of career enlisted personnel. By virtue of their dedicated service to our nation the vast majority of them are veterans several times over. Almost all who served in World War I were recalled to duty in World War II. Many of them have seen service during World War II, the Korean Conflict, the Cold War "incidents" of recent years and the present Vietnam Conflict. I can say with confidence that because of their close association with our nation throughout their adult years they have come to look upon the privilege of having eternal rest in a national cemetery as a natural and fitting close to their alloted time on this earth. Our Association can truly appreciate the complexity of the problem we are experiencing with national cemeteries. At our 40th National Convention last September in this City the delegates unanimously adopted the adamant, but flexible resolution, "The Fleet Reserve Association continue to support legislation which will assure the expansion and maintenance of a National Cemetery System." The United States has faced and resolved problems of greater magnitude in the past. Some of these great problems have been concerned with other nations and other peoples. The solutions to those problems resulted in untold benefits to these nations and foreign nationals. Can we do less for those who defended our nation's honor? We think not. The Fleet Reserve Association is confident that the Congress in its wisdom, and in cooperation with the Executive Branch of our Government, can resolve the problem of our national cemeteries. I believe one of the compelling areas in this matter is the point of jurisdiction of the national cemeteries. The National Cemetery System has grown like "Topsy." It is a loose conglomeration of Civil War burial grounds, Confederate Cemeteries, New Deal make-work projects, battlefield parks and monuments, and Government lots in private cemeteries. These, in turn, are administered by two governmental departments, one agency and two commissions. Surely, no business enterprise could be long sustained in such a manner. Why should not the Government reorganize and streamline this operation, eliminating duplication of endeavor, conflict of policies, considerable savings in administrative expenses, and assuring maximum benefits to all veterans. It would appear to us that one Government body which is fully equipped to administer a complete National Cemetery System is the Veterans Administration. The Veterans Administration has the unequaled reputation of providing the epitome of service at the most efficient cost to the taxpayer. This factor in conjunction with the fact that national cemeteries are the province of veterans makes the wisdom of such a decision obvious to all. This was one of our fourteen key proposals to the U.S. Veterans' Advisory Commission during our presentation to that body on July 26, 1967. In the matter of expanding the National Cemetery System, it is true such action calls for the expenditure of great sums of money. In the world of today, we find our nation in the role of the leader of the Free World. This role demands that we must provide not only for our future security, but for the security of those who desire to be a part of the Free World. We are spending billions of dollars annually in maintaining the Free World's security. This same action is swelling the rolls of our veterans. Is it not logical then that the costs of a National Cemetery System is also a part of the costs of keeping the Free World free? This statement may seem to some to be an over-simplification of the issue. However, we believe a clear step by step procedure will enable us to reach a beneficial and meaningful solution to the issue. The first step in this direction was taken by the House of Representatives on 20 October 1967 when it unanimously approved a change in its rules to give legislative jurisdiction of national cemeteries to this Committee. The second step is now being taken by you in these hearings. We believe the next step would be to initiate a study to formulate a new National Cemetery System which would be administered by the Veterans Administration, expanded under mutually agreed to provisions by the Federal and State governments providing the goal that President Johnson outlined in his message to the Congress on America's Servicemen and Veterans, on January 30, 1968 when he stated: "Every veteran who wants it-those who risked their lives at Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima, and the DMZ-should have the right to burial in a National cemetery situated reasonably close to his home. I have asked the Administrator of Veterans Affairs to make certain that the recommendations of the Commission include proposals to assure this right in a meaningful sense." In conclusion, you will note that we have refrained from elaborating on the need and justification of an improved and expanded National Cemetery System. We have endeavored to avoid the duplication of the statements of other organi zations appearing before this Committee. We wish to stress, however, that we concur wholeheartedly with their testimony on these two key points. Further, we feel that it is our Government's obligation to meet this need. We are aware of this Committee's concern and endeavors on behalf of our members in the past. Your actions prove that you are aware of the problem and will do all you can to effect and equitable solution. For this we sincerely thank you. My Shipmates are grateful to you for extending to us the opportunity to make our views on this subject known to you. The fact that this opportunity was extended to us gives us assurance that the future holds a National Cemetery System that is well coordinated, supervised and maintained equitably for all. Gentlemen, I thank you. Hon. OLIN E. TEAGUE, NATIONAL CATHOLIC CEMETERY CONFERENCE, Chairman, Committee on Veterans' Affairs, Washington, D.O. Plattsburgh, N.Y., March 22, 1968. DEAR CONGRESSMAN TEAGUE: I am deeply grateful for your invitation of March 8, 1968, offering me the opportunity to testify before your special subcommittee which will start hearings on all national cemetery questions. Within the next two days I will send to you and to each member of the committee a statement of policy of the National Catholic Cemetery Conference in regard to national cemeteries. This statement of policy will acquaint each member of your committee with the experience and resulting attitudes of Catholic cemetery administrators in many areas of our nation. The National Catholic Cemetery Conference has more than 1800 active members, who are residents of 143 Archdioceses and Dioceses throughout the United States. I would be very happy to appear in person to supplement this statement with more detailed information, if you consider it helpful for your decisions in reference to national cemetery policies. With renewed thanks for the courtesy you have extended to me by your invitation, I am. Sincerely yours, RT. REV. MSGR. ROBERT A. FARMER, President. HON. OLIN E. TEAGUE, NATIONAL CATHOLIC CEMETERY CONFERENCE, Chairman, Committee on Veterans' Affairs, DEAR CONGRESSMAN TEAGUE: I am happy to enclose the statement referred to in my letter of March 22nd. For their convenience I have sent a copy of this statement to each member of your subcommittee. If I can be of any service to you or the Committee by providing further information for use as you study the problems pertaining to national cemeteries, please feel free to call upon me. I would be very happy to relay to you in person by discussing the detailed information which our National Catholic Cemetery Conference has to offer to all who are concerned with the proper administration of our cemeteries. With kind personal regards and every best wish, I am Sincerely yours, Rt. Rev. Msgr. ROBERT A. FARMER, STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC CONFERENCE President.. OUR DEBT TO VETERANS THEIR WIDOWS-THEIR ORPHANS "Our government and our people have no greater obligation than to assure that those who have served their country and the cause of freedom will never be forgotten or neglected." Thus did President Johnson state the principle upon which our praiseworthy and traditional programs of assistance to veterans has been based. Surely all truly alert and grateful citizens will readily agree with the introductory remarks of the Report of the U.S. Veterans Advisory Committee on The Veterans Benefit System: "The contribution of the veteran to the building of this nation during its first two centuries makes clear how important the role of the veteran must and will be to the future existence and growth of our society . . . the security of this nation iş based on the commitment of those citizens who have served in the uniformed forces of our country." This same report further states: “As a return to veterans for their service, the nation has accepted some basic principles as fundamental commitments to the veteran population." The evolution of these principles began when America was an infant nation. The Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army, General George Washington, led the way when, on June 8, 1783, in a letter to the Governors of all the States he said in part: "It (benefits) was a part of their hire-it was the price of their blood and of your Independency, it is therefore more than a common debt, it is a debt of honour....” These concepts were strengthened when Abraham Lincoln in his Second Inaugural Address called to the nation-"to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan ** *.” In his message of January 30, 1968, President Johnson reiterated these commitments in the following words: “America holds some of its greatest honors for the men who have stood in its defense, and kept alive its freedoms. It shows its gratitude not only in the memorials which grace city parks and court house squares across the land-but more meaningfully in the programs which care for him and for his widow and for his orphan." Again the same Advisory Report states: "Military service in time of national stress constitutes the highest response to the obligations of citizenship and should continue to be the basis of a reciprocal obligation on the part of the nation and provide reasonable assistance to veterans commensurate with the greater sacrifices experienced by them." Thus have we stated our obligation of enduring gratitude to those who have served us in time of national need. OUR RECORD PRACTICAL PROGRAMS Over these many years we have not been satisfied with mere statements of highly grateful ideals. Our implementation of national policy has been at once generous and laudable in our enduring programs of veterans benefits. The best of these programs have avoided the baneful influence of faceless regimentation. Our most praiseworthy efforts have always striven to respect the person of the individual veteran. Such proper respect for the individual has been achieved most notably in our hospital care for the sick, especially those with service-connected disability; in our provisions for the education of our veterans in their personally chosen profession or business career, through the G.I. Bill of Rights; in our financing of homes for him through our "G.I. Loans” which respect his dignity by honoring his personal and individual preferences. In death, too, we have provided programs well designed to offer further aid "to the veteran, his widow and his orphan." Our several national cemeteries at home have provided places of interment to those who have given life itself, or many years of life, in a career of military service in our national defense. Such cemeteries in foreign lands have become national monuments for those whose last resting place is among the peoples for whom our men gave their life's blood. PROLIFERATION OF NATIONAL CEMETERIES Some have proposed an increase in the number of our national cemeteries as a further payment of our national debt of gratitude to the veteran. We respectfully state that expansion or proliferation of our national cemetery program will not constitute our best service to the veteran, his family, and our nation in this particular area of need. Convenience WE BASE OUR STATEMENT ON THESE SEVERAL FACTORS Veterans are, first of all, sons, brothers, husbands, fathers, members of a family who wish to remain united in death as in life. The prevalent selection of a family cemetery plot, near one's own community, however small, is evidence of a normal, innate desire to avoid separation among members of a family, even in death. Nation-wide records show that families frequently visit their family burial sites, especially on religious holy days and civic holidays. National cemeteries, situated at great distances from their homes, make such desirable visitation most inconvenient, and, in most cases, well nigh impossible. Doubtless, this is the reason why the greater number of our veterans have elected to forfeit their privilege of burial in a distant national cemetery. Even if we were to undertake the extravagantly expensive program of providing a national cemetery in each County of our land, we would not make their use a convenient one. Experience shows that, wherever possible, families choose burial sites within fifteen miles of their homes. Cost We are all cost-conscious in these days of mounting expenses. We respectfully submit that expansion and proliferation of our national cemetery program will impose needless and excessive expense for all taxpayers, including even the veteran who cannot conveniently choose such a cemetery for his interment. All veterans and all taxpayers must share the cost of national cemeteries, whether they use the privilege of interment therein or not. National cemeteries duplicate already existing community and religious cemetery facilities. Only a few veterans have been or will be benefited by an expanded national program. New national cemeteries will impose upon the taxpayers a perpetual burden. This in effect means for them that "Perpetual Care is a perpetual expense." This is not the case in a cemetery that is privately administered. Perpetual Care Funds in such cemeteries are not idle. They are invested in government bonds and reliable securities, contributing to rather than draining from the wealth of our nation. Doubtless our national cemeteries have been reverently administered. However, the cost to the taxpayer, in most cases, is needless because most veterans have habitually made other, more personal provisions for burial. Customs and convictions The guiding principle of the National Catholic Conference is: "Burial of the dead is one of the Corporal Works of Mercy." Burial of the dead is intimately associated with most fundamental religious customs and convictions of most of our citizens. Quite properly our places of interment are religiously sacred places. As such they are religious shrines, expressive of our belief in eternal life. In a national cemetery, a policy of exclusion must be observed as far as religious shrines are concerned. The veteran's family, may not therein select distinctively religious memorials. Those who desire such expressions of religious belief and practice must be denied the use of national cemeteries. OUR BEST CEMETERY SERVICE TO THE VETERAN-BURIAL ALLOTMENTS The soundest, most practical, and least expensive approach to the burial of a veteran-"his widow and his orphan"-is the direct cash subsidy for whatever cemetery services the veterans family may wish to have. The burial allowance to the veteran is the first and last cost to the taxpayers. The burial allotment is a financial aid to all veterans. It preserves proper respect for the veteran's personal interest in his local church, patriotic organization and his community. In these familiar, local surroundings he was raised, from here he left to serve his country. Here he returned to make his civilian home. Here he died. Here his children live. Here his veteran's grave is a personal community memorial of price of freedom, the exceptional service of valor which patriotism demands. The burial allotment is a graduated government expense. Eventually they will be paid in full and finally writen off completely. National cemeteries you have always with you. Burial allotments are one day phased out. Such allotments should be made in a manner that will not jeopardize any other death benefits which a veteran may have, either public or private. Wherefore, we respectfully submit that, in the matter of cemetery need, our nation can best serve the veteran and his family by a financial subsidy to assist in meeting the costs of interment. In this kind of aid we further acknowledge our obligation to recognize the special service our veterans have given to us. We do respect the desire of his family for unity, even in death. We do not compromise his desire for perpetual expression of his religious conviction. His freedom of choice is enhanced by such direct and personal aid. Most often, the veteran's family make the decision as to the place of burial. Most often they choose a site close by so that they can visit the grave conveniently. To provide such convenience, national cemeteries would have to be numerous as post offices! The veteran follows his family religious and social ties in burial. The burial allotment, made in a manner to suit individual needs and preferences, will respect his just desires. The burial allotment is at once the least expensive and the most personally expressive final token of our nation's acknowledgement to the veteran of the service he has given to God and Country. Respectfully submitted, Rt. Rev. Msgr. ROBERT A. FARMER, President. [From The Catholic Cemetery, May 1967] MORE NATIONAL CEMETERIES? (By John F. Philbin, Executive Director of the Major Roman Catholic Cemeteries of Chicago and Chairman of NCCC's Editorial Board) The greatest cost of war is people. Probably, the next greatest is the drain on national resources that could be used more productively for the positive benefit of society. However, there is some reasonable doubt about that, because very often the legacy of war can be more costly than the war itself. Any wartime condition tends to polarize thinking into extremes, and unless the legislator has unusual balance and unusual courage of convictions, he is driven either to one pole or another. As a result there is a historical danger of more bad policy and precedent being established in time of conflict than at other times. The staggering cost of veteran benefits is an indication of this, for most of these benefits-both good and bad-were spawned at periods of time closely related to conflict conditions. The danger is not in the benefits themselves but in the art of selectivity which often goes out the window when emotion suffocates reason. It is not difficult to think up new benefits for veterans; what is difficult is to measure the long term cost and worth of various benefits, particularly when one's patriotism is questioned if one is a bit dubious. There was a time when being a veteran placed one in a rather distinctive minority. Today however, vast numbers of Americans are either veterans or the direct beneficiaries-past, present or future of veteran benefits. This has some rather ironic overtones. Citizens groups exist on every level in government, normally and typically dedicated to fostering efficiency in government, controlled spending, tax reduction and similar laudable enterprises. However, in the powerful veterans' lobby we have unquestionably the largest citizens group in the country, seemingly dedicated to greater and greater expenditure of money. If this were still a minority group whose gains were at the expense of others in society, their approach, if not their motivation, would be sound. But veterans and their dependents, if they haven't reached it already, are fast becoming a majority. This leaves most of the people today in the position of taking in with one hand a variety of benefits they may or may not use; and paying out with the other for all of them, used or not. A notable example of this is the intermitent pressure for the expansion of national cemeteries, which pressure has of course increased with the current Viet Nam situation just as it did during the Korean War. It is an emotion-laden issue, with proposed legislation drawn on the principle that the exceptional grievance demands a general remedy-just the opposite of the normal and rational course which most legislation takes. Within this abnormal framework, it takes only one or two cases of a veteran who cannot be buried in a national cemetery to set off legislation to saddle millions with a permanent expense of mammoth proportions. |