The CHAIRMAN. Suppose you cannot get them both, what then? I have found very often that I cannot get everything that I want in the way of legislation; and, frankly, my inclination is to lower that percentage, or just strike out the percentage and say "service connected." Mr. RICE. We are very much in favor of that.

The CHAIRMAN. We have got a good many men who have serviceconnected disabilities, such as a shotgun wound, who does not have any percentage, at all, because the scar is healed and nobody can ever tell whether he went to the front, or not. Now, probably he is in dire need, and a great many of them are. He is the breadwinner and probably getting along very well, but he dies and he has a widow and three or four children. Now, would it be more in accordance with justice, if we cannot get both-would it not be better to lower that percentage to take in his dependents, than it would to increase the compensation of the dependents now on the roll? That is the point I am driving at.

Mr. RICE. Yes; if we have to make the choice. As you know, Public 484

The CHAIRMAN. I know the effects of 484, because I heard the reactions from it all over the country, and I dare say that no bill that we ever passed through Congress on veterans' legislation in the past 10 years has received so much commendation at the hands of all classes of people where there are dependents living, and they are in every community.

Mr. RICE. Mr. Chairman, the Veterans of Foreign Wars are most certainly in favor of changing the 30-percent requirement down to the 10-percent requirement and making them eligible on the same basis that I have just mentioned. May I say that, under the present laws on possible future widows and orphans, only about one-half of the service-connected disabled veterans are now provided for. The CHAIRMAN. How is that?

Mr. RICE. That possibly the future widows and orphans of only about one-half of the service-connected disabled veterans are provided for, some 236,000 are now provided for, for this reason: That more than 30 percent of service-connected disability means they receive less compensation-compensation on the basis of less than 30 percent at the present time.

The CHAIRMAN. How much would it increase it, if you dropped it to 10 percent?

Mr. RICE. It would increase quite substantially. It would increase the class quite substantially. The total number that are receiving 10 percent I do not know. If you brought it clear down to 10 percent, it would take in all of them, of course, and it would double the number of potential eligibles. It would provide that protection to all of the compensated service connected, which is about 336,000.

The CHAIRMAN. It would take in all of those then who are drawing compensation, but it would not take in all of the service-connected cases?

Mr. RICE. No; you are right about that.

The CHAIRMAN. Because there are a great many men who received gunshot wounds and other disabilities that have been healed and that are supposed to be entirely well, that would fall below 10 percent. Mr. BRADLEY. Mr. Rankin, is it not a fact that there were a great many cases along the line you speak of, where a man might be rated as

25 percent disabled for a bronchial condition and he would die of pneumonia; whereas, as a matter of fact, his natural resistance has been impaired, that he has had a 20 or 25 percent disability, but the death certificate simply provided that he died from pneumonia and he gets nothing.

Mr. RICE. That is true.

Mrs. ROGERS. Do we not find that the Bureau is too strict in those cases?

Mr. BRADLEY. Yes. Very often the doctor's certificate says that he died of pneumonia; there is no mention of his reduction of resistance due to that bronchial trouble.

Mrs. ROGERS. The Bureau can help on that, don't you think?
Mr. BRADLEY. If we provided the law, maybe.

The CHAIRMAN. We are taking up the time of Mr. Rice.

Mr. GRISWOLD. The Bureau, Mrs. Rogers, does not help on that, because I know one case where a man was drawing full compensation, and had a wife and two children. The landlady at his rooming house came up and found him dead, or practically dying in his room one morning when she called him. They sent out to the Veterans' Administration and got a doctor to come in and look at him, and the doctor told me that he saw him about 10 minutes before he died, and he made a death certificate of only apoplexy, and his dependents never got anything.

Mrs. ROGERS. You agree with me then?

Mr. GRISWOLD. The doctor admitted that he had only seen him 10 minutes. He might have had a heart block, or something like that, but that it would not be ethical to change his certificate.

Mrs. ROGERS. I think the Bureau could do a little better than it does in that respect.

The CHAIRMAN. Suppose we reserve our questioning on the Bureau. until we get General Hines here, and let us let Mr. Rice move on with his statement.

Mr. RICE. We would be in favor of reducing the 30 percent down to 10 percent, because there are very many sad cases that come just a little bit below the 30 percent and are locked out, as several members of the committee have stated.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, this is the only one to which the serviceconnected requirement is applicable at this time. There is no serviceconnection requirement with reference to the Civil War pensions.

Mr. RICE. May I call to the attention of the committee this fact, which I believe is pretty much conceded; that the average person does not save more than 10 percent of his salary or earnings with which to build up an estate to take care of the future contingencies of himself, or provide for his possible future widow and orphans. Therefore, if a man is disabled as much as 10 percent by reason of a serviceconnected disability on the basis of the law and the basic foundation of the law, that man is handicapped to the extent of even more than 10 percent and, therefore, prevented from building up such a future estate to take care of his possible future widow and orphans, and it has been directly because of his military service and disability which he incurred in such service which makes it impossible for him to build up that estate; and, therefore, the obligation should rest solely on the Government, itself, to so provide for his widow and orphans as casualties of war, although somewhat removed from it.

The third class in which the Veterans of Foreign Wars is more concerned are those widows and orphans whom the Chair has made reference to, of all of the deceased World War veterans. The widows and orphans of deceased veterans of all previous wars in which this country has been engaged have been provided for by pensions through the act of Congress, but not so as to the widows and orphans of deceased veterans of the World War, except for the two classes, the first two classes which we have discussed before.

I suppose it may be assumed that about one-half of the widows of ex-service men will survive their husbands, a very high percentage of them will, and the first year or two following the deaths of their veteran husbands, will have no estates, no insurance upon which to rely and, therefore, will become dependent either upon friends or relatives, or their local community, and will be burdens to their communities.

The CHAIRMAN. What percentage of them remarry?

Mr. RICE. That I do not know. That is one of the statistics we would like to get from the Veterans' Administration, if they have such statistics available. The potential number will be much less than one-half of the present number of married World War veterans, because of deaths, because of remarriages, and because there is no need. As to this particular class, we are willing that there should be a needs clause granting that there is no service-connected disability that the veteran is suffering with, and that there is, therefore, no direct relationship to his World War service.

The CHAIRMAN. You would put a needs clause in the widows' and orphans' legislation, with reference to widows and orphans of nonservice-connected veterans?

Mr. RICE. That is right. We are willing that that should be done. Mr. GRISWOLD. That would be establishing the same precedent that you have followed for years?

Mr. RICE. Possibly so, but the chairman has confronted me with the question as to what to do about that question of need, and I want to counter that, if that is the plan, we are willing that the needs clause be introduced, if it is necessary to be introduced, because of the fact that there is not quite a direct relationship to World War service. But on the other hand, we believe the Federal Government should provide for this class of widows and orphans.

Mr. GRISWOLD. I am not opposing you, but I am wondering what the effect on the future legislation would be, if you establish a precedent of a needs clause in one particular instance.

Mrs. ROGERS. Mr. Chairman, what do you think ought to constitute need?

The CHAIRMAN. Well, some of them have applied it to the question of whether or not they pay income taxes. Of course, wherever you draw the line it is bound to be an arbitrary line, but I do not think that is a bad proposition, do you?

Mrs. ROGERS. That is fair, I suppose it is fair. That is the easiest way to arrive at it.

The CHAIRMAN. It is at least easy to find out.

Mr. GRISWOLD. The only trouble is that you find many men paying income taxes, who, due to their obligations, are worse off than the other fellow who does not pay it.

The CHAIRMAN. The next year he will not be bothered with it, you know.

Mr. HALLECK. That does not apply to Members of Congress.
The CHAIRMAN. All right, Mr. Rice.

Mr. RICE. Mr. Chairman, why should there be any discrimination against the widows and orphans of deceased World War veterans, as compared with the widows and orphans of deceased veterans of other wars? We see no reason whatsoever. As a matter of fact, the tendency has been toward more security for those who are not in position to take care of themselves, and that tendency should make itself applicable to the widows and orphans of the World War, while they are in need now, and that goes also for those whose husbands might die in future years.

In the final analysis, the burden must rest some place, on friends or relatives, upon the local community, upon the State government, or upon the Federal Government.

Now, the average of our fellow citizens are inclined to regard the widow of a veteran as being a widow of a veteran, not merely as the widow of a citizen, although of course, he was a citizen. The whole community so regards that widow and expects the veterans' organizations to provide for her and her dependents, if they are not otherwise provided for. The veterans' organizations positively cannot assume such a burden; it is too big a burden and will become a bigger and bigger burden. It ought to be a burden assumed by the Federal Government as a part of the cost of the aftermath of the war.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rice, as I see the picture, the ones deserving the most consideration are the younger widows and the older ones, for this reason: The young ones, as a rule, have their children around them. Those that have children, of course, have a greater burden. than the woman who has no children.

Mr. RICE. Agreed.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, if she has no children up until the time she becomes disabled from old age, she is in an entirely different position from either the mother with children, or the mother who has passed the period of earning a livelihood. So there is the rub. In my opinion there is our greatest care and concern with reference to these widows and orphans, those two brackets.

Mr. RICE. As to that matter, we have been following the rating base that has been established by the Veterans' Administration or by the Executive order of the President following the passage of the Economy Act, and are not willing to take up the quarrel as to whether it should be increased or decreased on the particular ages, because that is a very involved, complex question and ought to be taken up, if at all, in executive session, because it is almost impossible to decide whether there should be one class increased at a certain age or decreased because of not having attained such age. Therefore, we believe that the wisest policy is to proceed on the basis of the basic rates now established.

As to this third class that I have mentioned, we would, in effect, provide that they would receive the same rates of pension, substantially, that are now being paid to the second class that I have described, that is, to the widows and orphans of those veterans, who, prior to death, were suffering from service-connected disabilities. In other words, in effect, it would provide that the first class, the widows and orphans and dependents of those veterans who were killed in action or who died by reason of service-connected disabilities, rather than the

class no. 1, should have an increase of 50 percent over what they are now getting; that the second class should receive approximately 75 percent of such first class, or an increase of 50 percent; that the third class, the widows and orphans of the deceased World War veterans, not suffering with service-connected disabilities, should, in effect, receive about 50 percent of what the increased amonnt for the first class is.

Of course, a widow is a widow. There has been a distinction between these various classes, set up by Congress in the past and, therefore, we have not wanted to establish a brand new policy in that respect of treating them all the same. I believe there is some difference between the widow of that man who was killed in action or who died by reason of his service-connected disabilities, in the first place, and the widow of that veteran who was suffering from a service-connected disability, but died from some other disability; and, third, I mean that veteran who died of something that had nothing to do with his military service whatsoever; and there should be some differentiation there, and we have carried them on that basis of 100 percent, 75 percent, and 50 percent.

If the committee should decide that the gap should be closed up and that it should be 90 percent, 65 percent, and 40 percent, for instance, we would agree. But we do believe the Federal Government should assume the responsibility for taking care of these widows and orphans of deceased World War veterans.

The CHAIRMAN. You agree with me that no part of this burden. should be cast over to the States?

Mr. RICE. Oh, yes; I certainly do. Too much of it is now being assumed by the States and the local communities, because the veterans are not distributed in the counties and States in accordance with the numbers who enlisted from those counties and States. I have a chart in my office that shows the migrations, more or less, of the veterans, showing that they have migrated into certain States and out of certain States, into certain communities and out of certain communities; and if you provide that the local county or municipality or State should assume that burden, you are giving too much burden on some States and not enough on other States; and there is a difference as to whether it is done by the States or by the Federal Government. It has relationship to the war and, therefore, should be assumed by the Federal Government and, therefore, in the final analysis, not by the States making their proportional contributions, regardless of the migration of these men back and forth over county lines and State lines and municipal lines.

The fourth general provision of our bill would liberalize the eligibility of the widows; in other words would take out of the law that provision that the widow must have been married to the veteran prior to July 2, 1931; and, in effect provide that she should be eligible for these benefits, if she lived with the veteran for a period of 3 years prior to death, or if she has a minor child surviving such marriage, that she should certainly be regarded as the widow, even though she may have married him after July 2, 1931.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rice, here is a question that is going to be asked and I might as well ask it now, because it will be asked many times, and no matter what your answer is, it will probably be quoted incorrectly: If we pass these laws to take care of these widows and orphans, will there be a drive at any time soon for pensions for World