(Commander in Chief Herrick vacated the chair as chairman, and Senior Vice Commander in Chief Brant assumed the chair.) Senior Vice Commander in Chief BRANT. Have all voted who wish to vote? If so I now declare the ballot closed.

(The ballot was thereupon declared closed.)

(Whereupon the encampment recessed at 3.35 to reconvene at 3.45 o'clock this date.)

AFTER RECESS

(At 3.45 o'clock p. m. the encampment resumed its deliberations.) Commander in Chief HERRICK. The Comrades will please be seated. It is my privilege at this time to present to you a comrade who was serving as adjutant of his camp at the time he was selected as Commissioner of Pensions, Comrade Scott. [Applause.]

United States Commissioner of Pensions SCOTT. I will appreciate it very much if most of you who are back there come forward as far as possible. It always helps me a little if you are up in front where I can see you.

Comrade Commander in Chief, my comrades, and friends, it is rather a task to attempt to speak to you at a time when you are about to finish your deliberations of three or four days, but if you will try and bear with me I will try and make you feel at the end that you have listened to something that is of advantage to you, and I want to tell all you comrades that if any of you attempt to leave the room when I am talking the first thing I will do when I get back to Washington is to cut you off the list of pensioners. [Applause.]

I want to tell you here in the beginning of this address this afternoon that I have the very highest regard for the industry, the good judgment, and the integrity displayed by your commander in chief, now about to become your past commander in chief, in the conduct of the business of the United Spanish War Veterans during the time I have been Pension Commissioner. He has exercised good judgment and has done everything possible for you, and the way that he has presided over this convention, while I have observed him here, speaks well for his executive ability as commander in chief, and a man who can control a bunch of fellows like you as well as he has ought to be given a vote of thanks by you. [Applause.]

I also wish to congratulate you on the harmonious way in which you have handled your election to-day. While I am not privileged to announce who your next commander in chief is, I am sure that even you who worked for the defeated candidate will get behind the one elected for the next year, because he is going to make you a real commander in chief. It won't make any difference where you are from in this country you will always hear and have from him a pleasant word whatever your grievance may be.

I want to tell you a little about my history, so that you will know where I stand on these things and especially the thing in which you are most interested.

The Government which floats but one flag owes you a debt of gratitude as she owes every person who in his early manhood gave up the comforts of his home and entered the emergency, and in 1833-that is the time the Government started the system of pen

sions in this great country of ours, these United States, that has continued down to the present time and from that time on to the prosent time they have given you a moral pledge and assumed a moral obligation that this country would not only take care of you and your widows, if you have any when you cross the Great Divide, but your dependent ones because you were willing to lay aside your civil pursuits and step into the breach and behind the flag anywhere at any time.

You are entitled to all the credit that the United States can give you. I was a Spanish-American War veteran. [Applause.] I entered the Army before I had any right to, and I did not have the consent of my father when I did it. Away up in Pennsylvania in the snows of the mountains [applause]-I think some of the Pennsylvania boys back there remember it-we mobilized in a snowy country, in Mount Gretna, and I was a boy in college—

VOICES (interposing). We know it.

66

Commissioner SCOTT (continuing). I wrote back and told my father where I was and he wrote back a letter and said "You had better come home," and I exercised a little diplomacy and I told him my name was Scott and that he had called me Winfield" Scott, and that the tribe had always served in cases of emergency, and I was the only one of military age at that time and I thought it was up to me to uphold the relationship of the Scotts in an emergency, and my father wrote back and said "Go ahead, my son, and do your duty, and if you don't, the old man will come." That was just like a lot of you boys and the things that you boys did, although your hair got a little more grey than mine is now.

I served out that enlistment. I served a little more during the trouble down on the Mexican border and then I did not know any better than to go in the last war, and I stayed there a couple of years. I think I served about my time in war. So, when the President of the United States was looking around for somebody to wish a job off on that is not very well thought of-that is, most of the time he sent me a wire out to Oklahoma. I do not know how he found out about me, but my good wife, who has happened to be my wife ever since a little while after I got back from the Spanish-American War, decided that I had better come up and see the President. I saw Mr. Coolidge and he asked me if I would accept the job of Commissioner of Pensions and I told him I would, provided I could put in a system of liberality and when there was a question of a doubt [applause] that doubt would be resolved in favor of the applicant for the Nation's credit.

He told me that that was the kind he was looking for and for me to go ahead; that I had the absolute support of the present Secretary of the Interior, and he told me that if there was anything wrong in the bureau, if there were any officials that I could not get rid of in the interest of the efficiency of the bureau so far as it concerned the needs of the soldiers, then for me to make a report to him and he would get rid of those employees himself. [Applause.]

I am in that position and I am trying to execute the laws in the spirit that Congress has written them in, and you will remember that the Congress of the United States passed in the lower House the Bursum bill almost unanimously, and the Senate of the United States passed the bill two different times, and the spirit of the

Congress is behind the liberal enforcement of the laws on the statute books, and I am here to tell you as a representative of the Government that the President of the United States and the Secretary of the Interior are desirous that the laws now on the statute books be carried out in that spirit. [Applause.]

I have been assigned by your commander in chief to explain the pension laws. That would take me all the afternoon, but I will hit some of the high spots for you because I know a great many of you don't understand just what they are all about.

You comrades here this afternoon are representatives of your organization, selected throughout the United States. Your comrades back home in your different camps elected you for a purpose. They elected you for the purpose of having you come here and acting on the floor of this encampment in their behalf.

The pension system of the United States was organized in 1833. Laws passed after that year down to the present time affect the soldiers in the different wars. One of those laws is the general pension law that provides for a pension for a soldier who is disabled by a ratable degree for injuries received in line of duty while in the service. That is the service pension. That is a pension that is given you for the sacrifice you have made for the Government, so, if you have received an injury or a wound from which you were incapacited, you are entitled to a pension from the Government upon a showing of the same by a preponderance of the evidence.

I do not mean "beyond a reasonable doubt." We are not construing the pension laws that way to-day, and these pensions under that law for you range from $6 to $72 a month when that disability is such that you require the regular aid and attention of another person. Get that when you require the regular aid and attendance of another person. You know what that means; somebody has to look after you in order to give you a comfortable existence for the few remaining years that you have.

I had a comrade come to me here this forenoon. He said I am getting $50 a month," and he said, "I think I ought to have $72 a month." I said "You are entitled to it if you received your injury in line of duty while in the service provided you are now receiving the regular aid and attendance of another person."

So,

There is some interpretation that has to be placed on that. That interpretation is usually placed upon it by an examining board in the field; three doctors appointed by the Bureau of Pensions on recommendation of the three dominant Congressmen in that district, if you are in a Republican congressional district, your Republican Congressman recommends a medical board there to pass upon, in your county seat, your application for a pension. The make-up of these medical boards, under the present administration is supposed to be two Republicans and one Democrat in all districts, so you must get that idea into your head, and if you get a bad medical board in the field your Congressman is responsible, and if he gives you a bad board and doesn't treat you fairly and squarely as you think you should be, then when he comes up for reelection it is up to you to do what is right.

I don't want any Congressman to neglect his duty. That is why I tell you this afternoon that it is up to your Congressman to provide the proper medical boards for you, and it is up to you, as

Senator Bursum told you this morning, to see that you have the proper representation in Congress.

I have a great many kicks about these things, you will understand. If your Congressman is not giving you the right deal, let the camps get together and pass resolutions and send them to the bureau and I will find out what the trouble is, and I will tell the Congressman another recommendation will have to be made or I will take it out of his hands and make it myself on my own recommendation. [Applause.]

We have another pension bill that was passed in 1920, known as the act of 1920, which is also known as the age pension bill, the short pension bill for disabled men where men are disabled for useful manual labor at least 10 per cent. Under that bill you get from $12 to $30 a month. That is the act of June 5, 1920.

I want to stop to digress a little there. There are a lot of people going over the country claiming that they are pension attorneys. There are some good ones, but I have a right to tell you, my comrades, what the proper thing to do is, because I am telling you now, right here, if you will write to the Bureau of Pensions and tell them you are so and so and served in company so and so, in regiment so and so, and had 90 days' service and received an honorable discharge from the service and would like a blank to make out an application for pension, you will get that blank and you can fill it out and swear to it before a notary and get as good service from the Bureau of Pensions as if you had worked it through an attorney. If any of you are pension attorneys, don't think that I am knocking you. I am not. am telling the boys how to save a little money.

When you make that application under the act of June 1, 1920, set out your disability. If you desire to go before any particular pension board for a physical examination, all you have to do is write a little letter saying "I would like to go before the pension board in Indiana" or "I would like to go before the pension board in Ohio," saying wherever you want to go, and you will be sent there, at your own expense, because the Government does not pay that, but they will let you go where you want to go. That is the policy of the present administration. [Applause.] So, if you don't like the board you have back there in your own town, you can pick the board you want anywhere in the United States. I am going to give you the advantage of them all along the line if I can.

The age pension law is payable at the age of 62. They are put on the roll at the rate of $12 a month. If there is nothing else wrong with them and they have this disability, the age itself, it is my policy to rate them up accordingly, on account of the age. If a man is 10 per cent disabled and is 62 years old, my policy is to give that man $18 a month, but I can not give him more than $30, because I am only interested in the execution of the laws and not the enactment of them.

It is up to you, through your Representatives in Congress, to get the laws, more liberal laws if you want them, and I am here to tell you right now that I will cooperate all I can and I will give you the benefit of everything that I have to work with. [Applause.] When a man gets to be 75 years old-there are several steps between 62 and 75 years old-but when they get to that age they are en

titled to $30 a month. We all know that that is not enough-I am not speaking now as an official of my Government but as an individual. You get that when you reach the age of 75 years. You make your application first for your $12 a month and then as your age goes on you make your application for an increase.

My friends, make your application for increases whenever you think you can honestly get them. I say that I will give you another examination whenever you think you are entitled to it, to an increased pension, and if that examination is favorable to you I will give you that pension. If six months have not elapsed since the time you have received your pension until the time you ask for an increase, make your application anyway. That is just a rule of the bureau so as to prevent too many examinations.

When you make your application for an increase, if you make it in six months, send in a doctor's certificate, but if it is after the six months' time you don't have to do that. Merely send in a blank application for an increase and we will see that it is acted on.

I know there are several pension attorneys here, and I don't want them to feel offended when I speak plainly this afternoon. I hope they won't feel offended.

When you make an application for a pension the first thing we do is to call upon the War Department for your record. We tell the War Department that we want this man's medical history from the War Department, and they furnish it. Now, a great many of you boys when you were young, we understand, when you had a little red blood in your old veins, went out and committed a few excesses by not using good judgment, and they tacked on to you a vicious-habits clause, and you never get away from the War Department, because they always put it down in black and white, and there is where your trouble comes in.

You sometimes find that some fellow tells you “I am disabled. Why is it that I can not get a pension or a raise in my pension? When he says that to you you want to ask him "What about your vicious habits while in the service?" Because the doctors always put down there that such and such a thing happened, not in line of duty. We are bound by it because that is the law, and there is no way to get away from it unless the Congress of the United States wakes up to the fact that during the time of your service these things were indiscretions, and after the expiration of 27 years they ought to be wiped out-these little indiscretions of you young boys at that age. Of course, when the statutes were first compiled, they had to put that thing to save their faces, but it is time, I think, that your commanders in chief make the recommendation in their report that the legislative committee eliminate entirely the vicioushabits clause, and I will tell you that I have gone further than your commander in chief has gone, for, as Pension Commissioner, I recommended to Congress that the vicious-habits clause be eliminated. [Applause.]

There is another proposition I would like to have seen in his report, and that is something concerning the bureau being prohibited from going behind the report of the War Department in line of duty while in the service. You may not understand that. Here is a comrade here before me. He was in the service. One day while he was out taking a walk he saw a young girl drop into the water