Mr. BROWNING. What is your reaction to the wiping out of this misconduct feature of the law?

Mr. NEWTON. Oh, I have felt that we ought not to do that. That has been my feeling.

Mr. BROWNING. Owing to the fact that so many troubles that these men have are hidden behind this advantage to the Government, as you suggested a while ago, and so many things are attributed to this when as a matter of fact it looks very plain that they were not, do you not think that less injustice would be done by wiping it out than by letting it stand?

Mr. NEWTON. I am inclined to think not, but, of course, for the last two or three years you have had much more knowledge of the details of these things than I have had, although I sometimes think that everybody who comes to the Minneapolis regional area has a tough claim.

Mrs. NORTON. Is there any way of proving that these cases are not very ofter hereditary, and is it not true that certain diseases or certain hardships will bring them to the surface under given conditions?

Mr. NEWTON. Well, I do not know. These doctors have held on every side of that question, and I have never been able to come to any satisfactory conclusion on that.

Mrs. NORTON. I happen to know of two absolute cases of that description and, if I know of two, I should think there would be a good many more.

Mr. NEWTON. Now, some two or three years ago there was a provision inserted in the act in reference to the files being confidential. You will recall, Mr. Chairman, that I asked you about that, and predicted that a Member of Congress would not be able to get the information that he desired.

Now, the prediction that I then and there made has been fulfilled. You can not even get the address of a man. If they find out that you want to get that address in order to give it to some fellow who has been swindled by the ex-service man, you can not get that address.

Now, let me paint this picture here. Here is the Government sending out four hundred millions a year that comes from the taxpayers of the country. Here is a man who owns a home out in Minneapolis. It is a duplex. Along comes a service man and he is disabled, and has a wife and children and he has to have a place to live. This landlord rents to him on the strength of the fact that he has compensation coming from the Government, and the fellow just lives there for a while. Finally he gets his back compensation, pays up part of his rent, and the landlord goes away for a two or three-day vacation and the soldier up and leaves. Nobody knows where he has gone. He leaves a substantial bill of rent pending. So the landlord, naturally, goes down to the Veterans' Bureau office there and wants to know where this man is living.

The regional manager says, "I can not tell you; here is the law: Congress says that I can not give out any of this information.”

So the landlord writes his Member of Congress. The Member of Congress writes to the regional manager and the regional manager refers the letter to his legal adviser, and back comes a letter

saying that even the address of the man is confidential. So you take it up with the director, and after about a year's negotiation the director changes the regulations, so that now a Member of Congress can find the address of a man who is out there defrauding the taxpayers who have treated him decently. But that does not help the man. It does not help the Veterans' Bureau or Congress when this man goes to the reginoal manager and is turned down and the inquirer does not know enough, or is not advised, to write his Congressman.

Now, it seems to me that we can carry this question of confidential information altogether too far, and we are carrying it too far if we are carrying it to the extent that we are withholding from anybody who comes in with any legitimate reason for information as to the latest address of the man, and it ought to be given to him. I suggested that the director recommend a change of that kind.

Now, I have had a number of complaints, and people just simply can not understand why men who are being paid out of money from the Public Treasury and who have defrauded people should have their whereabouts kept absolutely secret, and I think it is a mistake. It can only injure the great bulk and mass of ex-service men. It can only injure and hamper the work of the Veterans' Bureau. It seems to me some exception should be made with reference to the address.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Miller calls my attention to the fact that in subdivision (d) of section 30 the law reads that "the amount of compensation or training allowance of any beneficiary shall be made known to any person who applies for such information.

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If thought advisable, there could be inserted the words or his address."

Mr. NEWTON. I think that covers the situation.

Mr. MILLER. I will make a note of that and ask Mr. Roberts to draw that up, though I doubt its wisdom.

The CHAIRMAN. I wish you would do that.

Mr. NEWTON. The other thing that I want to bring to your attention is this, that we have a man out home who was a National Guardsman. He went into the service when the 151st Field Artillery was called, but before that regiment was federalized, while they were at Snelling or in Texas, he was very severely injured by an explosion of a shell, resulting in the loss of his leg just below the hip.

Now, under the law as it is written, that man is not entitled to compensation or to any of the benefits of the war risk insurance act and its amendments. Now, while that man's outfit had not been thoroughly federalized as a point of law, yet, in fact, he was just as much a Federal soldier as anyone could be, called out for an emergency and on military duty. His whole outfit was taken into the service and this man would have gone in excepting for this disability which he received.

Mr. BULWINKLE. Were they still down in Texas?

Mr. NEWTON. Yes.

Mr. BULWINKLE. Was it after the declaration of war?

Mr. NEWTON. Oh, yes; after the declaration of war, but before the technical procedure had been gone through by which they were

technically federalized, and this man feels, and I think rightly so, that he should receive the same benefits that he would have received but for the lack of this technical procedure to which I have referred. Gentlemen, I am very much obliged to you.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Newton, we are very glad to have had you with us. You have always taken such an active part, both in the drafting of this legislation and on the floor, and I hope you will continue to do so and keep in touch with the committee.

Mr. NEWTON. Thank you. I am sure that everything will be done that the committee can do; I know you have a most difficult problem. The CHAIRMAN. Members of the committee, we have with us this morning Representative Millard E. Tydings, of Maryland, formerly with the Twenty-ninth Division and formerly a member of this

committee.

We are very glad to have you with us this morning, Mr. Tydings, and I hope you will proceed to enlighten us further concerning this statute. We will be happy to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF HON. MILLARD E. TYDINGS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF MARYLAND

Mr. TYDINGS. There is one provision of the law that I want to call your attention to, and which I think is still effective, namely, that where a man has some disability which was aggravated in service it shall be considered as having been incurred in the service, and I want to cite a couple of cases along that line that I know of.

I know of a particular man who, upon his discharge, was examined by three medical officers. In completing their examination, they sent him to three more medical officers, and after that he was sent to another board of three more medical officers, and he was advised to go to a hospital; but, feeling perfectly well and not having any trouble at all he, after some talk with these medical officers, told them that he would rather take his discharge and, in fact, release the Government from all liability.

They explained to him that they could not do that, but that possibly, if he would go to a physician when he got home, they would let him go, and thereupon he was discharged with a 10 per cent disability written on his discharge.

Now, after the Veterans' Bureau was set up and created, with its benefits to the men who had contracted disease in the service, this particular man did not see fit to apply for the benefit, and, of course, under the five-year provision, had that remained in the law, he would have been barred from obtaining compensation for an injury which he had contracted in the service, simply because he did not feel that it was of sufficient extent to warrant it.

Now, the present law, as I understand it, eliminates that provision, if it can be shown that the injury was contracted in the service, notwithstanding that the 5-year period has gone by. Is that cor

rect?

The CHAIRMAN. I think it is, if the disability was incurred in the

service.

Mr. TYDINGS. Section 201 of the present law states that no compensation shall be payable

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). We are considering that extension of time in this bill at the present time.

Mr. TYDINGS. Section 200 states that "When an ex-service man is shown to be suffering with a chronic disease which good medical judgment indicates was incurred or aggravated in the service, such chronic disease shall be held to be of service origin or aggravation notwithstanding the lack of historical affirmative evidence."

The CHAIRMAN. That is the provision of the proposed law that you are reading, is it not?

Mr. TYDINGS. Yes. Does that only apply to the 5-year period and the 2-year extension?

Mr. BROWNING. It would, unless those periods are changed in this law. You see, that is an amendment suggested in this bill. It would only apply to the 5-year period and the 2-year extension unless that feature is changed in this bill.

The CHAIRMAN. And we are considering another provision of the proposed law which would extend the time or wipe out the limitation altogether.

Mr. TYDINGS. Well, the point I was making is that I believe there are plenty of men-in fact, I have talked with some-upon whom fortune smiles fairly favorably, and they have not applied for the compensation that they could get. However, where it is definitely established at the time the soldier severs his connection with the Army that he then and there had a disability, chronic in nature, which was contracted in the service, and that man fails to make his application, and in the future, after the time limit, something serious happens to that man, should he be barred from getting what he might have had?

The CHAIRMAN. In other words, you are in favor of this extension?

Mr. TYDINGS. Yes; and I want to go a step further than that. If he is discharged and it was not shown that he had any chronic trouble at all contracted in the service, that would be one thing; but where it is shown on his discharge that he had it and he has never applied, even though the seven years have gone by and the Government records show he could have gotten it, he should not be barred.

Now, the case I have in mind, I dislike to say, is my own case. When I was discharged at Camp Dix I went before three medical officers, who sent me to a board of three more-in fact, I saw nine doctors in all on three different boards, and they wanted me to go. to some hospital. I had some throat trouble. I had gotten gassed a little on the other side and was in the hospital for three weeks after the war was over.

I told them that I did not want to go to a hospital, that I wanted to go home, and that I would waive all liability of the Government if they would give me my discharge. Of course, they said that they could not do that; but I put up a right good argument to them, and they finally decided they would let me go, and they marked on my discharge "10 per cent disability."

Now, I have had trouble with my throat ever since the war was over, and sometimes it gets very much aggravated.

Now, if after 7, 8, or 10 years I should develop tuberculosis as a result of that and get into a condition where I probably could not do anything, I would then be penalized because I thought I would never need the Government's aid.

There are other men in the same condition.

The CHAIRMAN. I think you are absolutely right. Personally, I favor the extension, and I think the committee does.

Mr. TYDINGS. Would the extension apply to a case like that? The CHAIRMAN. Absolutely; if these two provisions are adopted. Mr. TYDINGS. If the discharge had not stated the disability that would be one thing, but when the discharge states the disability so that you do not have to prove it was incurred in the service, that is another matter.

The CHAIRMAN. I am very glad you brought up that point, Mr. Tydings. Is there anything else in the law that you care to discuss? Mr. TYDINGS. Nothing further than this: You also have the question before you of compensation paid out under the bonus, have

you not?

The CHAIRMAN. No; that is before the Ways and Means Committee, and they are having hearings now.

Mr. TYDINGS. There are one or two other things I had in mind, but I do not think I will mention them this morning.

I would like to add that I take no particular pride in naming my own case, but I only did it because I, of course, know the facts in that case and believe it is illustrative of many others in which the situation is the same. I am not a wealthy man, and should I contract some disease that I thought was due to that I might be out of luck.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Tydings, the committee appreciates very much your coming before us, and I am glad you brought up your individual case. That is the only way the committee can find out about classes of cases-by discussing the individual case.

I would like to call the attention of the committee to the fact that this morning we have with us Representative Clay Stone Briggs, who appeared before the committee in 1925, as I recall it, and presented some matters.

We are very glad to have you with us again to discuss such matters in the law that you care to take up.

STATEMENT OF HON, CLAY STONE BRIGGS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF TEXAS

Mr. BRIGGS. Mr. Chairman, I notice that the bill that I introduced at this session, H. R. 30, is incorporated in the measure introduced by you and designated as H. R. 4474, appearing as section 17, on page 40, of your bill.

The provision is one which was brought before this committee in the last Congress and was favorably acted upon by this committee, which reported it in its bill to the House, and the bill was passed by the House of Representatives in the last Congress.

It relates to the application of the $60 bonus to the maintenance of the insurance and preventing the lapse of that insurance as long as the $60 bonus was equal to meeting the insurance premiums due.