Out of the Horrors of War. Audra Jennings

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СКАЧАТЬ Handicapped Week, legislation that had been introduced by Representative Jerry Voorhis (D-CA) and Senator Richard B. Russell (D-GA), and to launch an investigation to gather information about the nation’s response to disability in order to develop “proper and feasible remedies” for the problems confronting disabled Americans and the nation. The national council suggested that such an investigation should result in legislation that “would render more effective service to the handicapped on a scale commensurate with the real size of the job, instead of the ‘piddling’ methods now generally observed.” Additionally, the AFPH demanded a Federal Bureau of Welfare for the Physically Handicapped, staffed as much as possible by disabled citizens, to serve the nation’s disabled population and greater services for people with disabilities in the Civil Service Commission and Employment Service. The AFPH called for “an all-out program of complete education, rehabilitation, including all essential medical care, and appliances, and placement in employment of the physically handicapped.” Finally, the AFPH’s national council staked a claim for the right of disabled individuals to shape their own destinies, arguing that government, at all levels, and private service providers should “afford the physically handicapped representation in all matters in which their interests are at stake.”⁸⁹

      While the NFB and AFPH’s concerns did little to shape the direction of federal efforts to expand rehabilitation, VA and veterans’ objections did prompt a rethinking. Initially, Barden had been working with the legislative counsel of the House of Representatives and the FSA drafting counsel. Given the disagreements between the FSA and the VA, the Bureau of the Budget brought in Outhwaite from the War Production Board and Dr. Floyd W. Reeves, a University of Chicago professor who held numerous federal positions during the Roosevelt administration, including a position with the National Resources Planning Board, to study the rehabilitation problem and work with attorneys from the FSA and the VA in drafting legislation. As Barden put it, the Bureau of the Budget “was not in line with me, and I was not in line with the Federal Security, and the veterans were not in line with anybody right at that particular time.” Barden’s third rehabilitation bill would be the “result of many, many conferences and the ideas of all being shaken down and worked out.”⁹⁰

      In January 1943, Barden and La Follette introduced new bills that left the VA administrator in control of veterans’ rehabilitation, in an attempt to address veterans’ criticisms. Still, the bills mandated that the VA “as far as practicable, utilize training provided under approved State plans”—essentially the VA would provide medical rehabilitation and assign veterans to rehabilitation training provided by states through the existing, civilian rehabilitation system.⁹¹

      The change did little to halt veterans’ protests. Senator Joel Clark (D-MO) argued the bill’s history had to be considered. In its initial form, he said, it “absolutely and boldly raped the Veterans’ Administration of any jurisdiction over veterans’ rehabilitation.” Clark’s use of the imagery of rape suggested both the gravity of veterans’ objections and their outrage at being stripped of their privileged identity as veterans and the powerlessness that being treated as ordinary citizens would entail. Given the bill’s initial stance on the VA’s role in rehabilitation, Clark maintained that he and other veterans “feared that if the two problems are linked together”—the need for veterans’ rehabilitation and an expanded civilian program—“there will be a repetition of such an attempt.”⁹²

      The DAV, the American Legion, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) all denounced the bill. Omar B. Ketchum, national legislative representative of the VFW, explained that his organization had no objection to civilians receiving rehabilitation, but that they were “unalterably opposed” to the idea that a single bill could address the needs of veterans and civilians. American Legion members flooded Congress with a wave of opposition letters. Senator Clark, himself a World War I veteran, complained that the bill tangled “the special rights of the veterans” with the question of the federal government’s obligation to civilians. For their part, Representative Barden and Senator La Follette argued that a program that addressed the needs of both civilians and veterans made sense given the vital link between military success and industrial production. The labor of disabled civilians, they maintained, would be necessary for victory, but this labor would be lost without an expanded rehabilitation program. Moreover, in a total war, the nation had to be ready to rehabilitate men and women injured on the battlefield and home front by enemy attack or on the production lines. Finally, they sold the new rehabilitation program as a cost-saving efficiency measure, reasoning that a single rehabilitation bill would reduce waste and duplication and save money. Efficiency, savings, and arguments that workers were as necessary to victory as soldiers, however, did not convince a Congress wary of any action that might be construed as threatening “the special rights of veterans.” In the end, La Follette and Barden removed the provisions for dealing with veterans’ rehabilitation from their bills. The House and the Senate passed a separate veteran rehabilitation bill in March, which the president quickly signed into law.⁹³

      When the House and the Senate returned to the issue of civilian rehabilitation, the question of veterans’ rights continued to impede progress. Barden and La Follette had removed the major provisions for veterans from the measure, but Barden sought to ensure their access to the civilian program in case they did not qualify for VA assistance, which would be the case for veterans with disabilities not certified as service-connected. He sought to compel states that accepted federal funds through the civilian program to cooperate with the VA if the agency wanted to use their services in rehabilitating veterans. Ketchum argued that veterans were being used “for sugar-coating purposes and to gain support of the bill by appearing to favor veterans.” He charged that the bill referenced veterans twice unnecessarily, once giving the program authority to work cooperatively with the VA to support veterans’ rehabilitation and again by opening the program to veterans with disabilities not connected to service-related injuries. As citizens, disabled veterans not eligible for services from the VA would be eligible for rehabilitation through the civilian program, whether they were referenced in the bill or not. Ketchum concluded if the sponsors wanted to serve veterans, they would give them preference in obtaining services. Short of that, he argued, they should not be mentioned at all. Representative William Jennings Miller (R-CT), a disabled World War I veteran, pointed out that state directors of the civilian program “would like by hook or by crook to bring under their control the training of disabled veterans” to make the task of securing state appropriations easier. After much debate and further evidence of the displeasure of veterans’ organizations, Barden yielded and removed veterans from the bill entirely.⁹⁴

      Aside from the jurisdictional controversy over veterans, several congressmen raised questions over states’ rights and on federal spending. In the 1940s, policymakers marshaled states’ rights arguments both to push back against the tremendous growth of the federal government under the New Deal and defend the South’s Jim Crow system. In the case of rehabilitation policy, both sides of the states’ rights coin mattered. In anticipation of states’ rights-based opposition to any federal expansion of disability policy, many supporters of the bill offered arguments that sought to distinguish the program from New Deal social policy and reassure states’ rights proponents. As Committee on Education members from both sides of the aisle argued for the bill on the floor of the House, Representative George Dondero (R-MI) noted that he, like Barden who chaired the committee, believed the measure was “a States’ rights bill.” Another committee member, Representative Charles Vursell (R-IL) argued, “When this bill came to us it had a good many ideas promulgated there that drifted away from the protection of the States. During some 30 days the 21 members of this committee attempted at all times to curb the power of the Government, not to extend bureaucracy but to retard its onward march in this country.” Vursell also claimed that the bill represented “legislation of economy,” in that it would position disabled people “to get off the financial back of the National Government,” a prospect that would have resonated with policymakers frustrated with New Deal state growth. Physician and committee member Walter Judd (R-MN) addressed concerns about extending aid programs and increasing national dependency, fears that shaped New Deal opposition. He distinguished rehabilitation, which would help disabled people “to acquire productive СКАЧАТЬ