, because after all there is no reason why a man who works in a munition plant should be protected under the Federal compensation law while the man who crosses the sea and who uses that ammunition should not receive the same kind of protection, and there is just as much necessity for such protection. It is really compensation, as Mr. Gompers said, the idea being that the payment of a compensation based upon scientific facts will put an end to the unscientific pension laws which we now have and which have given such dissatisfaction.

There have been prepared certain charts of the pension laws, which charts will be used in a publication which is being prepared by the Children's Bureau of the Department of Labor, and it may not be amiss if I take just a moment to outline some of the defects in the pension laws as shown by these charts in a very graphic form; and if you desire, Mr. Chairman, I will be very glad to do so.

Pensions, as we pay them in this country, are divided really into two parts, the pensions which are payable as a result of death or disability incurred in war-and that was the form of pension which we had up to 1891-and then, starting in 1891, the Congress passed a law which, as I recall it, provided that anybody who had served for 90 days in the Army, irrespective of his disabled condition or his financial condition, would be entitled to a pension of so much per month, and that is the reason why we find this peculiar line.

In the chart designated as diagram 1 the dotted line at the bottom shows that until 1891 less than 50,000 a year were being paid for service pensions; but in 1891, when this law to which I have referred went into effect, we find that the amount jumped at that time practically to the maximum peak, and that the number of pensioners who were receiving service pensions numbered nearly 1,000,000, and instead of there being less than 50,000 pensioners receiving (service) pensions the number jumped to nearly 1,000,000, with a corresponding increase in the disbursements which were made, as shown in diagram 2, where the pensions jumped from less than $3,000,000 up to 1890 to $57,000,000 in one year, owing to the fact that they passed the service pension law in that year, and the pensions which have been payable up to date have amounted to nearly $5,000,000,000.

Mr. SIMS. Have you got the amount separated there, showing how much of that total amount has been paid for service pensions and how much was paid on pensions for other causes?

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Capt. WOLFE. Nearly 42 per cent of the total amount paid has been paid for service pensions. The total expenditure for pensions has been so great that the millions of dollars appropriated by special act on behalf of individuals constitute a small percentage of the total. The great amount has been due to the fact that the service pensions have increased. For instance, the annual expenditure for service pensions to widows increased from $21,000,000 in 1908 to $32,750,000 in 1909.

In order that you may have before you the relative values of this proposed bill and the present pension acts there has been prepared a statement showing the average amount of the pensions. For instance, the pensions under the public laws for the year ending June 30, 1916, amounted to $147,473,711, which amount was paid to 688,913 pensioners, making an average pension of $214.07. Under the special laws for the same year ending June 30, 1916, $6,235,218 was paid to 20,659 pensioners or an average of $301.82. That average may properly be compared with the proposed payments under the act here, of a minimum to a wife in case of the death of her husband of $30 a month or $360 a year in addition to whatever insurance she may have; and the minimum pension payable and I use pension as the equivalent of compensation for death-is $30 a month as a minimum and ranging from that up to $40, and in the case of officers the maximum is $200 a month.

Mr. RAYBURN. I notice in section 20, on page 6, that there is appropriated the sum of $23,000,000. It seems to me that $23,000,000 would be an inadequate sum for the starting of anything of this sort. For instance, if you have 1,000,000 men, and they take out $5,000 a piece of insurance, the premiums on that would be only $40,000,000; and if you were to kill or disable 100,000 men out of the million men you would pay out $500,000,00, which would be $460,000 counting out the premiums which had been paid in. It occurs to me that an appropriation og $23,000,000 would not amount to anything.

Capt. WOLFE. That has been based upon the theory that 25 per cent of the men would take out $2,500 of insurance, and that the death loss on that number would amount to $23,000,000.

Mr. RAYBURN. Do you mean to say that you think that not more than 25 per cent of the men will take out this insurance?

Capt. WOLFE. That is the assumption which has been made.
Mr. Rowe. That is, the first year.

Capt. WOLFE. Yes; that 25 per cent of the men the first year will take out $2,500 of insurance. Of course, some will take out only $1,000, and some will take out a great deal more than that.

Mr. RAYBURN. I should think that practically all of them would take out this insurance. If they do not take it out themselves, somebody who will be a dependent will give them the money and take it out in that way.

Capt. WOLFE. I call your attention to the fact that the amount insured can be paid only to certain relatives. It can not be paid to speculative interests.

Mr. RAYBURN. I understand that; but every fellow is going to have somebody who is dependent upon him.

Secretary MCADOO. And it is payable in installments.

Mr. RAYBURN. I understand that; but it does appear to me that the estimate that only 25 per cent of the men will take out this