Mr. HALE. NO; I said that we were catholic in our aims.
Mr. LONGWORTH. You would say the members of your organiza-

tion

Mr. HALE (interposing). Not our organization alone, but the men in the American Legion, if they were across, would get $100, if they saw foreign service.

Mr. LONGWORTH. You differ with the American Legion and their proposition to make this an alternative only; they would not permit any man to enjoy the benefits of more than one.

Mr. HALE. The only objection I have to it is its inequality and its indefiniteness. Take, for instance, the proposition for vocational training. They do not specify what the expense of that will be. Does it include a man's tuition and board while he is taking the training?

Mr. LONGWORTH. We have not heard from them yet.

Mr. HALE. That is the very point.

Mr. LONGWORTH. That has nothing to do with the question I am asking. They advocate four definite propositions. They state positively that they think no man should enjoy the benefits of more than one, that he should take his choice, and having taken his choice

Mr. HALE (interposing). That is where we dissent from them.
Mr. LONGWORTH. You dissent entirely?

Mr. HALE. Yes, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Your proposition is that the legislation should provide that any one who had seen foreign service should receive $30 a month plus $100, and also come in under the provisions of the Morgan bill?

Mr. HALE. If any such legislation is enacted, because there is no gratuity attached to that.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Of course, application would have to be made under the Morgan bill?

Mr. HALE. Yes; and any man's honorable discharge should be prima facie evidence that he is entitled to the benefits of it.

Mr. LONGWORTH. He would apply to some board and present his honorable discharge and be automatically entitled to a loan? Mr. HALE. That is what I should think?

Mr. LONGWORTH. How about the bonus?

Mr. HALE. I presume that could be distributed along the same lines as the other bonus; have a man present his honorable discharge and it would be stamped on the face of the discharge as soon as he received the benefits.

Mr. LONGWORTH. Would he now have to apply? He may be living in another place. The bonus would not go to any man who did not make a formal application?

Mr. HALE. Not necessarily; no, sir. Anybody who feels that his patriotism would be commercialized by accepting it does not have to accept it. It is not compulsory and should not be compulsory. It should be left entirely to a man's own discretion as to whether or not he wants the bonus.

Mr. HAWLEY. He would have to make application and identify himself?

Mr. HALE. Yes, sir. The $60 bonus is not compulsory. The Government does not hunt a man up to pay him his $60 bonus, and

it would be the same under any other legislation that Congress might enact along those lines.

The CHAIRMAN. You never knew the Government to hunt up anybody to pay him anything?

Mr. HALE. No, sir.

Mr. LONGWORTH. You do not require a service of 60 days?

Mr. HALE. Yes, sir; the Johnson bill does provide that. Anybody who has seen less than two months' service would not be eligible.

Mr. KITCHIN. That is because they have already received $60? Mr. HALE. Yes, sir.

Mr. TREADWAY. How extensive do you consider the wants of the men you spoke of? You spoke of many men applying through intelligence offices for positions. How extensive do you feel that condition is? You have not any records?

Mr. HALE. No, sir.

Mr. TREADWAY. From your own experience, what do you consider the ratio of employment of overseas men is to-day?

Mr. HALE. You mean the men out of employment?

Mr. TREADWAY. Take it either way; the ratio of nonemployment, yes.

Mr. HALE. I would hesitate to make an estimate on that.

Mr. TREADWAY. You think it is pretty general? For instance, how many offices are there down town here where a man could go to apply for a position?

Mr. HALE. There are only two that I know of.

Mr. TREADWAY. How many applicants do you imagine they would have a day?

Mr. HALE. That would be a matter easy to determine from the records. Most of the times I have been there there have been 30 or 40 men in uniform waiting for work.

Mr. TREADWAY. Waiting for employees to come in?

Mr. HALE. Waiting for employees to come in and assign them a situation.

The CHAIRMAN. The situation here in Washington is entirely different from that in any other part of the country. There are few manufacturing establishments in the District of Columbia, and a man applying for a position would most likely apply for a position under the Government, and there is an overstock of employees of the Government; the Government is letting out employees every day, consequently, there is little employment available in the Government departments at this time. But in other parts of the country, there is a shortage of labor in every city. It is difficult to name a town or a farming community that has a full supply of labor to-day.

Mr. HALE. If the chairman wants me to do so, when I go home I will draw some letters out of our files, from our posts throughout the country, which will contradict that statement.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I will slightly modify that statement. I do not know of one; I know the situation in a good many parts of the country, and yet I do not know of a city or a farming community in this country that has a sufficient supply of labor now.

Mr. HALE. Farming communities?

The CHAIRMAN. Or factory districts.

Mr. HALE. Well, I have merely predicated my opinion on reports coming from various posts of the country.

The CHAIRMAN. Well, I just want to add that you have pictured the unemployment in this city; I do not know anything about that; but I do not believe that that situation, or a similar one, exists in any other part of the country.

Mr. GREEN. As corroborative of the chairman's remarks, I might say that in my district the shortage of farm workers is such that the farms can not be fully cultivated this year.

Mr. RAINEY. I also want to corroborate that statement as to my district.

Mr. HALE. I think I would agree with your statement, because many of the men who went into the Army, who had been in rural communities before they went into the Army, have simply left them; their experience in the Army has changed their view of life and point of view; and they do not desire to return to the farming communities. Mr. KITCHIN. They want to go to the cities?

Mr. HALE. Yes, sir; they want to go to the cities.

Mr. HULL. Mr. Hale, I think the service men and the members of the committee and the public will agree generally on certain propositions in connection with these proposals that are pending. One is that neither the Government nor any other agency can ever compensate the ex-service men, in money, or in any other way, adequately for the services they have rendered. I think everybody will also agree that the Government should take care, in the most ample way, of the dependents of those who died in the war, of all of those who are disabled in any way in connection with the service; also of their dependents. Also it was the duty, and is the duty, of the Government to render every necessary assistance to the discharged soldiers during the period of time that they were or are obliged to consume in finding suitable and permanent employment. Also suitable land and educational aid. I think these kinds of assistance, among others, should be extended by every Government to those who have been discharged from the army or naval service.

Now, in asking you two or three questions, I think I may say that I think I am in the attitude, as one member of the committee, to approach, without the slightest unfriendliness (to put it in the mildest terms), any proposal that may be made to Congress or to this committee by the service men.

The committee has a twofold duty: First, of conferring with you gentlemen, or other interested or disinterested persons, with a view of determining the merits of the proposals that are being presented. Then we have the other duty of finding means of carrying out or meeting the obligations which any measure that might be adopted would entail on the Government.

I want to ask you a question or two with a view of bringing out certain facts, not only from the standpoint of Congress and the public generally, but from the standpoint of the soldiers themselves.

I think that the true criterion in determining on these matters is the interest of the country generallly, or the public, and the interest of the soldiers. It is our duty here to bring out the facts in both ways, in order that our colleagues may have them, and in order that the entire merits of the matter may be understood by the soldiers and by the public generally.

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I heard Mr. Miller, I believe it was, state yesterday what Canada and Australia had done for the discharged soldiers and sailors. Can you tell the committee what England and France and Italy and the other principal countries have done for their soldiers?

Mr. HALE. France is about the only one that I could give you the approximate figures on; and I think France has paid her soldiers something like $383 each.

Mr. HULL. In what way was that paid?

Mr. HALE. That was paid in money.

Mr. HULL. I was looking up the other day what purported to be a summing up of what France had done, and I did not see where she had done that.

Mr. HALE. I saw that just a day or two ago; but the amounts of money the other countries have given to their soldiers I am not prepared to state, unless I had the figures before me.

Mr. GREEN. What was the amount the witness stated that France gave her soldiers?

Mr. GARNER. $383.

Mr. LONGWORTH. I am very much surprised to learn that she gave such a sum as that; it might have been francs, instead of dollars. Mr. GARNER. I do not think France gave that much in money. The CHAIRMAN. In order to get the matter striaght in the record, I will say that the following is a statement of what the different countries give to their soldiers in the late war [reading]:

[From Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, March 1, 1920.]

France has made special appropriations for all officers above the rank of captain. From captain down to private the amount given depends upon the length of service and varies between $74.31 and $233.58 for each man.

Great Britain, likewise, has made provision for bonuses varying with the rank and length of service. A major general receives from $2,430 to $7,290, with smaller sums throughout the descending ranks till the sum set aside for a second lieutenant ranges from $310.43 to $1,215, and for a private from $24.30 to $82.62.

Canada give privates from $70 to $600 and major generals from $744 to $4,758. And the Australian bonuses run from $751.82, the maximum for major generals, to $32.81, the minimum for privates.

Ir will be seen that a uniform gift of $60 to each man is about as generous as the amount set aside by Great Britain and Canada for the privates. But it is much less than France has seen fit to give to privates who fought through the whole war and is only a little more than the sum given to those who served a year or less.

Mr. HULL. Is that given by Great Britain in the form of a bonus? The CHAIRMAN. Yes; that is in the form of a bonus.

Mr. RAINEY. What are you reading from?

The CHAIRMAN. The Philadelphia Evening Public Ledger, of March 2, 1920. I have also a statement here as to the Canadian law on the subject, and I will explain that more fully:

Canada gives privates from $70 to $600; that is to say, Canada gives from $70 to $420 to the men who did not serve overseas, dependent upon the length of their service, and from $100 to $600 to married men who served overseas; the other is for unmarried men. They give $600 for one year to married men who served one year or more overseas; that is a maximum of $600 and a minimum of $100 for them; and for the unmarried men the maximum is $420 and the minimum is $70.

Mr. HULL (interposing). Mr. Chairman, in order that there may be no difference of opinion or controversy about what the European

countries have done for their soldiers since the war, and that the exact facts may be on record, I would suggest, without questioning the correctness of those reports, that they be verified.

The CHAIRMAN. I have already, Mr. Hull, asked the English representatives and the French representatives as to the correctnesss of those statements; and if they are not correct, I will correct them in the record.

Mr. KITCHIN. It is possible that those figures given in that paper are referring to what is proposed in Parliament and not what has been enacted, just like certain amounts are proposed here.

Mr. GREEN. That figure as to the French can not be correct, unless it applies only to the officers; perhaps some general there is getting $383, or something like that.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a bonus: that is not a monthly or an annual pension; it is a lump sum.

Mr. LONGWORTH. England gave $400,000 or $500,000 to Sir Douglas Haig.

Mr. GARNER. Well, we have not worshipped our leaders to that extent yet.

Mr. HULL. Were there 4,000,000 or 5,000,000 soldiers, sailors, and marines regularly enlisted in the service during the war? I did not quite understand the statements on that point yesterday.

Mr. HALE. It was something over 4,000,000; four million and some odd thousands in the Army.

Mr. HULL. What proportion of the wealth of the United States would you estimate that those 4,000,000 soldiers and sailors and their families own?

Mr. HALE. That would be simply conjecture to attempt to answer that, because some of the men in the ranks were the sons of very wealthy men; all classes were in the service. It would be impossible to give an answer to that question, unless you figured up what each individual man was worth; and I would not attempt to make a conjecture.

Mr. HULL. I should assume that they own toward one-half of it. Mr. HALE. I could not agree as to that, in view of the fact that it would be simply a matter of speculation.

Mr. HULL. In view of the fact that you stated that they belonged to

Mr. HALE (interposing). All walks of life.

Mr. HULL. All walks of life-it has been suggested by some that, judging by the manner in which they adjusted the compensation, as it is termed by some, or bonus, as it is termed by others, that would be distributed, there would be three classes of soldiers, just as there are three classes of citizens generally, namely: One class who had ample property when they went in and when they came out and who would not specially need it; second, the class of persons who, by habit or nature, are not thrifty and do not keep anything long when they get it and who would soon dispose of it (which they would have a perfect right to do); and then third, the class of persons who had acquired the habit of saving and undertook to thrive by the practice of industry and good judgment, which class would use this sum given them in the wisest possible way, either to aid in finishing their education or to get a start in business.