Veterans' Bureau Codification Act

Mr. MILLER. Gentlemen of the committee, the American Legion recognizes in the codification presented in the form of Senate bill 2257 many proposals of an excellent and constructive character. It may be that the bill is in proper structure as an administrative measure, but this is not for the Legion to decide. The law officers of the Veterans' Bureau are in a better position to judge of these characteristics.

Under instruction of the chairman of the subcommittee, I will confine myself to a brief consideration of the 22 changes, expansions, or contractions, as set forth in the first preliminary report of the Select Committee on Investigation of the United States Veterans' Bureau.

1. The Legion is in full sympathy with the suggestion that disability should be ascertained, service connection or the lack of it developed, and ratings made in the field as near to the disabled claimant as it may be possible to function, and requests that authority be extended to the Director of the Veterans' Bureau to extend to the field his services in these matters.

2. We feel that the presumptive clause for service connection_in cases of tuberculosis and neuropsychiatric diseases should be extended to five years, and that no provision be inserted in the law which require that the showing of these disabilities shall actually have been made within that period.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. You mean before a Veterans' Bureau physician?

Mr. MILLER. Or other qualified medical authority.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. If the disease is shown to have been incurred within the period you state.

Mr. MILLER. Yes; that is right.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. But any evidence of either a Veterans' Bureau doctor or anybody else should be brought under the presumption.

Mr. MILLER. Yes; we agree about that, and you will notice that we have taken out the requirement that the Veterans' Bureau doctor must examine.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. In your judgment is the need for the extension of the period equal in both classes of cases or is it particularly needed, in your judgment, for tuberculosis cases?

Mr. MILLER. I think it was equally needed in both cases; but the suggestion as to neuropsychiatric diseases is more or less empiric and not based upon an actual canvass in the field, made by my committee. With respect to tuberculosis, may I say that in the tenth district, beginning last August, there were called in for clinical examination some 500 men, an examination of whose case files showed that there were suggestions of pulmonary difficulties, although these men had not been rated for tuberculosis or other pulmonary difficulty. The men were brought in and beds were secured, and deliberate and careful examinations were made and of the entire group of 500 there were something like 389 who were discovered actually to have pulmonary tuberculosis, although a few only had been so rated. Where any doubt existed, beds were secured in other hospitals, so that the examination could be more studious.

The average of this group of men were removed four years from the date of their discharge from the service; and so, unless they have some law of a more liberal character to invoke, they are not in luck.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. It has been suggested that the period be extended to five years for tubercular cases, but that it be left at three years for mental cases. Has that suggestion ever been made to you?

Mr. MILLER. It has never been so made. Was that all, sir?
Senator REED of Pennsylvania. That is all.

Mr. MILLER. Paragraph 3 suggests that where a veteran dies leaving a widow, or a widow with children, the compensations be slightly increased. We believe that these compensations should be greatly increased. The rates which we ask are, briefly, as follows:

(a) If there is a widow but no child, $50.

(b) If there is a widow and one child, $60.

(d) If there is no widow, but one child, $35.

(e) If there is no widow, but two children, $55.

(f) If there is no widow, but three children, $75, with $10 for each additional child up to two.

We think that the rates as they exist now are too low, particularly in view of the fact that deplorably only a few of these men seem to have insurance at the time of their demise.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. What percentage do you think have insurance?

Mr. MILLER. I expect the only way that I can answer that question-and I expect that the Director of the Veterans' Bureau can. answer it much more intelligently-is to detail the ratio between the number originally and the total in existence now; there is a total of less than 500,000 out of an original number of 4,500,000.

General HINES. About one to nine?

Mr. MILLER. About one to nine.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. Eight out of nine have allowed their insurance to lapse.

Mr. MILLER. Paragraph 4 allows double compensation where a husband and son, or two or more sons, have died in the service. This is approved by the American Legion.

No. 5 provides for an increase from $100 to $150 in the matter of allowances for burial expenses. I am under instructions from the Legion to ask that the same be fixed at $200, and we are very anxious to eliminate any suggestion in the law that if a man should leave a small industrial insurance policy, or some other slight resource, that those resources would be taxed for the purpose of burying him.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. I did not know that there was such an implication.

Mr. MILLER. I do not know that it would exist, but it does exist with the present law.

General HINES. There is nothing to that effect in this bill, but in the existing law there is.

Mr. MILLER. No. 6 provides that loss of the use of certain limbs and external organs be made the equivalent of loss of limbs, which will provide for cases of paralysis and so on. The Legion is in accord with this idea, and further suggests that men who have lost the use of both ears should be in the statutory class of those who are totally disabled during such disability. The group is about 60 in number. Most of them have not made much progress in lip reading, and I have come in contact with the men where they live and where they are attempting to train themselves, and they are in a right pitiable shape. Formerly, under the old regulation 57, these men were granted the benefits of their insurance; but that was denied them by a comptroller decision, and the best they have now is only the compensation which is allowed them, and it is 65 per cent of total permanent disability, which would be $65 per month, and in case of a total temporary deafness, something like $52.50. These are a manful outfit.

Some of them have been deprived of the use of their ears by changes in air pressure due to airplane falls, and others by meningitis. They do not claim that they are totally permanently disabled, but they do say that if a man, for instance, who has lost one hand and one eye is totally permanently disabled, a man who has not the use of his ears is also totally permanently disabled; and they cite the instance of two men making application for employment. Would a man who had one eye and one hand and a good pair of legs to do your bidding be more acceptable to you as an employee, or would a man who was unable to hear what you had to give him in the way of instructions be preferable? The fact is also, of course, that there is an enormous psychic reaction. These men do not know what is going on about them. They do not know what is being said about them. I think, since there are only a few cases, it is well worth the cost.

Senator REED of Pennsylvania. You say there are 65 cases?

Mr. MILLER. There were 60 a year ago, and since then four or five have died.

Senator WALSH of Massachusetts. Could that be cured by administrative action?

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Veterans' Bureau Codification Act: Hearings Before the Subcommittee, Sixty ...