The CHAIRMAN. But that only applies to services outside of those where the law fixes the ratio.

Gen. SHARPE. That is not the way they understood it.
Lieut. BRETT. The act of June 3, 1916, says:

The total number of such officers shall approximately be equal to, but not exceed, except as hereinafter provided, seven for every one thousand of the total enlisted strength of the Regular Army authorized from time to time by law.

The CHAIRMAN. What is the exception?

Lieut. BRETT. "Provided, That if by reason of a reduction by law in the authorized enlisted strength of the Army aforesaid the total number of officers in the Medical Corps commissioned previously to such reduction shall for the time being exceed the equivalent of seven to one thousand of such reduced enlisted strength, no original appointment to commissioned rank in said corps shall be made until the total number of commissioned officers thereof shall have been reduced below the equivalent of seven to the thousand of the said reduced enlisted strength, nor thereafter so as to make the total number of commissioned officers thereof in excess of the equivalent of seven to the thousand of said reduced enlisted strength and no promotion shall be made above the grade of captain in said corps until the number of officers in the grade above that of captain to which the promotion is due shall have been reduced below the proportional number authorized for such grade on the basis of the reduced enlisted strength, nor thereafter so as to make the number of officers in such grade in excess of the proportional number authorized on the basis of said reduced enlisted strength."

The CHAIRMAN. Where is the exception which permits a greater number than 7 for each 1,000 men?

Lieut. BRETT. "Provided further, That when in time of war the Regular Army shall have been increased by virtue of the provisions of this or any other act the medical officers appointed to meet such increase shall be honorably discharged from the service of the United States when the reduction of the enlisted strength of the Army shall take place."

That seems to point to authority to increase it whenever the Regular Army is increased.

The CHAIRMAN. Where it is specifically restricted under the law you must find some authority to get a larger proportion.

Lieut. BRETT. The authority for the increase is here I am reading section 2 of the act of May 18

Provided, That the President is authorized to raise and maintain by voluntary enlistment or draft, as herein provided, special and technical troops as he may deem necessary and to embody them into organizations and to officer them as provided in the third paragraph of section one and section nine of this act. Organizations of the forces herein provided for, except the Regular Army and the divisions authorized in the seventh paragraph of section one, shall, as far as the interests of the service permit, be composed of men who come, and of officers who are appointed from, the same State or locality.

The CHAIRMAN. That is not any authority to increase the number of officers in proportion to the number of men where it is specifically restricted. This is not organizing technical troops.

Lieut. BRETT. You notice that said the Regular Army.

Capt. DALY. Under technical troops would come the ambulance companies and the hospital companies, all of which would have to be officered.

Lieut. BRETT. That act says the Regular Army. Paragraph 3 of section 1 of the act of May 18, 1917, says:

To raise by draft as herein provided, organize and equip an additional force of 500,000 enlisted men, or such part or parts thereof as he may at any time deem necessary, and to provide the necessary officers, line and staff, for said force, etc.

PAY OF NURSES (FEMALE).

(See p. 358.)

The CHAIRMAN. For female nurses you are asking, in addition to the $751,000 already appropriated, $8,742,938.

Gen. SHARPE. The Medical Department state that there was authorized for the fiscal year 230 nurses and their pay amounts to $160,000. Each division of 20,000 men would require at least general hospital with a personnel of 100 nurses, or one-half per cent. In addition, there would be required nurses for camp hospitals, hospital trains, hospital ships, and possibly ambulance stations, etc., which would probably bring up the number required to 7 per cent, which would allow for expansion. They then figure 7 per cent of 2,088.000 men as requiring 14,616 nurses less 230, or a total to be supplied of 14.386 nurses at $600 a year, making $8,630,600; foreign-service pay for 5.000 nurses at $120 a year, $600,000; one chief nurse to approximately 50 nurses, 287 at $360 a year, $102,960, or a total of $9,494,560. The CHAIRMAN. Are all the nurses who are taken into the service paid?

Gen. SHARPE. Yes, sir; all who are taken into the Army are paid. The CHAIRMAN. Are there any outside nurses?

Gen. SHARPE. I do not know about that. They have some from the Red Cross in some way or other.

The CHAIRMAN. Is the Red Cross supplying a large number of nurses and are they paid out of this appropriation?

Gen. SHARPE. Not out of our appropriation. These are the Regular Army nurses and not the Red Cross nurses.

The CHAIRMAN. How is it that when it was proposed to raise an Army of 1,000,000 men the amount of money required for nurses was said to be $751,000, and now when you start to figure on an army of 2.000,000 men the number of nurses and their compensation is jumped up to $8.742,000?

Lieut. BRETT. There was no particular number of nurses figured for the army of 1,000,000 men. It was just a lump sum put in arbitrarily without any information.

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, no; there were no arbitrary Agures submitted here, because we found out that they figured definitely on an organization needed for an army of 1.000.000 men for one year and for nurses they said they wanted $751,000. Now, when you propose an army of 2,000,000 men for a year you say you want $8,742.000. Of course, if you are not familiar with this part of it, we will take it up with the Medical Department.

Lieut. BRETT. When we got this appropriation of $591,622 we had no information from them of any kind. We just put in a lump sum of money.

The CHAIRMAN. My recollection is that complete estimates were prepared of what was required to maintain an army of 1,000,000 men in the field, with all its equipment and everything else, and in the details of that for nurses there was asked $751,000.

Lieut. BRETT. Yes, sir; the $160,000 which we had and then $591,622 that we put in here.

The CHAIRMAN. And you say that was mere guesswork?

Lieut. BRETT. Purely.

The CHAIRMAN. How was $591,622 guessed at?

Lieut. BRETT. I do not remember.

The CHAIRMAN. Did you prepare those estimates?

Lieut. BRETT. Yes, sir. It was done on Sunday and we did not have access to the figures we ordinarily would have.

The CHAIRMAN. That is a very bad situation if what you say is correct. The statement was made here that the department and the General Staff had carefully prepared estimates of the amount of money required.

Lieut BRETT. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. And you now say that this is an estimate which was just guessed at?

Lieut. BRETT. Yes, sir. You see we require so much for the support of the Army. Pay of the Army is a lump sum, and if we have too much in one place we can put it in another, and as long as we estimate for the money we want under pay of the Army we are not hampered in its disbursement.

The CHAIRMAN. But somebody must have decided on the number of nurses that would be needed.

Lieut. BRETT. They have now. We have now an authoritative statement from the Medical Department. The estimates were carefully prepared to see that there were no duplications and that everything asked for was required.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you mean to say, Lieutenant, that when the Medical Department prepared its estimates it did not furnish any information at all as to the number of nurses required?

Lieut. BRETT. As to the number of nurses, they furnished us no information on the first estimate whatever. They were not called upon.

The CHAIRMAN. Upon what basis did you guess at this amount of money?

Lieut. BRETT. Just took an arbitrary amount, inasmuch as the pay item is a lump sum.

The CHAIRMAN. You must have had some basis upon which you figured it.

Lieut. BRETT. No; I can not say I had a thing. There are some other items which you will come to later that are the same way-for instance, commutation of quarters and expense of courts-martial. We can not get any accurate information about that.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course you can not estimate that definitely, but you can figure on the number of nurses required.

Lieut. BRETT. If we had called on the Medical Department, they would probably have given us a figure of eight or nine thousand

nurses.

The CHAIRMAN. I do not want to know what they probably would have done. I want to know what actually was done and what information was furnished.

Lieut. BRETT. None whatever.

The CHAIRMAN. Has there been any change in policy now as to the method of obtaining nurses since the original estimates were submitted?

Lieut. BRETT. None.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know about that?

Lieut. BRETT. So far as I know there has been no change of policy. The CHAIRMAN. Did they submit any figures to you as to the number of nurses?

Gen. SHARPE. Yes, sir; the letter which I have just read.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you know whether, in addition to the number of nurses stated here to be needed, any additional nurses are furnished?

Lieut. BRETT. That I could not state. You mean by the Red Cross or any other organization?

The CHAIRMAN. All the base hospitals now being organized are being furnished with nurses through the Red Cross.

Lieut. BRETT. I do not think so, because two of the nurses of the Regular Army, as I understand it, were killed on that transport going in the first contingent. Those were Regular Army nurses. You see, as to that first estimate, I was summoned at 10 o'clock Sunday morning and told that the estimate must be in the hands of the Secretary of War by 9 o'clock Monday morning, and I do not know whether the Medical Department officers were down there or not, but I know we did not have time to get much information.

ESTIMATES BASED ON ARBITRARY FIGURES.

The CHAIRMAN. Now, are there any other estimates in here that are based upon arbitrary figures?

Lieut. BRETT. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Which ones?

Lieut. BRETT. Commutation of quarters, expenses of courts-martial, foreign-service pay of both officers and men, and the six months' gratuity for officers and enlisted men who die in active service, and a year's pay for those who die as aviators. That is purely guesswork. We have no means of arriving at the number that may be killed in that way.

The CHAIRMAN. In figuring the extra pay for foreign service you base that on a certain number of men engaged?

Lieut. BRETT. I just took it for granted that one-half of all the officers and enlisted men would be on foreign service for an average of one year. I just took the lump pay of the officers and took 10 per cent of one-half and then lumped the pay of the enlisted men and took 10 per cent of that, because they get 20 per cent. We have no means of getting at an accurate estimate of that.

JUDGE ADVOCATE GENERAL'S DEPARTMENT-PAY OF OFFICERS.

The CHAIRMAN. Judge Advocate General's Department: For pay of the officers in the Judge Advocate General's Department, $11,000. Lieut. BRETT. We have no information on that. That would pay about five men.

The CHAIRMAN. Five additional officers?

Lieut. BRETT. They do not have any officer whose pay is below $3,000, and it would only pay about four officers.

PAY OF RETIRED OFFICERS.

The CHAIRMAN. "Retired officers: For increased pay to retired officers on active duty, $400,000."

Lieut. BRETT. Practically every officer on the retired list who is able to do anything has been called to active duty and his pay restored. He gets one-fourth of his base pay and one-fourth of his service pay restored. I do not suppose that $400,000 is anywhere near sufficient for that purpose.

The CHAIRMAN. Is this based upon the men actually called in? Lieut. BRETT. No, sir. We have got 1.030 officers on the retired list, and I suppose at least 750 or 800 of those have been called.

The CHAIRMAN. You average up the pay of the men on the retired list and take a certain percentage of that?

Lieut. BRETT. For instance, we will take a major. A major's base pay is $3,000, and his maximum pay is $4.000. His base pay is $3,000, and he gets three-fourths of that when he is retired, which is $2,250. In other words, we have taken away $750, and we restore that and he gets one-fourth of his service pay, which is the difference between $3,000 and $4,000, or in other words $250, and we give that back to him, so that that would make just $1,000 for every major.

It is the same with the others. Take majors, lieutenant colonels, and colonels, and their maximum service pay is $1.000. In other words, it is $3,500 up to $4,500 and $4,000 up to $5,000. There was a provision put in the act of May 16, 1908, that whenever retired officers came into active duty they would get an increase of one-fourth of their peace pay, and that increases these officers $1.000 a year. A captain would get one-fourth of $2.400, which would be $600, and that, with his service pay, would be $960, and one-fourth of that is $240: $860 would be the total for a captain. This is not based on any particular number of officers, but is an arbitrary allowance. It is the policy to call every retired officer into active duty.

PAY OF RETIRED ENLISTED MEN.

The CHAIRMAN. For pay and allowances of retired enlisted men on active duty you estimate $50,000.

Lieut. BRETT. That is fixed in the same way.

The CHAIRMAN. How many enlisted men have you called in? Lieut. BRETT. I do not know, but a great many of them. We have about 4,300 enlisted men on the retired list, and every man that has any service left in him, especially if he has shown any ability as a noncommissioned officer, is called for active duty. The act of June 3