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 is 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...." 1 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. Successive administrations of both political persuasions have, in recent years, held the line on expansion of national cemeteries, following the generally wise policy that direct cash subsidy to individuals provides the same effective result without saddling the government and the taxpayer with heavy capital investment and heavy future maintenance of investment. It is no accident that when the government set up the G.I. Bill of Rights on education, it did not create schools for veterans and their families, even though schools were far more sorely taxed for space than cemeteries. Such a solution would have been preposterous. Yet, we are faced with a parallel situation in regard to the creation of cemeteries. The only thing different is that we had a precedent for cemeteries for veterans, whereas we did not have one for schools for veterans. Were it not for that precedent, borne of another age for the needs of that age, establishment of veteran cemeteries would be recognized as being as financially preposterous as veteran schools. Take the example of housing. No legislators, to my knowledge, indicated that veterans who fought together also have a driving urge to live together. The various housing benefits for veterans were also on a direct individual basis which permitted the veteran to live where he chose. And for that rare breed of citizensoldier who may not have had his fill of communal living in service, I do not recall that the government went so far as to provide him with a Veteran City. What is the driving necessity to provide in death what has not been necessary to provide in life? I am not speaking of the career military man. He has a perfect right to seek an honored place in death, closely related in every way to the nature of his life. Nor am I speaking of any man or woman whose life was cut short by its sacrifice in the service of their country. It is a cruel fame but it is still a fame and one their families might reasonably wish to honor in a cemetery specifically designated for that purpose. However, a death under these circumstances has just as much reason to be honored in the individuals own community with burial among his family and friends. For these situations we should have an Arlington Cemetery, and such a facility may reasonably have to be expanded because the need it meets is a reasonable one. I am speaking of the great mass of us—the millions of us who are citizen soldiers, not by our choice, not by our preference, but out of the necessity of contributing to the welfare of our country. Undoubtedly, we all were shaped to some extent by our service but we do not bear some indelible mark that sets us off from the rest of the world as some sort of secret society. We did what had to be done with varying degrees of enthusiasm and good will, and then we returned to our families and our particular and various ways of life. Our soldiering experience carved out an unforgettable niche in our lives but still only a niche when measured over the whole span of a man's life. We identify with each other not by whether we were veterans but by the jobs we hold, the beliefs we practice, the families we raise, and the communities in which we live. When we die, I think most of us hope that we will be remembered for our part in these things rather than for a murky memory out of the past. American institutions may not be perfect but in general they are more than adequate to serve the needs of society. Our schools, our housing, our cemeteries can be better, but they are far, far removed from being so inadequate as to demand a duplication of facilities for a special group whose claim to special treatment is even doubtful in their own minds. Figures change and unfortunately usually go up, but right now it costs a minimum of $10,000 an acre to develop a cemetery, and $1,000 an acre per year to maintain it adequately thereafter. One 200 acre cemetery, therefore, costs a million dollars to take care of in a five year period. And proliferation of national cemeteries once begun has no reasonable end except financial prudence and that is the very reason why it should not be begun. If a regional national cemeterywithout tradition and without historic significance is 100 mile away, it might as well be 1,000 miles away for all the impact it will have on the great mass of eligible users. People will continue to be buried among those with whom they lived and worked, but they will still be paying for the upkeep of these national garden spots. They will sit in pristine beauty with a surge of interest only in times of national tragedy. They will, of course, be used to some extent but chiefly by the local residents in the immediate area who may qualify for them, for after all, they are not unattractive cemeteries. The result would simply be that what was created for a national need ends up becoming, for all practical purposes, a local cemetery where most of the population will have a right to be buried. And soon city B wants a similar cemetery because after all, one hundred miles is a long way to go. And so the government enters the cemetery business, on a greater and greater basis. I have no doubts that the government can administer cemeteries effectively. They can do most things effectively when they put their minds to it, the calumnies of the business world notwithstanding. The points, why? There is an old principle the principle of subsidiarity-that says in effect, don't do anything that someone else can do just as well, particularly if they are further down the line than you, and particularly if they can do it less expensively. The prospect of a growing number of national cemeteries makes mincemeat of this sound legislative philosophy. The soundest, most practical, and least expensive approach to the question of veteran burials is the direct cash subsidy for whatever services are deemed proper for the veteran to have. It also has historical validity in terms of its effectiveness in other veteran benefit situations. It would be far preferable to increase, modify, improve, or dress up this approach even if emotion rather than logic is the guide-rather than embark on a commitment to start new cemeteries. An unwise, hastily conceived appropriation can be re-studied and revamped in a more judicious climate. A new cemetery on the other hand is with you always. Mr. DORN. Without objection, correspondence furnished to the subcommittee by the Honorable John Saylor, who is a member of the committee but unable to be here today because of pressing business in another committee, will be included in the record of hearings at this point. (The material referred to follows:) CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Washington, D.C., March 5, 1968. DEAR FRIEND: I am forwarding the attached to you in this manner because it relates to a subject in which you are interested and is the most expeditious means of transmittal. With every good wish, Sincerely, JOHN P. SAYLOR, DEAN W. CLINE FUNERAL HOME, REPRESENTATIVE JOHN P, SAYLOR, Congress of the United States, MY DEAR REPRESENTATIVE SAYLOR: Realizing how late I am with this information for you, I am still submitting a sample billing of charges that could appear on a statement from my funeral home should the next of kin so need or desire these services. Removal from airport or train depot to Leechburg--- Funeral services for serviceman $35 Cemetery grave space (if not previously purchased by family) (one grave space with perpetual care-$125 to $175). 175 Cemetery grave opening with tent service- 110 Outside vault (priced from $130, $195, $195 to $295) 195 Newspaper notices (price varies with each newspaper). 35 Phone calls (family is charged for all long-distance calls). 10 Hearse to cemetery from funeral home (local). 30 Flower car and minister car_ 20 Gratuities where required and often demanded (approximately) – 15 Memorial folder of prayer cards and printing; register book, completed, and acknowledgement cards---- 30 Use of funeral home, personnel services and professional services of Dean 450 Probable total amount_ 92-497-68- -5 1, 105 |