LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNING THE GRANTING OF

ARMY AND NAVY PENSIONS

TOGETHER WITH REGULATIONS RELATING THERETO.

CHAPTER I.

THE PENSION BUREAU; ITS OFFICERS AND EMPLOYEES; THEIR POWERS AND DUTIES.

Section 1. Secretary of the Interior.-(a) There shall be at the seat of government an executive department, to be known as the Department of the Interior, and a Secretary of the Interior, who shall be the head thereof.

(b) The Secretary of the Interior is charged with the supervision of public business relating to the following subjects: * Pensions and bounty lands.

*

Sec. 2. Departmental employees.--(a) Each head of a department is authorized to employ in his department such number of clerks of the several classes recognized by law, and such messengers, assistant messengers, copyists, watchmen, laborers, and other employees, and at such rates of compensation, respectively, as may be appropriated for by Congress from year to year.

Sec. 3. Commissioner of Pensions.-There shall be in the Department of the Interior a Commissioner of Pensions, who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. * * *

Sec. 4, Duties of the Commissioner.-The Commissioner of Pensions shall perform, under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior, such duties in the execution of the various pension and bounty-land laws as may be prescribed by the President.

Sec. 5. Deputy Commissioner.-There shall be in the Department of the Interior a Deputy Commissioner of Pensions who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and

Sec. 437, R. S.

Sec. 441, R. S.

Sec. 169, R. S.

Sec. 470, R. S.

Sec. 471, R. S.

Sec. 472, R. S.

Sec. 440, R. S.

Sec. 173, R. S.

Sec. 174, R. S.

Act Aug. 29, 1890, Vol. 26, p. 371.

Sec. 4776, R. S.

Sec. 1784, R. S.

Sec. 473, R. S.

consent of the Senate, who shall be charged with such duties in the Pension Bureau as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Interior or may be required by law; and in case of death, resignation, absence, or sickness of the Commissioner his duties shall devolve upon the Deputy Commissioner until a successor is appointed or such absence or sickness ceases. * * *

Sec. 6. Appointment and duties of the chief clerk.—There shall also be in the Department of the Interior: * * In the office of the Commissioner of Pensions: One chief clerk * * * Each chief clerk in the several departments and bureaus, and other offices connected with the departments, shall supervise, under the direction of his immediate superior, the duties of the other clerks therein, and see that they are faithfully performed.

Each chief clerk shall take care, from time to time, that the duties of the other clerks are distributed with equality and uniformity, according to the nature of the case. He shall revise such distribution from time to time for the purpose of correcting any tendency to undue accumulation or reduction of duties, whether arising from individual negligence or incapacity or from increase or diminution of particular kinds of business. And he shall report monthly to his superior officer any existing defect that he may be aware of in the arrangement or dispatch of business.

No officer, clerk, or employee of any executive department who is also a notary public or other officer authorized to administer oaths, shall charge or receive any fee or compensation for administering oaths of office to employees of such department required to be taken on appointment or promotion therein.

And the chief clerks of the several executive departments and of the various bureaus and offices thereof in Washington, District of Columbia, are hereby authorized and directed, on application and without compensation therefor, to administer oaths of office to employees required to be taken on their appointment or promotion.

Sec. 7. Appointment of medical referee. The Secretary of the Interior is authorized to appoint a duly qualified surgeon as medical referee, who, under the control and direction of the Commissioner of Pensions, shall have charge of the examination and revision of the reports of examining surgeons and such other duties touching medical and surgical questions in the Pension Office as the interests of the service may demand. * * *

Sec. 8. Presents to official superiors not to be made or received. No officer, clerk, or employee in the United States Government employ shall at any time solicit contributions from other officers, clerks, or employees in the Government service for a gift or present to those in a superior official position; nor shall any such officials or clerical superiors receive any gift or present offered or presented to them as a contribution from persons in Government employ receiving a less salary than themselves; nor shall any officer or clerk make any donation as a gift or present to any official superior. Every person who violates this section shall be summarily discharged from the Government employ.

Sec. 9. Clerk to sign commissioner's name.-The Commissioner of Pensions is authorized, with the approval of the Secre

tary of the Interior, to appoint a person to sign the name of the commissioner to certificates or warrants for bounty lands; and certificates or warrants so signed shall be as valid as if signed by the commissioner.

Act Aug. 8, 1882, amending

Sec. 10. Inspection of pension agencies and examining boards. The commissioner may, when in his judgment it shall sec. 4766, R. S., be deemed necessary or proper, visit in person, for the purpose of Vol. 22, p. 374. examination and inspection, or may send any one or more of the officers of his bureau for that purpose, any of the pension agencies or medical examining boards or surgeons; and the necessary and actual expenses of such visits shall be paid by the Secretary of the Interior, upon properly executed vouchers, out of the contingent fund of said bureau.

Note.-Pension agencies were abolished by act Aug. 17, 1912 (37 Stat. L. p. 312). See p. 94.

Sec. 11. Commissioner to furnish printed instructions and forms. The Commissioner of Pensions, on application being made to him in person or by letter by any claimant or applicant for pension, bounty land, or other allowance required by law to be adjusted or paid by the Pension Office, shall furnish such person, free of all expense, all such printed instructions and forms as may be necessary in establishing and obtaining such claim; and on the issuing of a certificate of pension or of a bounty-land warrant he shall forthwith notify the claimant or applicant, and also the agent or attorney in the case, if there be one, that such certificate has been issued or allowance made, and the date and amount thereof.

Sec. 4748, R. S.

Sec. 12. Expenses of certain employees to be reported to Con- Act May 22, gress. It shall be the duty of the head of each executive de- 1908, sec. 4, Vol. 35, p. 244. partment and other Government establishment at Washington to submit to Congress at the beginning of each regular session a statement showing in detail what officers or employees (other than special agents, inspectors, or employees, who in the discharge of their regular duties are required to constantly travel) of such executive department or other Government establishment have traveled on official business from Washington to points outside of the District of Columbia during the preceding fiscal year, giving in each case the full title of the official or employee, the destination or destinations of such travel, the business or work on account of which the same was made, and the total expense to the United States charged in each case.

Act June 22,

34, p. 449.

Sec. 13. Transfer only after three years' service.-It shall not be lawful hereafter for any clerk or other employee in the classi- 1906, sec. 5, Vol. fied service in any of the executive departments to be transferred from one department to another department until such clerk or other employee shall have served for a term of three years in the department from which he desires to be transferred.

Sec. 14. Limitation of transfers and promotions.-That sec- Act Oct. 6, tion five of the act of June twenty-second, nineteen hundred and 1917, sec. 6, Vol. 40, p. 383. six, prohibiting the transfer of employees from one executive department to another, shall apply with equal force and effect to the transfer of employees from executive departments to inde

Sec. 7.

pendent establishments and vice versa and to the transfer of employees from one independent establishment to another: Provided, That the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation shall be considered a Government establishment for the purposes of this section.

Act July 25,

That no civil employee in any of the executive departments or other Government establishments, or who has been employed therein within the period of one year next preceding his proposed employment in any other executive department or other Government establishment, shall be employed hereafter and paid from a lump-sum appropriation in any other executive department or other Government establishment at an increased rate of compensation. And no civil employee in any of the executive departments or other Government establishments or who has been employed therein within the period of one year next preceding his proposed employment in any other executive department or other Government establishment and who may be employed in another executive department or other Government establishment shall be granted an increase in compensation within the period of one year following such reemployment: Provided, That the United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation shall be considered a Government establishment for the purposes of this section: Provided further, That this section shall not be construed to repeal section five of the act of June twenty-second, nineteen hundred and six, which prohibits the transfer of employees from one department to another.

Note.-Section 10 of "The Classification Act of 1923," approved March 4, 1923, provides:

66

That, subject to such rules and regulations as the President may from time to time prescribe, and regardless of the department or independent establishment in which the position is located, an employee may be transferred from a position in one grade to a vacant position within the same grade at the same rate of compensation, or promoted to a vacant position in a higher grade at a higher rate of compensation, in accordance with civil service rules, any provision of existing statutes to the contrary notwithstanding: Provided, That nothing herein shall be construed to authorize or permit the transfer of an employee of the United States to a position under the municipal government of the District of Columbia, or an employee of the municipal government of the District of Columbia to a position under the United States."

Sec. 15. Detail of clerks to make special examinations.— 1882, amending SEC. 4744. The Commissioner of Pensions is authorized to detail sec. 4744, R. S., from time to time clerks or persons employed in his office to make Vol. 22, p. 175. special examinations into the merits of such pension or bounty land claims, whether pending or adjudicated, as he may deem proper, and to aid in the prosecution of any party appearing on such examinations to be guilty of fraud, either in the presentation or in procuring the allowance of such claims; and any person so detailed shall have power to administer oaths and take affidavits and depositions in the course of such examinations, and to orally examine witnesses, and may employ a stenographer,

ARMY AND NAVY PENSIONS.

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when deemed necessary by the Commissioner of Pensions, in important cases, such stenographer to be paid by such clerk or person, and the amount so paid to be allowed in his accounts.

1083.

Sec. 16. Powers and duties of special examiners.-That the Act Mar. 3, same power to administer oaths and take affidavits, which by 1891, Vol. 26, p. virtue of section forty-seven hundred and forty-four of the Revised Statutes is conferred upon clerks detailed by the Commissioner of Pensions from his office to investigate suspected attempts at fraud on the Government through and by virtue of the pension laws, and to aid in prosecuting any person so offending, shall be, and is hereby, extended to all special examiners or additional special examiners employed under authority of Congress to aid in the same purpose.

* * The reports of

Act May 28,

419.

Sec. 17. Reports open to inspection.-* the special examiners of the Bureau of Pensions shall be open to 1908, Vol. 35, p. inspection and copy by the applicant or his attorney, under such rules and regulations as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe.

sec. 183, R. S.,

Sec. 18. Authority of certain clerks to administer oaths.- Act Feb. 13, SEC. 183. Any officer or clerk of any of the departments lawfully 1911, amending detailed to investigate frauds on, or attempts to defraud, the Gov- Vol. 36, p. 898. ernment, or any irregularity or misconduct of any officer or agent of the United States, and any officer of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps or Revenue-Cutter Service, detailed to conduct an investigation, and the recorder, and if there be none the presiding officer, of any military, naval, or Revenue-Cutter Service board appointed for such purpose, shall have authority to administer an oath to any witness attending to testify or depose in the course of such investigation.

Sec. 19. Subpoenas for witnesses.-Any head of a department or bureau in which a claim against the United States is properly pending may apply to any judge or clerk of any court of the United States, in any State, District, or Territory, to issue a subpoena for a witness being within the jurisdiction of such court, to appear at a time and place in the subpoena stated, before any officer authorized to take depositions to be used in the courts of the United States, there to give full and true answers to such written interrogatories and cross-interrogatories as may be submitted with the application, or to be orally examined and crossexamined upon the subject of such claim.

Sec. 20. Compensation of witnesses.-Witnesses subpoenaed pursuant to the preceding section shall be allowed the same compensation as is allowed witnesses in the courts of the United States.

Sec. 21. Compelling testimony.-If any wtness, after being duly served with such subpoena, neglects or refuses to appear, or, appearing, refuses to testify, the judge of the district in which the subpoena issued may proceed, upon proper process, to enforce obedience to the subpoena, or to punish the disobedience, in like manner as any court of the United States may do in case of process of subpoena ad testificandum issued by such court.

Sec. 22. Professional assistance; how obtained.--Whenever any head of a department or bureau having made application pursuant to section one hundred and eighty-four, for a subpœna

Sec. 184, R. S.

Sec. 185, R. S.

Sec. 186, R. S.

Sec. 187, R. S.