SURPLUS HOSPITAL SUPPLIES TRANSFERRED TO AMERICAN RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS.

MESSAGE

FROM

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,

TRANSMITTING

A LETTER FROM THE SECRETARY OF WAR SUBMITTING, PURSUANT TO LAW, A STATEMENT OF SURPLUS MEDICINES, SURGICAL AND HOSPITAL SUPPLIES TRANSFERRED TO AMERICAN RELIEF ORGANIZATIONS.

DECEMBER 27 (calendar day, DECEMBER 29), 1922.-Read; referred to the Committee on Appropriations and ordered to be printed.

To the Congress of the United States:

I transmit herewith for the information of the Congress a report by the Surgeon General of the Army showing the medicines, medical, surgical, and hospital supplies transferred to American relief organzations under the provisions of the act of Congress entitled "An act to authorize the President to transfer certain medical supplies for the relief of the distressed and famine-stricken people of Russia,' approved January 20, 1922.

THE WHITE HOUSE, December 28, 1922.

O

WARREN G. HARDING.

INCREASE OF PENSIONS.

MESSAGE

FROM

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES,

RETURNING

TO THE SENATE WITHOUT HIS APPROVAL SENATE BILL 3275, AN ACT GRANTING PENSIONS TO CERTAIN SOLDIERS, SAILORS, AND MARINES OF THE CIVIL AND MEXICAN WARS AND TO CERTAIN WIDOWS, ARMY NURSES, FORMER WIDOWS, MINOR CHILDREN, AND HELPLESS CHILDREN OF SAID SOLDIERS, SAILORS, AND MARINES, AND TO THE WIDOWS OF THE WAR OF 1812 AND TO CERTAIN INDIAN WAR VETERANS AND WIDOWS, AND TO CERTAIN MAIMED SOLDIERS, SAILORS, AND MARINES.

JANUARY 3, 1923.-Ordered to lie on the table and to be printed.

To the Senate:

I am returning herewith Senate 3275, an act granting pensions to certain soldiers, sailors, and marines of the Civil War, etc., without my approval.

If the act were limited to its provisions in behalf of the surviving participants in the Mexican and Civil Wars and widows of the War of missioner of Pensions estimates its additional cost to the Treasury to be about $108,000,000 annually, and I venture the prediction that with such a precedent established the ultimate pension outlay in the half century before us will exceed $50,000,000,000.

The act

makes no pretense of new consideration for the needy or dependent, no new generosity for the veteran wards of the Nation; it is an lessness for the Government's financial problems which is a disoutright bestowal upon the Government's pension roll, with a heedcouragement to every effort to reduce expenditure and thereby relieve the Federal burdens of taxation.

The more particular objection to this act, however, lies in its loose provision for pensioning widows. The existing law makes the widow of a Civil War veteran eligible to a pension if she married

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him prior to June 27, 1905. In other words, marriage within 40 years of the end of the Civil War gives a veteran's widow a good title to a pension. The act returned herewith extends the marriage period specifically to June 27, 1915, and provides that after that date any marriage or cohabitation for two years prior to a veteran's death shall make the widow the beneficiary of a pension at $50 per month for the remainder of her life. In view of the fact that this same bill makes provision for pensions for widows of the veterans of the War of 1812, the possible burden of this sweeping provision seems worthy of serious consideration. Frankly, I do not recognize any public obligation to pension women who now, nearly 60 years after the Civil War, became the wives of veterans of that war.

The Government has so many defenders to whom generous treatment is due that Congress will find it necessary to consider all phases of our obligations when making provision for any one group.

The compensation paid to the widows of World War veterans, those who shared the shock and sorrows of the conflict, amounts to $24 per month. It would be indefensible to insist on that limitation upon actual war widows, if we are to pay $600 per year to widows who marry veterans 60 years after the Civil War.

WARREN G. HARDING.

THE WHITE HOUSE, January 3, 1923.

(S. 3275. Sixty-seventh Congress of the United States of America; at the fourth session, begun and held at the city of Washington on Monday, the fourth day of December, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-two.]

An act granting pensions and increase of pensions to certain soldiers, sailors, and marines of the Civil and Merican Wars and to certain widows, Army nurses, former widows, minor children, and helpless children of said soldiers, sailors, and marines, and to widows of the War of 1812, and to certain Indian war veterans and widows, and to certain maimed soldiers, sailors, and marines."

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That any officer or enlisted man who served in the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps of the United States for ninety days or more during the Civil War, and was honorably discharged from such service, or regardless of length of service was discharged for a disability incurred in service and in line of duty, or whose name is now on the pension roll, including those thereon under any Act of Congress, public or private, and every person who served sixty days or more in the war with Mexico, or on the coasts or frontier thereof, or en route thereto during the war with that nation, and was honorably discharged therefrom, shall be paid a pension at the rate of $72 a month; payment to be made in accordance with the pension roll, without further application by the person entitled thereto.

SEC. 2. That the widow of any officer or enlisted man who served in the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps of the United States for ninety days or more during the Civil War, and was honorably discharged from such service, or regardless of length of service was discharged for a disability incurred in service and in line of duty, or who died in the service of a disability incurred in service and in line of duty, or who has heretofore been or may hereafter be granted a pension under any law, public or private, for service in the Civil War, such widow having been married to such soldier, sailor, or marine prior to the 27th day of June, 1915, or who if legally married after said date shall have subsequent to such marriage lived and cohabited with the soldier, sailor or marine for at least two years and continuing until his death, shall be paid a pension at the rate of $50 a month, and an additional pension of $6 a month for each child of the officer or enlisted man under the age of sixteen years, and in case of the death or remarriage of the widow leaving a child or children of such officer or enlisted man under the age of sixteen years, such pension shall be paid such child or children until the age of sixteen years: Provided, That in case a minor child is insane, idiotic, or otherwise mentally or physically helpless, the pension shall continue during the life of such child, or during the period of such disability: Provided further, That the additional pension herein granted to the widow on account of the child or children