Payment of Veterans' Adjusted-service Certificates

Summarization of expenditures by States for benefits and relief, for loans to veterans to be repaid, and to State soldiers' homes, hospitals, etc.-Continued

Mr. BARKLEY. Will you include also the number of soldiers entitled to it in each State?

General HINES. Yes.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. Is there anything else, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. General Hines, you will see that that is put in the record at this point in your testimony?

General HINES. Yes.

Senator REED. General Hines, can you tell the committee the amount which has so far been paid by the United States, in the aggregate, in its various forms of veterans relief?

General HINES. For the World War?

Senator REED. Yes.

General HINES. Yes, sir.

Undersecretary MILLS. It is about $4,900,000,000, General, adjusted.

General HINES. Up to December 31, 1930, we had expended, for all purposes, a total of $5,459,502,334.86. Do you desire that itemized? Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. Does that include insurance? General HINES. That includes Government insurance.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. Have you deducted the premiums paid?

General HINES. No. This is not the liability over and above the premiums.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have it itemized?

General HINES. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Then put it in the record.

Disbursements made from appropriated Government funds on account of World War

Veterans

$644, 962, 655.00
862, 103, 232. 97

1,759, 032, 909. 64
401, 276, 663. 40

48, 932, 417. 52

Undersecretary MILLS. It ought to be adjusted, however. There are some items in there that should be deducted, I think.

General HINES. We will put those items in adjusted, making whatever deductions are necessary, but that is the sum total. This is the character of adjustment that we will have to make in these amounts. For instance, under term insurance we have a liability there for expenditure of $1,315,260,000. We received, from premiums, $453,157,000, which should be deducted from that amount.

Undersecretary MILLS. The adjusted figure, General, is just under $5,000,000,000, because we worked it out a few days ago.

General HINES. That would mean a total adjustment in this amount of four hundred million-odd dollars.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, is everything covered? Are there any more witnesses?

The CHAIRMAN. Unless there are some questions by the Senators. Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. I do not think there are any more questions.

Senator BINGHAM. I am very sorry to have been delayed, Mr. Chairman, but I had to attend two other committee meetings. Has anything been said about the beneficiaries, or about any amendment to protect the beneficiaries? I have an amendment drafted here which reads as follows:

And it is directed that no holder of any certificate shall receive any money under this bill unless his application be approved and signed by the beneficiary Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. We have not discussed any bills or reported any bills.

Senator BINGHAM. Have you discussed any such amendment or protection for the beneficiaries?

Senator HARRISON. No. We have never recognized the beneficiary as having any vested right.

Senator BINGHAM. It has been brought to my attention.

Senator HARRISON. We have always regarded the veteran as having the right to change his beneficiary. That would circumscribe his right.

The CHAIRMAN. That has been up before twice, if you remember. The committee on both occasions decided that they would take no action.

Senator HARRISON. Mr. Chairman, I think it was agreed the other day that immediately after we finished the consideration of this matter we would take up this hospitalization proposition. I understood General Hines to say that he had to go before the House committee to-morrow. Would he be available day after to-morrow?

General HINES. I think so. I am called before the House committee, which is considering hospitalization, the same matter that I believe you desire to take up now.

Senator REED. I would like to ask General Hines a question about one of those pending matters. My colleague, Senator Davis, has introduced a bill to convert into a diagnostic center the present veterans' hospital No. 49, at Philadelphia. What is the attitude of the bureau on that?

The CHAIRMAN. What is the number of the bill, Senator? Senator REED. Two hundred and fifty-six on the calendar. General HINES. Hospital 49, Senator, at Philadelphia, is a neuropsychiatric hospital. The general facilities we use in that vicinity are the Naval Hospital, on which the Senate, I think, acted yesterday appropriating considerable money to improve those facilities.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. They are going to build a new hospital there.

We feel

General HINES. Yes; they are going to build a new one. that 49 is not a suitable place for a diagnostic center, and that there is no necessity for another diagnostic center so near to the one we have here in Washington. The original plan contemplated four diagnostic centers, one in Washington, one in Chicago, one in San Francisco, and one in the South, probably at New Orleans, and we only use those, of course, for the very obscure cases that require careful study and the attention of specialists. They are very expensive centers, and we feel that the facilities we have are fully adequate without taking a hospital which would practically have to be rebuilt to make it a diagnostic center.

The CHAIRMAN. Senator Reed, there are four or five of them on the calendar of a similar nature. In the report, General, I think your report was that it would be very much better to have one action, and designate the places at once, and make one piece of legislation cover all.

Senator REED. I am inclined to think that our wisest policy would be to do as we do in connection with rivers and harbors work, and that is to appropriate a lump sum and leave it to the Veterans' Bureau to apply that to the best interests of the veterans. I am not speaking now of Senator Davis's bill, because that is regarding a hospital already built, but I am speaking rather of these particular bills for the creation of new hospitals. We are in danger of getting into a process of log-rolling which will not, in the long run, give the veterans the benefit of the best use of the money.

Senator HARRISON. That is a question that will arise when we consider this hospitalization matter, which is coming up after we get through with this.

Senator REED. It has not come from the House yet.

Senator HARRISON. We ought not to wait for the House. They have had hearings since last April. I think we ought to proceed. The CHAIRMAN. We have had the individual bills here, and when we take up any one of the bills, of course the General's report will come up, and we will decide the question of policy.

Senator REED. What I would like General Hines to do for us, to aid us in our consideration of this hospitalization bill, is to submit such a breakdown as the chief of engineers submits to the Appropriations Committee, showing just where he would apply the money if he were given absolutely free hand to spend so much money. General HINES. I will be prepared to do that.

Senator GEORGE. That was done in the last hospital bill.
General HINES. I will be prepared to do that.

Senator REED. We have got away from it this year, and there are a great many private bills.

Senator GEORGE. The last hospital bill, which carried nearly $16,000,000, was handled in the same way before the House committee. General HINES. Exactly. You appropriate a lump sum, and I have a program back of it, which was explained to the committee at the time the bill was under consideration.

The CHAIRMAN. For that purpose you are going before the House committee to-morrow?

37803-31-10

: General HINES. Yes; and I shall be glad to come before you following that or before that.

Senator HARRISON. I move that we proceed to the consideration of executive business.

(Whereupon, at 11.15 o'clock a. m., the committee went into executive session.)