as those boys who were in a combat division could well testify. In 1917 and the early part of 1918 we took hours from our training schedules to push the Liberty bond movement and we did not begrudge it, but we want to impress upon the people that the Army took their share of these bonds also. Anyone who has had any service with the enlisted men knows that many a company commander, battalion and regimental commander, had to go down into his own pocket at the end of the month when the men were supposed to have pay, he would go into his pocket to see that his men had three or four or five dollars to buy cigarettes at the canteen, because that $30 was eaten up, as I have indicated.

Now, let us go back to that man's little family that he left. If he had a wife and child, it is self-evident that she could not exist on this money, so what did she do? She went back to mother, or worse still, she went to her mother-in-law. She went to live with friends. She had to incur expenses and debts in order to live. Her man was in the service. Her man, if he was privileged to serve in a combat division, went overseas, and you know what he had to face there. Let us go back and examine a little more thoroughly into this little family. Before he went into the Army he was making, say, $1,200 a year. Now, $55 a month means $660 per year. There was a dead loss there, gentlemen, figured in dollars and cents, of $540.

Now, let us see what happened to his neighbor. I want to call your attention to the fact that of the ten million and a half Americans registered for the draft, seven million were deferred classification or exempted. In other words, out of the ten and a half million registered 64 per cent were exempted for various reasons. The other 33 per cent did the actual fighting.

Mr. TREADWAY. What part of that 60 per cent were married men? Mr. MILLER. The married men were 4,270,000 out of the 7,000,000 exempted.

Mr. TREADWAY. Over half?

Mr. MILLER. Yes, sir; 4,270,000 out of 7,000,000 were married

men.

Mr. CAREW. Can you tell us how many married men were in the service?

Mr. MILLER. I can not, sir. I do not happen to have it in the figures here.

Mr. CAREW. If you could ascertain that, and also ascertain how many of them had children, it would help us.

Mr. MILLER. I will put that down. I will make a note of it and get that information.

Mr. GARNER. How many married men and how many had dependents.

Mr. MILLER. Yes, sir. The soldier returned and here is what he finds in the case of his neighbor. If the man was exempted or did not volunteer, was not in the service, he finds that he has a job, perhaps he has this man's own job. He is making more money. He is prosperous. We who were in the service do not bear any grudge against those people that are referred to as flocking to the shipyards or to professional baseball or other quasi-athletic professions that seemed to bring about exemption. The average man feels that it was

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a privilege to serve and he does not begrudge the state of mind that some of these people must have and will have until the day of their death.

The CHAIRMAN. Was there any limit on the hours that the boys overseas were to serve in the trenches or on duty?

Mr. MILLER. There was no eight-hour day there, sir. Just on that point, yesterday before Wadsworth's committee in the Senate a fact was brought out that will show you how the service man worked. The replacements that came over to the combat divisions in the summer and fall of 1918 were not trained. They had not even, in thousands of cases, had gas training, and that is essential. The colonel of this regiment told them yesterday how he let his men sleep from dawn until noon, fed them some chow, trained them how to load a rifle and put on their gas masks in six seconds, and at night marched them all night until dawn. That is the way he got his regiment up for the St. Mihiel drive.

The CHAIRMAN. There was no strike for shorter hours or increased pay in France?

Mr. MILLER. There was no such thing thought of. To go back to what I was discussing. He finds that the neighbor that he left behind is in a much better position to carry on his daily life and earn his living than he is. It is true, the man was not privileged to serve, but if he has got a good job and is making more money, this other fellow who served in the Army has not increased his earning capacity; he has faced death and privation, disfigurement, and impairment of health, his family has been through what any man here would not permit his wife and daughter to go through. You know that in the winter of 1917 even people who had money could not get coal in their. bins unless they had a man to go out and fight the coal administrator for it, and that is only touching the high spots of what privations the families of the men went through back here. And gentlemen, the Government had a perfect right to draft every one of us.

Mr. KITCHIN. Was it not the policy of the draft boards throughout the country, and was it not practically the thought of the department here, that no married man should be taken unless his allotment and compensation for his wife and children was more than or equal to that which he had been making theretofore to contribute to the support of his family?

Mr. MILLER. Mr. Kitchin, that is so, and yet every man who was in the service will bear me out that in thousands of cases men with families, because they were not educated enough or did not know how to do it, found their way into the service.

Mr. KITCHIN. No doubt that is true, but would that amount to as much as 2 per cent of the whole number?

Mr. MILLER. Yes, sir; it would, Mr. Kitchin. I do not want to quote my own personal experience but I know thousands of cases, even in my own company and later on in my organization that Í commanded, and I said to them, "My how did you get over here? You are a married man?" That developed after the armistice when we had many pathetic cases appealing to get home because of the state of a man's family. And you must remember, Mr. Kitchin, that the National Guard supplied 17 combat divisions and hundreds of thousands of men. Many an enlisted man and officer of the

National Guard had a family when the call came and there was no exemption for them.

Mr. KITCHIN. Is it not a fact that of the officers nineteen-twentieths received more pay than they were making before the war began? Is it not a fact that in the case of the Regular Army officer he was promoted and got more pay than before the war?

Mr. MILLER. Discussing_officers-and I am not appealing for any particular class of men, I am appealing for all ex-service menthere was probably a great number of officers who came out of the training camps, from school and from their business, who perhaps received $2,000 a year as a first lieutenant, who were making more than they were in civil life.

Mr. KITCHIN. But the Regular Army officers were making more because they were promoted, and a large majority of the officers not of the Regular Army received more pay than they were making before the war.

Mr. MILLER. They were promoted to their temporary rank.

Mr. KITCHIN. How about these gentlemen who stayed in the United States, for instance, officers around here that were wearing their spurs and boots, that never shouldered a gun in their life, never marched a day in their life, and stayed three or four thousand miles away from the front. Do you not think most of those were making more money than they ever got before?

Mr. MILLER. I hold no brief for them, Mr. Kitchin. I feel sorry, because unfortunately they caught me between my two divisions and held me for two months. I feel sorry for them

Mr. KITCHIN (interposing). I am not blaming all of them for staying here because some of them had to do it. They were performing honorable service. I am talking about the pay. Do you not think those who stayed here got more pay than they were making before the war?

Mr. MILLER. I would not say there was a high percentage. I should say a large percentage of the lieutenants and captains around Washington

Mr. KITCHIN (interposing). Even the colonels and generals. Were they not getting more? They were most all promoted.

Mr. MILLER. But granting all that as true, Mr. Kitchin, that does not relieve the obligation of the Government to those who are in need, the 2,000,000 men in combat divisions in France.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Miller, what percentage of the men were officers?

Mr. MILLER. What percentage?

The CHAIRMAN. Yes; what percentage of all the men?

Mr. MILLER. I understand that out of the 5,000,000 men in the Army and Navy, perhaps 250,000 of them were officers.

Mr. GREEN. In reference to this matter of married men, I want to say that in some counties in my district the exemption on account of marriage was the exception. The rule was that they were not exempted.

Mr. FREAR. When thousands of men from our National Guard went down on the Mexican border they were married men in many cases, and when this war came on they were taken right into the Federal service and went to France?

Mr. MILLER. Yes, sir.

Mr. FREAR. And they never had their exemption. They were in the service before the war came on.

Mr. MILLER. To accentuate the point I made a moment ago, I want to go back to Mr. Kitchin for a moment. I hold no brief for the Regular Army officer. It is true that some of them have received more pay than they would otherwise have received. Of course, that has been accompanied by an increase in the cost of living. But it is not for these people, it is not for the officer class as a whole we are asking this. This is for those who need it and want it, and it is optional with them, as the national commander has told you, as to the four plans that we suggest for your consideration.

Mr. HULL. Your view is that this should be tendered to the entire 5,000,000 officers and men and let those accept it who desire to do so and let those decline who might?

Mr. MILLER. Yes, Mr. Hull; but at the same time you do not want to make it so that a man would compromise himself in any way to ask for it.

Mr. KITCHIN. What percentage of these men and officers in this 5,000,000 does the American Legion think will decline and accept any of these gifts or obligations?

Mr. MILLER. We have no poll on that. I will give you my individual opinion.

Mr. KITCHIN. We want to get as many facts as possible to see about what it is going to cost the Government. We must consider that to some extent.

Mr. MILLER. I will give my individual opinion, namely, that 3,000,000 ex-service men, and that is very conservative, are directly affected and are watching this question of adjusted compensation, because it will concern them and affect them.

Mr. TREADWAY. You mean they need it?

Mr. MILLER. Yes, sir. I am very conservative in that estimate. Mr. LONGWORTH. Let me see if I understand these four propositions. First, is it the idea of the legion that none of them should apply except when applied for?

Mr. MILLER. No, sir, Mr. Longworth. Your committee has been charged with the duty of determining some sort of final beneficiary legislation for ex-service men, and these four plans that we suggest are what our committee arrived at.

Mr. GARNER. Mr. Miller, do you consider the importance of the plans in the order in which they are given by the commander of The American Legion?

Mr. MILLER. I would have to answer that, Mr. Garner, not officially for the legion, but I should say in my personal opinion that they considered the so-called bonus or adjusted compensation first, and bearing in mind that we have thousands of people who favor Mr. Morgan's plan, thousands who favor the Mondell plan, but I think I can say the bonus has the interest of most of them.

Mr. GARNER. I understood that the commander in presenting his resolutions presented them in this order, and that they considered the most important is set down first. I notice that the land proposition is set down first and then you come on to the second, third, and fourth, and the fourth is the bonus.

Mr. MILLER. Our convention in Minneapolis provided for a special subcommittee on land legislation and home aid. That subcommit

tee met here on the 16th of February. They held a meeting, but just before that meeting the executive committee at Minneapolis created a beneficial legislative committee and charged them with the consideration of bonus and adjusted compensation, because all this soldier beneficial legislation dovetails in the other.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Let me see if I understand. Suppose these four plans were in operation. If no one applies for either one of the first three, would he be entitled automatically to the bonus?

Mr. MILLER. We would consider that the man only has the option of taking one of them.

Mr. LONGWORTH. But suppose he does not apply for either of the first three, is the bonus to go to him automatically or must he apply for that also?

Mr. TIMBERLAKE. He must apply for it.

Mr. LONGWORTH. That is what I want to understand, because Mr. Miller led me to understand that he did not construe it that way. Mr. MILLER. Of course, that is a detail of administration which will have to be worked out.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Yes; but right at the very start, that is very important for us to understand.

Mr. MILLER. Have I answered your question?

Mr. LONGWORTH. No; not quite. Take the so-called bonus. Is it your idea that it will be paid to anyone who does not apply for it?

Mr. MILLER. If the matter hinges on the question as to whether you should pass an adjusted compensation bill going to everybody automatically, or for the sake of economy, put in a provision that it must be applied for, I would say in order to have the bill pass, to provide that it would have to be applied for, if that is the controlling influence as to whether the bill will be passed by Congress.

Mr. LONGWORTH. I am speaking about the proper interpretation of the commander's statement. As I understand it, he had four alternative propositions and no man could have the benefit of more than one of them, and he should apply for the one that he preferred.

Mr. MILLER. The ex-service man should be given the option as to which one he desires.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Therefore none of these four would go to any man if he did not make application?

Mr. MILLER. If that is the way the legislation is passed

Mr. LONGWORTH (interposing). Is that the recommendation? Is that your understanding?

Mr. MILLER. Well, that is a matter, I will frankly say, that we did not receive specific instructions on, but as one of their representatives here I would reiterate what I have just said. If you gentlemen figure that you can report a bill and get support for it, with a proviso in the bill that only those will get the benefits by applying for it, thinking thereby you can save considerable expense, we would rather see it go through that way than not at all.

Mr. GARNER. Speaking for the organization, you would prefer to have no limitation, that it would automatically apply, if they did not take the first, second, or third. Now, your commander said emphatically that they must make application in order to get the benefit of the law.

Mr. MILLER. There is no division between the national commander and myself on that, because I think either one of us must have been slightly misunderstood.