Mr. SCHAFER. So that in order to strike a correct comparison as to the number of employees between the bureaus, you would necessarily have to include the examining physicians of the Pension Bureau, who, in fact, are part-time doctors?

Mr. DALLINGER. Oh, no; they are not; they are on a fee basis.
General HINES. No, they are part time.

Mr. SCHAFER. What is the difference between two doctors in Milwaukee, one devoting one or two days a week to examining Pension Bureau beneficiaries for $5 a head, or another doctor examining Veterans' Bureau patients at $5 a head?

General HINES. Now, Congressman, I think Congressman Dallinger has this in mind. We have two classes of doctors, those that give a definite amount of time per day, or so many hours per week, who are called part-time doctors; they are included in the total personnel.

The CHAIRMAN. They are not on a fee basis, are they?

General HINES. No, sir. Now, we have some examinations, of course, very, very few, compared to the Pension Bureau, where we pay a fee of $5 or $10 for an examination. Those are not counted in our total of 24,000. Of course, the Pension Bureau, certainly, if they did not have these fee-basis doctors, they would have them on part time, undoubtedly; so the total cost, or whatever it costs them for personal services, would be the best measure.

Mr. SCHAFER. What is the practical difference. The Veterans' Bureau examining doctor, who you say is employed for serving several hours a day? He receives a certain amount, say, for working a half a day?

General HINES. That is right.

Mr. SCHAFER. That Veterans' Bureau doctor examines a patient? General HINES. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHAFER. And in the same city, across the street, you have a Pension Bureau doctor who devotes half a day to conducting examinations of Pension Bureau beneficiaries and receives $5 for each examination.

General HINES. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHAFER. What is the difference? How can you draw the dividing line, if you are going to arrive at the total number of employees?

General HINES. Of course, the only material difference, so far as the cost would go, would be the sum total of the cost of those two in the operations that they performed. That is about all.

Mr. GASQUE. In the Veterans' Bureau you handle a great many hospital cases, and all of the burial-expense claims, where the other part of the work is done in the Bureau of Pensions?

General HINES. Well, if I understand you, if these veterans of the other group, the World War group, die in our hospitals, we handle the whole proposition; we transport the body home, and we pay the cost of transportation on a reimbursement voucher. Then we have, of course, the other allowances made to those men of other wars, the Spanish War, the Philippine insurrection, and the Boxer uprising. Mr. SCHAFER. General, just one more question. You talked about these stationary cases. Is it not a fact that the work of the Veterans' Bureau has greatly increased in some of these so-called stationary cases? Take the arrested-tuberculosis cases. The Veterans' Bureau

has made ratings in thousands of cases, granting $50 statutory awards, and consequently those cases became stationary until a reactivation occurred.

General HINES. That is right.

Mr. SCHAFER. But however, the Comptroller General made an interpretation of the law and rendered several decisions which reopened all those cases, resulting in board examinations, in reviews and reratings, and in hundreds and hundreds of cases the denying of compensation.

General HINES. Of course, every change in the compensation law, every modification of the law, or decisions such as the Congressman mentions, result in the review of a large number of cases, because the bureau has to determine, for instance, what cases in a particular group are affected by such a decision. For instance, if Congress should pass the bill that is now before the Veterans' Committee, which would be a good illustration, to extend the presumption period up to January 1, 1930, that would probably result in the review of all the disallowed cases, amounting to 500,000 cases, at least, which would be a big problem. Now, we would have not only our initial review but a man would be ordered in for examination, for instance, to make sure that he had the disability which his previous claim showed that he had. Of course, that machine keeps a group of cases constantly revolving, you might say, through the machinery of the bureau.

Mr. DALLINGER. Would it not be possible to take the evidence that has been gathered before?

General HINES. If we take that, in many cases it might do the man an injustice, because in the early examination

Mr. DALLINGER. No; but I mean where it was favorable. For instance, where the proof showed that the man did have this disability but not previous to the date of the prior act?

General HINES. I am afraid I would not be able to meet the law, which says that the disability must be shown of a certain degree. If it had been shown in a case, and it was of a certain degree, we could take it automatically.

Mr. DALLINGER. I was speaking of those cases where you found that the condition was shown, but not previous to the date fixed by Congress in the previous act. Now, if the date is extended, why could not favorable action be considered where the disability was already established which would bring it within the new act?

General HINES. I think we would find cases where we could, particularly those men who have been to us for examination near to the time fixed by law.

Mr. SCHAFER. You would have to review them and make a bona fide rating?

General HINES. Yes; we would have to have a rating. It would not affect the rating, but it would save a reexamination.

Mr. GASQUE. A number of those men, of course, have since died; and that would make a difference.

General HINES. Yes; we would have the previous records, but of course, we would not be able to give compensation in those cases; the only benefit given would go to the widow, as a death compensation.

Mr. SCHAFER. Now, take another example of the work of your bureau in comparison with the decisions of the Comptroller General. The Comptroller General originally rendered a decision, did he not, with reference to the effective date of payments under service connections, made under the World War veterans' act?

General HINES. That is right.

Mr. SCHAFER. And he held then that although service connection is shown, the compensation could not extend retroactively from the date of the act, notwithstanding the fact that a ratable degree of that disability, service connected under the act, was shown to exist. Then not so long ago he reversed himself and rendered a decision fairly and squarely complying with the provisions of the act authorizing those payments. Through some reason or other that I can not figure out, the Director of the Veterans' Bureau has not reviewed all those cases and sent out the adjustment checks.

General HINES. I can tell you, simply because

Mr. SCHAFER. And therefore, in order to comply with the law, as interpreted by the Comptroller General, it would be necessary for you to review practically every one of your compensation cases?

General HINES. Because we would have to review every case in which new benefits were granted under the World War veterans' act approved June 7, 1924.

Mr. SCHAFER. Why has that not been done? Why have not those dependents of veterans who have died, and those veterans who are entitled to the retroactive payments under the act, even under the comptroller's decision, received them?

General HINES. Because it is the bureau's understanding-and I think the veterans' committee will confirm it-that the new benefits granted by the World War veterans' act would not be retroactive beyond the date of that act.

Mr. SCHAFER. But the act did not so provide.

General HINES. It did in some cases, but not in others, and that very question has been and will be presented to the veterans' committee now for decision.

Mr. SCHAFER. But is it not a fact that the question that is going to be presented to the veterans' committee is the question of enacting legislation having a retroactive effect, which will absolutely nullify the Comptroller General's decision and prevent payments of these sums to these disabled veterans and their dependents, in order to save a few million dollars?

General HINES. It will depend entirely on the action of the veterans' committee. They have a right to make it retroactive if they wish. But as a matter of fact, the Director of the Veterans' Bureau could not take the responsibility on a question of that kind involving the payment of $42,000,000 without doing two things getting Congress to state clearly, in the first place, what they intended, and, secondly, getting the money from Congress.

Mr. SCHAFER. But you are not so technical in the Veterans' Bureau about following the Comptroller General under his arbitrary decision cutting off compensation in arrested T. B. cases.

General HINES. Yes; we go back of that many times, and you know we do, in cases that we believe in. It so happened that the bureau sat in with the committee that drafted the World War veterans' act, and we know what they intended to put into that law. Now, we

have not said that these men will not get that money, but certainly when they made that decision the appropriation available could not pay it. I did exactly what the comptroller finally agreed that we should do, and that is, presented it to a committee of Congress, to get their decision on it.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you finished your general statement, General?

General HINES. Yes, sir; I have, except that I would like to put in, if I may, some of these other items of cost. They were items which were brought about by questions of the other witnesses, and it will save your time if you permit me to put this in the record, and then the committee will have it all before them.

The CHAIRMAN. I think, ladies and gentlemen of the committee, that we ought to have this chart in the record. We had a set-up chart last year that we incorporated in the hearings at that time. This chart, however, is somewhat different from that, and is much more complete, in that it shows the details of personnel, etc.

Mr. DALLINGER. Does the Committee on Printing let us do it? The CHAIRMAN. Yes; they will let us do it without going before the committee.

Mr. DALLINGER. I think that chart will be very helpful. It is better than a lot of reading matter.

The CHAIRMAN. By unanimous consent, it will go in the record. (The chart referred to will be found at the conclusion of General Hines' statement.)

General HINES. The chart shows the personnel of the Veterans' Bureau in each block. I think that will cover what you want. I will be glad to work up something further, if you want it.

The CHAIRMAN. There is this one other question I would like to have you discuss briefly before concluding. You have had a lot of experience in connection with the general legislative program dealing with veterans since you have been in office, and you are familiar with veterans' affairs. What would be the effect of this consolidation upon working out the general future policy with reference to the veterans of all wars? Would it be an aid along this line?

General HINES. I think it would be a distinct aid. Of course, Congress would know best how you would set up the machinery to consider all of these different problems dealing with the combined problem of veterans' relief. But most certainly, if you bring these problems under one head, it would enable the committees dealing with these matters to deal with one agency and get the data on the entire problem from one source. I think it is very essential that the consolidation should be brought about, or at least that Congress appoint a separate committee to study it, because I need not tell you that the magnitude of the problem is going to arise as soon as you approach the first pension bill for the World War men, and I doubt if anyone expects that we are going to avoid it. We first adopted insurance, to avoid it; and that did not cure it. We took up vocational training, to help it; and we adopted the bonus, to assist. We have liberalized the World War veterans' act, and about the only way you can liberalize very much further is to take out service connection. So you are facing the problem of what to do with the larger group of veterans, involving over four and a half million men, on the question of further assistance; and I can not believe that the World

War men are going to be denied that assistance when they are in need, in some form, later on. Now, in order to be sure that the Congress does not start off on a program that they would be unable to carry through, due to the cost, it should be given very careful consideration by all of the agencies of the Government, as well as some definite agency in Congress to study it.

Mr. DALLINGER. Do you think that all veterans of all wars should be treated alike?

General HINES. I do, but I think that leveling process will have to be brought about over a period of years, and not in an attempt to immediately revise upward, because to do that would make the cost prohibitive. You see, the scale of allowances for disabilities, as you probably know, is much higher than the pension allowances that we have made in the past, especially when you leave out the question of service connection. But I believe that by bringing these agencies together it will result in a leveling process, and by regulation some of these things can be brought about. For instance, you will take a certain disability and endeavor to have the men with that particular disability compensated in like manner.

Mr. DALLINGER. But it is a fact that the Civil War and Spanish War pension laws were passed when the dollar had a very much larger purchasing power than it has now?

General HINES. There is no question about that.

Mr. DALLINGER. So when it came to deal with the World War veterans, that was taken into account by Congress?

General HINES. Yes, sir; although we adopted an entirely different system. You see, one of the factors that causes Members of Congress. and causes the Veterans' Bureau so much trouble is the factor in the compensation law that you will take into account a man's pre-war occupation. I think I cited an example to one of the committees, in connection with a table constructed on the law, which follows closely the workmen's compensation law. You may have two veterans with the same disability; say they have lost their right legs at the middlethigh. One of them, when he went to war, was a bookkeeper; and the other man was a structural ironworker.

Under the rating table, built upon the law, taking into account the man's pre-war occupation, the bookkeeper gets $39 a month and the structural ironworker gets $89 a month. Now, we understand the reason for that in the bureau, because the vocational handicap as between the two men is greater in the case of a structural ironworker, but the public can not understand that. They look at the two veterans, and one man says, "I am only getting $39 a month, and John Smith over there, who has the same disability, is getting $89 a month." They can not understand that. Neither do they understand the question of service connection at all. Service connection, to the public generally, means that the man served, and served honorably; but to us it means that his disabilities are due to his service, or brought in by presumption. Now, those problems, I think, will have to be studied, and it is pretty much of an educational problem to get the public to understand. But I am a great believer in trying to treat all veterans alike who have equal disabilities, and at the same time to adopt a policy for the veteran so that he will understand, and the public will understand, when you give service, about what the national policy will be in dealing with the veteran. Now, we