committee. I need not say that it is a matter which you know best as to whether it will be supported by public opinion, or not.

I would not be saying all that I should say, probably, if I did not remind the committee that, in dealing with this last group of veterans, which is the largest group we have ever had, we have done many things for this group of veterans that we did not do for the others. The CHAIRMAN. Which group is that?

General HINES. That is the World War group; and I am glad that we have done so. I think it has been fine. We have made some errors. We probably have gone too far in some things, but anyway we have not damaged the important thing, and that is the recognition of the country of the men and women that served the country. We brought into the picture, with this group, to a greater extent, hospitalization, insurance, and the reason that you have not had contentions from some of these dependents before this for an increase in rates is probably due to the fact that they have had Government insurance, and that has held off the demand for an increase in rates.

Then, for the veterans, of course, we had rehabilitation, and our compensation laws have been modified and increased, from time to time, and only once in my experience have they been decreased, and I hope we will not have to do it again. I would prefer that we should go in one direction, whatever we do, and do it cautiously.

So by reducing it to 10 percent, you will bring in a certain number of cases, but you will not bring in all of them. Now, whether it is better to meet the problem that way, piecemeal, or whether we decide that now is the time to take care of all of it, is a matter which the committee must decide.

Mrs. ROGERS. How many would be cared for if you reduced it to 10 percent?

The CHAIRMAN. Reduce it to 10 percent?

Mrs. ROGERS. To 10 percent; yes.

General HINES. I have not made any estimate recently. One will be made and inserted in the record, based upon the 20-percent

rate.

Mrs. ROGERS. This would be going 20 percent, lowering it to 10 percent?

General HINES. If you go to 10 percent, the cost would be higher. I will include that estimate.

Mrs. ROGERS. How many veterans would it take care of?

The CHAIRMAN. They would not be veterans, they would be widows. Mrs. ROGERS. Widows and orphans.

General HINES. Widows and orphans are what we are speaking of. I think, probably, Mr. Chairman, this would be a good time to put in the record the report that we have on H. R. 1539, which will give you an estimate of that, and from that I feel confident that

The CHAIRMAN. What is H. R. 1539?

General HINES. It is really the Legion bill, or the bill which was introduced by you.

Mrs. ROGERS. Does it take care of the dependent fathers and mothers also?

General HINES. Widows and children. May I read this letter, Mr. Chairman, and then it will go into the record. It is addressed to you, and it is the official report on H. R. 1539.

The CHAIRMAN. General, if we reduce this to 10 percent, the cost still would not come under the estimate that was furnished us on the original bill, would it?

General HINES. Which bill do you now refer to?

The CHAIRMAN. I am speaking of this widows and orphans' bill. When we passed it, there was an estimate furnished us of the amount it would cost, and it has run several times that, what it actually did cost.

General HINES. You are speaking of the estimate made on Public, No. 484?

The CHAIRMAN. That is right. Now, if you reduced your estimate to 10 percent would we still be within the limits of that estimate?

General HINES. I doubt if you would, no, sir, but we did not reach the estimate of Public, No. 484. Let me say this, Mr. Chairman: We, of course, in making that estimate, had no experience with the World War widows as to how many of them had married, and how many would file, or how rapidly they would file.

We submit an estimate on this bill, which I am going to read to you. Because of our experience with Public, No. 484, we have just cut our estimate in half. We did it on this assumption. But we are giving you the estimate for the first year. The estimate on Public, No. 484, over a period of years, may have been closer than we know. But, certainly, the widows did not come in the first year at the rate that we anticipated when we submitted that estimate.

We do not feel that, if you pass this bill, H. R. 1539, that they will come in as rapidly as possibly some claims have been made to you; and for that reason, and based on our experience under Public, No. 484, we have reduced the estimate.

The CHAIRMAN. My viewpoint is this: That we will be more justified in increasing the numbers than we would in increasing the compensation of the ones now on the rolls, for several reasons. In the first place, the husbands of these widows served just the same as the others; and if you put this 10 percent limit on them, they certainly have service-connected disabilities.

By dropping the compensation of widows now of marriageable age, you will discourage marriage; and then when you wipe out the service-connection bar, you will encourage the young women to marry these old men, the same as you did with reference to the Civil War pensions. In the long run, it will probably cost a great deal more to make the increase in the ones on the roll now then it would to extend the law to reach the large number and would not relieve as many needy cases.

General HINES. Well, as I said, Mr. Chairman, I feel that the suggestion to increase the service-connected dependents will not be the answer to this demand for covering those that are not in under the present law.

The CHAIRMAN. Twenty-five years after the Civil War closed, at the time when we had recovered somewhat from political hysteria of the war period, and when the House and Senate were practically evenly divided, they wiped out service connection altogether.

If we were to go and drop the ones on the pension rolls now, or compensation rolls now, and then, 5 years from today, someone should move to strike out the words "service connected," it would cost a great deal more than it would cost to extend the provisions of the

present law, taking in the widows and orphans of the ones who are left out.

General HINES. Mr. Chairman, probably neither you nor I would be able to estimate or predict the far-reaching effects of whatever you decide to do here. We can only do the best we can with the data that is before us.

The CHAIRMAN. If you remember, Mr. Garfield-I think that was in 1889 or probably later, when the pension roll amounted to $28,000,000 or $29,000,000, and he thought it would be at its peak of the Civil War pensions when it reached that amount the last time I remember checking up on it, I think it was $215,000,000-so probably if the Ways and Means Committee had not had an able chairman, such as he was he was as well informed as anybody on that subject-they might have acted differently. But it does show the futility of attempting to estimate these things.

General HINES. Too far in the future; yes. We have, of course, some examples of what has happened with the dependents of other wars. I have hesitated somewhat to say much about it, Mr. Chairman, for fear that it might be misunderstood, but I think the committee ought to have the picture as I have it, anyway, and one or two examples of the length of time dependents are on the rolls, and I have data covering certain cases. They are examples and should not be taken as the general run of cases. They should only be taken as examples, and exceptions rather than the rule, but we must keep in mind the age at which the widows of the World War go on the rollsnow, the dependent mothers and fathers are quite different-and they will probably be there for a long time. I have some examples of the World War

Mrs. ROGERS. What is the death rate now of widows of the World War?

General HINES. The death rate?

Mrs. ROGERS. Yes?

General HINES. We cannot tell the death rate very well, except to take the regular mortality rate generally among people that average 43 years of age.

Mrs. ROGERS. The strain of living is much greater in their case than in others, is it not?

General HINES. The same strain exists as to other people, and I feel, as to the widows, that they probably parallel the rest of the population and the regular mortality rates would hold.

Of course, the World War veterans are not all young men. We have some now that are getting along in years.

Now, here is a sample study of World War dependents, and in giving it to you, I hope it will not be misunderstood, because it is only given to answer somewhat the question of what the estimated cost may be. But I have here the case of a veteran who served 1 year, 10 months and 8 days. The age of the veteran at his last marriage was 62; that happened to be his third marriage, and the age of the wife at that marriage was 21. The veteran died 5 years later at the age of 67. The length of that marriage was 5 yers. The veteran was pensioned under the World War Veterans' Act, and he drew the pension for 14 years, 5 months, and 24 days. The widow's pension goes on under the act of 1933. The date that pension began was October 24, 1933, and the age of the widow when she went on the rolls was 30.

Now, if we turn back to the experiences in the War of 1812, there are many examples. Here is one, and I would not say it is a run-of-themine case. It is one case. But let us go back to the War of 1812, where we have the complete picture. We have two dependents still on the rolls out of that group. But I will take one case here where the veteran served 131 days in the War of 1812. The age of the veteran at his last marriage was 87 years. That was his second marriage. The age of the wife at the marriage was 24. The age of the veteran at death was 91 years. The length of the marriage in this case was 4 years. The age of the widow at death was 76. The length of time the veteran was on the pension rolls under the act was 5 years, 10 months, 28 days. The length of time the widow was on the pension rolls was 48 years, 9 months, and 9 days.

Mr. SAUTHOFF. How many children were there of that marriage? General HINES. I have no record of the children, Congressman. Mr. CLAYPOOL. I think there is a lot of cases like that in the Civil War.

General HINES. I have the Civil War. I can give you examples of the Civil War.

The CHAIRMAN. General, do you know the first gun of the Civil War was fired by a veteran of the revolution?

General HINES. No, I did not know that. I might have read it and probably forgot it. I might have known it once, but I have forfotten it.

The CHAIRMAN. The first gun of the Civil War was fired by a Revolutionary War soldier, if my information is correct, by the name of Ruffin. He asked permission to fire the first gun, and it was granted.

You talk about this War of 1812, and it has only been over 125 years, but when the Civil War will have been over 140 years, you will find widows on the rolls.

General HINES. Well, Mr. Chairman, as long as the Civil War has been mentioned, I might take one of the examples here. We have some here that are very good. We have, for instance, in the Civil War group, a veteran who served 1 year, 6 months, and 17 days, marrying at 67, which was his second marriage. His wife at the date of marriage was 28. The age of the veteran at date of death was 75. The length of marriage in this case was 8 years. The veteran drew a pension for 18 years, 4 months, and 2 days. The widow was not pensioned prior to remarriage. But a remarried widow can, under the Civil War laws, be pensioned, and she went on the pension rolls then as a remarried widow last August 1936. So that her age, at the time she went on, was 64. That is not an outstanding case, in any way, but it is a regular run-of-the-mine case.

We have another one here, however, where the veteran was 71 and the wife 32. She went on the pension rolls under a special act of 1931. We have some, of course, where they married and lived with the veteran for 2 years and went on the rolls at comparatively young ages, 55, 43, and so on.

Now, the Indian Wars are a little more striking in one respect, and that is, that the length of service of the veteran was generally not very long. We have one here, however, that served a longer period of service, 8 years, 10 months, and 20 days. A great number of veterans who served in the Indian War also were in the Regular Army. At the age of 73, he married a wife 18 years of age which was his second

marriage. He lived to be 99 years of age, and the length of that marriage was 26 years. The widow went on the rolls at the age of 48, in 1934.

There are numerous examples; and of course, you can readily understand that we may be all wrong in our estimates but there is no telling how near they may be correct, except, from the position we are now in, looking a reasonable distance forward.

The CHAIRMAN. There is one justified practice, though, that we must give the World War veterans and their friends credit for not participating in, that is this practice of introducing special bills that grew up after the Civil War and has been in effect, to a large extent, since the Spanish-American War.

General HINES. Yes; we have not had any special bills since 1932, and the last bill was vetoed by the President. We have had them in Congress, and some hearings have been held, and there are many pending now. As I recall offhand, some 81,000 special bills have been passed. Just how many of them are still on the pension rolls I do not know.

The CHAIRMAN. Invariably, they are to correct bad records in order to bring men under the regular pension laws. That has been my experience with them. Or else it is to give them an increase, an individual, an increase in the compensation or the pension he is receiving.

General HINES. Many of them, Mr. Chairman, are brought about by limiting the dates on marriage. There are others where the widow is unable to qualify under the existing law, when the date that she must have been married to the veteran was prior to the actual date of marriage to the veteran.

Mr. GRAY of Pennsylvania. General, off the record, please.
(Here followed discussion off the record.)

The CHAIRMAN. General, do you want to read that letter?
General HINES. Yes.

Mr. JARMAN. General, you mentioned just now there were two widows of the War of 1812 still on the rolls. I would like to know if you know, offhand, or if you have it close, where it will not be much trouble to get, about the Civil War, as to the pensioners, the soldiers, and widows?

General HINES. That are on the rolls now?

Mr. JARMAN. Yes.

General HINES. Yes; I have that. This statement is made as of December 31, last year, and it may be of interest if I run down it and take in all of the wars.

In the War of 1812, we have two dependents, one widow, and one child. That is a disabled child.

In the Mexican War we have 227 widows and 5 children.

In the Indian wars we have 4,635 widows and 89 children and 3 parents, making a total of 4,727.

In the Civil War, we have 79,923 widows, 1,287 children, and 1,444 parents or other dependents, making a total of 82,654.

The CHAIRMAN. Of the Civil War?

General HINES. That is the Civil War; yes.

The CHAIRMAN. How many veterans?

General HINES. Of living veterans we have 8,367.

The CHAIRMAN. That is 10 times as many widows as you have veterans?