Maj. WILSON. The development of the National Guard can not be foreseen as to details.

EQUIPMENT AND SUPPLIES.

(See p. 535.)

Mr. ANTHONY. In speaking of the appropriation, of $5,500,000 for the purchase of supplies which can not be furnished from the service reserve of the Army, which is greatly in excess in value of the articles for which a charge is made, you are getting supplies from the service reserve in connection with those you purchase?

Maj. WILSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. ANTHONY. You find that you have to furnish a great many supplies for the guard that you can not obtain from the service reserve?

Maj. WILSON. We are getting the supplies for the National Guard, but I would not say up to date just how much is from the Army

reserve.

Mr. ANTHONY. Is there any danger that we are shipping supplies out to the National Guard simply to get rid of taking care of them? Maj. WILSON. No, sir. We are only shipping in accordance with the requirements, not to assist in any storage problem which the War Department may have.

Mr. ANTHONY. Has the War, Department ample storage for its supplies?

Maj. WILSON. I can not answer that question. That is under another bureau. I judge they have.

Mr. ANTHONY. You are sure that you are not shipping any out to get rid of the responsibility?

Maj. WILSON. Not so far as our bureau is concerned. Our bureau, is very much embarrassed because of the large quantity of requisitions now in the hands of the supply services, which they can not ship and for which equipment the States are clamoring, and unless Congress sees fit to remedy this situation we must do one of two things we must stop recognizing the new units or continue to recognize them and say that we can not give them the equipment.

POLICY WITH REFERENCE TO NATIONAL GUARD.

Mr. ANTHONY. The whole thing brings up the question of what policy should be adopted with reference to the National Guard. When we held the hearings last year the members of the committee gave intimation to the representatives of the War Department that it was our desire that they should organize and equip those units of the National Guard that could be handled most economically. Maj. WILSON. Yes, sir.

Mr. ANTHONY. In other words, to enlarge or expand along the most economical line instead of the most expensive. Instead of that the War Department has proceeded to recognize units of the National Guard that require this great amount of material and to spend large sums of money for transportation.

Maj. WILSON. Yes, sir."

Mr. ANTHONY. It is a matter of policy as I see it.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 1921.

NATIONAL HOME FOR DISABLED VOLUNTEER

SOLDIERS.

STATEMENTS OF GEN. GEORGE H. WOOD, PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD, AND COL. C. W. WADSWORTH, GENERAL TREASURER, NATIONAL HOME FOR DISABLED VOLUNTEER SOLDIERS.

The CHAIRMAN. For support of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, Southern Branch, Hampton, Va., current expenses, $8,000.

GENERAL STATEMENT.

Gen. Woop. Mr. Madden, I think I can make a very general statement covering this matter before we start on the individual items. This year our deficiency is confined to the Southern Branch for the reason that the Southern Branch we are not hospitalizing beneficiaries of War Risk Insurance to a sufficient extent to justify using any of the funds turned over to us by the War Risk for maintenance of beneficiaries of War Risk Insurance. Therefore, we find to-day that last year when we had the honor of coming before your committee, we asked for the Southern Branch a total of $655,000, and after discussion by the committee they gave us $543,000, or $112,000 less than we asked for. Our deficiency is $106,000, so; apparently, our original guess was very, very close.

Our deficiency is less than what we estimated last year it would take us to run the Southern Branch. In that connection I would like to make one further statement, and that is that last year we were obliged to rather estimate on the Southern Branch, because it was taken over by the Army during the period of the war and had only been turned back to us a few months before we came before Congress asking for our appropriations. In addition to that fact, the home was used during the war by the Army and in the latter part of its use was changed into a neuropsychiatric or mental-disease hospital. We have always had a great deal of trouble in the last few years in various branch homes in taking care of the hundreds of cases of senile dementia which have developed among our older men, and having this branch turned over to us, and having just been prepared for that kind of work, we have moved to the Southern Branch so we could properly take care of them, probably 400 cases of senile dementia. That has very materially increased our hospital load there, because they are practically all hospital patients. It has increased our subsistence cost and also increased our hospital expense materially and accounts for a good part of the deficiency. I might say that the result of the change has been a wonderful thing. We are able to take care of those hundreds of old men running from 75 to 90 years of age in the way they should be taken care of, which we could not do when we had to put them off in a corner at the separate homes. We now have enough to make it a group, and we are taking care there of 400 men in practically an insane asylum.

The CHAIRMAN. That is all being done at the Southern Branch? Gen. WOOD. Yes, sir; we have made that practically the insane asylum for 500 Civil War soldiers.

The CHAIRMAN. And that is at Hampton, Va.?

Gen. WOOD. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the capacity of that home?
Gen. WOOD. About 2,000.

SENILE DEMENTIA PATIENTS.

The CHAIRMAN. Are you maintaining others besides those cases? Gen. WOOD. Yes, sir; that is simply one department. We have set aside certain barracks for the senile dementia cases.

The CHAIRMAN. And that causes an additional expense which you did not have before?

Gen. WOOD. Yes; because they require more doctors and more nurses and attendants.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the per capita cost for the maintenance of that class of patients?

Col. WADSWORTH. We have never kept the cost of that class separate and apart. This has been our first experiment in bringing them together. Heretofore they have been handled as an incident to each home, but our per capita cost at the Southern Branch for this yearThe CHAIRMAN. Including this service?

Col. WADSWORTH. Including this service and all it is going to be a little under $500.

PER CAPITA COST FOR 1921.

Gen. Wood. The per capita cost for the fiscal year 1921 is $467.52, which makes a cost of about $1.30 or $1.40 a day.

The CHAIRMAN. Does that include the cost of these patients? Gen. WOOD. Yes; that includes everybody, and is the total cost. Mr. SISSON. Is that inclusive of overhead?

Gen. WOOD. That includes everything, clothing, and everything else.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that the figure included in the estimate for a deficiency?

Gen. WOOD. No, sir; that is for the fiscal year 1921; 1922 is probably about the same, although we have not that completed.

The CHAIRMAN. It will be about the same, including the maintenance of these 400 men you have referred to?

Gen. WOOD. Yes, sir; because that is largely included in the figures I have just given. We started our move in August, 1920.

Col. WADSWORTH. That is on a higher figure per capita and it will not go so high this year because our total expenditure there was over $700,000, due to certain repairs we had to make last year, while the total we are figuring on now is only $649,000, and the membership is about the same.

The CHAIRMAN. What are the comparative difficulties surrounding hospitalization of the men you have in the Southern Home and those who go into hospitalization under the Veterans' Bureau jurisdiction?

Gen. WOOD. That is a hard question to answer. At the central branch, where we have hospitalized a great many men in the last year from the World War, our per capita for the fiscal year 1921 will run about $1.20 a day.

The CHAIRMAN. Is that what you charge to the Veterans' Bureau? Gen. Woop. We have not made any charge of that kind to the Veterans' Bureau for the reason that during the fiscal year 1921 a large lump-sum appropriation was made to enable us to convert our former facilities into such facilities as were proper to take care of classes of patients like tuberculosis patients and that sort of thing, and in the fiscal year 1922 a lump sum was also allotted by the Veterans' Bureau, but in the fiscal year 1923 it is probable it will be more on a per capita basis than it has been before. Our present figuring with Col. Forbes is more on a per capita basis; but it makes it a very difficult thing where you have got a home like the Central Branch where you have, say, 1,700 veterans of the Civil, SpanishAmerican, and Philippine Wars and 500 to 600 war-risk beneficiaries, and where you have the same heating plant to heat both, and where we buy our subsistence in bulk to feed both; it makes it a very difficult thing to segregate, with this fact in mind, that the barracks population, where it exists in fair quantities, materially reduces the hospital cost.

The CHAIRMAN. But as distinguished between the cost of the barracks and the hospitalization cost is there no segregation of the cost? Col. WADSWORTH. Our appropriation, as you will note, is made under certain specific heads, beginning with current expenses, repairs, farm, and so on-seven distinct heads-and then clothing is one head for all the branches.

The CHAIRMAN. That is just for the care of the men in the home? Col. WADSWORTH. Well, hospital is one head of appropriation. Under these several heads our expenses run to the entire overhead charges covering all classes of patients. Our heating goes to all classes, our hospital goes to all classes, both those we are hospitalizing for the Veterans' Bureau and those who have regular membership in the home; consequently we have not been able, nor does it appear to be feasible, to get a line on separating the actual cost of one man from the other. We have figures on our total cost, and in all things our costs have brought that per capital down by reason of our domiciliary proposition being on a larger number. For instance, at Dayton we will be operating on the basis of 2,000 men in barracks and 1.000 men in hospitals, and going over to another place, like the Marion branch, we will be operating solely on the 1,000 men. all hospital patients.

The CHAIRMAN. And, of course, that will be a higher cost.

Col. WADSWORTH. There our per capita cost will run from $2.50 to $3 a day, while over at Dayton with the changed conditions we will cut under that.

LUMP-SUM APPROPRIATION FOR HOSPITALIZATION OF WORLD WAR

VETERANS.

The CHAIRMAN. The Veterans' Bureau, for the hospitalization of World War veterans allotted to your homes, makes you a lump-sum appropriation to cover the care of their men?

Gen. Woop. Exactly; and also an allotment in addition for alterations and additions to existing facilities.

The CHAIRMAN. They do that also?

Gen. Wood. That was done in both the fiscal years 1921 and 1922.

Col. WADSWORTH. The appropriation bill carried that provision. Mr. WOOD. How do you arrive at an approximation of whether the lump-sum appropriation is too much or too little for the specific purpose if you mix up the whole business?

Col. WADSWORTH. The question of whether we have arrived at too much or too little is all based on the estimate. Of course, when we started in it was entirely an estimate. We did not know to what extent we were going to be called upon as to numbers, and the allotment was made with the transfers from time to time, and only such amounts as we required were taken over.

The CHAIRMAN. You were made an allotment for each group? Col. WADSWORTH. No; they made us periodical allotments, but the periodical allotments were only asked for in accordance with our requirements.

The CHAIRMAN. Were the allotments made for the hospitalization of the men separately from the allotments made for construction work?

Col. WADSWORTH. It was not. There was just one allotment made. The CHAIRMAN. Are you required to make a detailed statement to the Veterans' Bureau of the uses to which the money is put? Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Have you made that statement?

Gen. WOOD. I have the statement right here for the fiscal year 1921, showing the amount expended by us for hospital expansion, alterations, and improvements at each one of the branch homes. which runs very differently, because at different homes we did different work. Our largest expense, I might say, was at the Marion Branch, which we converted, as you know, absolutely into a neuropsychiatric establishment, and where we were able to get 1,000 beds and 1,000 very good nervous beds, at a cost of about $1.000 a bed, which is one-third of what they usually estimate for that necessity. At the Mountain Branch, which we turned into a tuberculosis establishment, we got 1.000 beds at a cost of $560 a bed, which is also quite a low figure as hospital beds go.

PER CAPITA COST AT MARION AND JOHNSON CITY HOMES,

The CHAIRMAN. The Marion and Mountain Branches are solely hospital institutions?

Gen. WOOD. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. How does your per capita at those places compare with the Public Health Service costs in hospitals, if you know?

Col. WADSWORTH. We have not those exact figures, but we have been advised that we are very much under them.

The CHAIRMAN. Suppose you give us your figures.

Col. WADSWORTH. Our figures that we have there now do not show the true operation because we started in these two plants last year operating them as soldier homes. The Johnson City Home had a membership of probably 1,200 ordinary members. That was operated for one quarter under that character, and then those members were transferred away and we were almost out of operation for a period of two or three months when we began building up, and had only