Rear Admiral SHOEMAKER. What is that? Mr. VINSON. Would it impair the efficiency of the Navy? Will it be detrimental to the Navy? Rear Admiral SHOEMAKER. I think it would. Mr. VINSON. To keep any officer in a particular class longer than seven years? Rear Admiral SHOEMAKER. In order to determine that you would have to find out how the elimination from the different grades worked out. You would have to make a new study of that feature. Mr. VINSON. I am not worried about that phase of it at all. All I want to know is if, in your judgment, as an admiral, it will impair the efficiency of the Navy for a lieutenant commander to stay a lieutenant commander longer than seven years? Mr. BRITTEN. How much longer than seven years? Rear Admiral SHOEMAKER. I think the duties of a lieutenant commander, which are very active and require a young man, would perhaps not be done as well by the older ones if you extended the period. Perhaps one year would not make very much difference. Mr. VINSON. Then the lieutenant commander who has been a lieutenant commander only two years is more efficient than a lieutenant commander who has served in that rank six years? Rear Admiral SHOEMAKER. Not as to the amount of knowledge he has but as to his physical condition. Mr. VINSON. But he has got to be examined all the time for his physical condition, has he not? Rear Admiral SHOEMAKER. Every year. Mr. VINSON. Therefore, if he is physically qualified, is the value of the service of a lieutenant commander impaired because he has been a lieutenant commander six years, and is he not as efficient as a lieutenant commander who has served in that capacity three years? Rear Admiral SHOEMAKER. After he has been a lieutenant commander for seven years, he is better fitted to do the duties of commander than he would be if you held him in his subordinate duties. Mr. VINSON. But after he has been a lieutenant commander seven years, he is just as well qualified to be a lieutenant commander another year as he is to be a commander, is he not? Rear Admiral SHOEMAKER. I do not know about the division of time. If you made it a matter of a few months, or a year, it would not make much difference. A lieutenant commander at 45 who has just finished his work as executive of a big ship might feel very much. fatigued if he had to do that for another year. He is better fitted to so that work at 46 or 44 than at 47 or 49. I want to say that in the old Navy, with officers who were watch officers at 42, 43, and 44 years of age, they were not nearly as efficient as the younger men who had the activity to get around. Mr. BRITTEN. Mr. Vinson, this seven-year period is a very equal division of the time in the various grades up to 64 years of age when they retire. Rear Admiral SHOEMAKER. I think Admiral Campbell's board can give you all the light you want on that seven-year period. Mr. VINSON. I want to know how it is going to break down this great establishment if a captain serves one or two years longer before he leaves the service? Mr. BRITTEN. This bill provides for that very thing. Mr. VINSON. If the bill provides for it, my contention is absolutely sound. All Rear Admiral SHOEMAKER. You say increase it one year. right. But if you increase it one year, why not increase it another year, and, if you increase it another year, why not still increase it further? You have to stop somewhere. Mr. VINSON. If it is permissible under the bill under certain conditions for him to serve seven years and have the department retain him three more years, then it is sound to keep him there longer. Mr. BRITTEN. Do not run away with that statement. It does that only to prevent the wholesale retirements in any one year. Mr. VINSON. Exactly. That is what I am trying to do right now, to keep the country from losing all these valuable officers. Mr. BRITTEN. We will meet here again on this bill at 10.30 o'clock, Friday morning. (Whereupon, at 11.50 o'clock a. m., an adjournment was taken until Friday morning, May 21, 1926, at 10.30 o'clock a. m.) о [No. 162] TO CORRECT THE NAVAL RECORD OF JOHN LEWIS BURNS (H. R. 9255) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON NAVAL AFFAIRS, Wednesday, March 2, 1927. The committee met at 10.30 o'clock, a. m., Hon. Thomas S. Butler (chairman) presiding. The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Tolley has requested a hearing on the bill (H. R. 9255) to correct the naval record of John Lewis Burns, the bill and the report of the Secretary of the Navy thereon being as follows: Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary of the Navy be, and he is hereby, authorized and directed to correct the naval record of the late John Lewis Burns, gunner, United States Navy, to show that his death on August 6, 1918, while attached to the United States ship North Carolina, was incurred in line of duty and was not due to his own misconduct. TO CORRECT THE NAVAL RECORD OF JOHN LEWIS BURNS 28550-1476:6 L DEPARTMENT OF THE NAVY, The CHAIRMAN COMMITTEE ON NAVAL AFFAIRS, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: Replying further to the committee's letter of February 13, 1926, inclosing the bill (H. R. 9255) to correct the naval record of John Lewis Burns and requesting the views and recommendations of the Navy Department thereon, I have the honor to advise you as follows: The records of the Navy Department show that John Lewis Burns was temporarily appointed a gunner (ordnance) from September 24, 1917; served continuously on active duty until August 6, 1918, when he was admitted to the naval hospital, Portsmouth, N. H., and died the same day. The report of Gunner John Lewis Burns's death is as follows: "Died, naval hospital, Portsmouth, N. H., August 6, 1918, at 6 a. m., while attached to naval hospital, Portsmouth, N. H. Diagnosis: Wound (gunshot), skull. Origin not in line of duty. Disability: Result of own misconduct. Facts are as follows: "At about 4.45 a. m., August 6, 1918, on board the U. S. S. North Carolina, the deceased shot himself with a Colt service automatic pistol of .45 caliber. The bullet entered the skull at about the center of the right parietal bone, passed through the brain, and emerged through the left parietal bone, superior and posterior to its center. The wounds were packed with gauze and he was transferred to the naval hospital, and admitted at 5.15 a. m., unconscious, almost pulseless, and the hemorrhage was profuse. Attempts to control the hemorrhage were unsuccessful and stimulation, artificial respiration, and the administration of normal salt solution produced little, if any, effect; he died at 6 a. m." An award of disability compensation was made to the father of John Lewis Burns as dependent parent, effective from the date of death, and payments were made thereunder until December, 1924. The award was then discontinued for the reason that it was found that the veteran's death was the result of his own 20038-27-No. 162 (867) willful misconduct (suicide). To resume payments of compensation in this case would involve a retroactive cost of approximately $300 and a monthly compensation payment of $20 during the continuance of the dependency of the father. The bill S. 3014, which is similar to H. R. 9255, was referred to the Bureau of the Budget with the above information as to cost and a statement to the effect that the Navy Department contemplated making an unfavorable recommendation on the bill, and under date of April 3, 1926, the Navy Department was advised that this report would not be in conflict with the financial program of the President. In view of the foregoing and for the further reasons that this proposed legislation is individual in character and is not for the general good of the naval service, the Navy Department recommends that the bill H. R. 9255 be not enacted. Sincerely yours, CURTIS D. WILBUR, STATEMENT OF HON. HAROLD S. TOLLEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK Mr. TOLLEY. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee, under date of March 2, 1927, I addressed the following communication to the chairman of this committee: CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, Hon. THOMAS S. BUTLER Chairman Committee on Naval Affairs, House of Representatives, Washington, D. C. MY DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: This is not a case of attempting to remove a stain of dishonorable discharge after one or two years of service in order that a pensionable status may be obtained. Instead, this is a case of a gunner who had served 14 years in the Navy when a board of inquiry held that his death was "suicide not in line of duty, and due to his own misconduct." From such a decision Congress is the only appellate court It is the purpose of this bill to change the record in accordance with the present practice of the Navy and with the dictates of humanity. Even though it were not now the policy of the Navy to hold suicide in active service as "in line of duty" the facts alone in this case would justify a change of record. All the evidence as to whether this was suicide, accidental death, or murder was circumstantial. No evidence of misconduct was found. No reason for suicide was advanced. After 14 years of good service, would it not be more reasonable to assume that in a period of mental depression caused by his service Gunner Burns took his own life, or that his death was entirely accidental? To maintain that it was due to his own misconduct is to convict him of crime without any presentation of evidence. H. R. 9255 will entitle the dependent and aged father to $20 per month compensation which was granted during the period that the Veterans' Bureau considered the death of his sailor son to have been in line of duty. It has been introduced because I believe this change of record will correct an injustice done to the memory of a faithful sailor. Respectfully yours, HAROLD S. TOLLEY. The CHAIRMAN. The report of the department shows that the death of this man, Gunner John Lewis Burns, did not occur in the line of duty, but that it was the result of his own misconduct. In other words, it appears from the report that he committed suicide, and now it is up to us to find out whether or not he was insane at the time. It appears that this man committed suicide, and Mr. Tolley's bill would require us to say that it occurred in line of duty. |