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The act is noteworthy in providing for medical care. The bill grants "such reasonable governmental medical, surgical, and hospital services, and such supplies, including artificial limbs, trusses, and similar appliances as the director may determine to be useful and reasonably necessary." The fact that there is neither a time nor a money limit to the amount of medical aid that can be given marks this act as one of the few compensation laws that have recognized the necessity of medical care. (23)

The most important contribution which the act makes to the theory of workmen's compensation is provision for the rehabilitation and re-education of the disabled. It thus deals with a vital problem that has been almost universally neglected by compensation legislation. The disabled person needs, not only a money grant, but also training, so that his disability will be the slightest possible hindrance to his re-entering industry. (24) Social efficiency, as well as justice to the individual demands this. European efforts to care for war cripples (25) undoubtedly induced Judge Mack to include this provision in his bill.

(25) A vast amount of literature has accumulated around the re-education of the disabled. McMurtrie's "The War Cripple," Columbia University War Papers, Series 1, No. 17, gives a succinct statement of the problem. Perhaps the best source is the English periodical Returned to Life, edited by Lord Charnwood; the American Journal of Care for Cripples, of which Douglas C. McMurtrie is editor, also contains much valuable material. For a complete bibliography on this topic see McMurtrie, A Bibliography of the War Cripple. Publications of the Red Cross Institute for Crippled and Disabled Men, No. 4.

There are three ways by which the government puts pressure upon the disabled man to accept treatment -- one negative and the other two positive: (1) If he refuses training his compensation is suspended. (2) If he accepts training and improves his economic condition, his compensation is not cut down because of his assiduity. (3) If he is prevented from pursuing a gainful occupation while being trained, he is re-enlisted in the Army for this period. He therefore receives army pay and his family is entitled to the family allowances and allotments as before. (26)

The exact methods to be used in re-educating the disabled are left for future legislation. In the meantime the Surgeon General's department is making provision for beginning the work while the men are in service.

Several lamentable developments of pension administration have been guarded against by the law: (1) In order to receive compensation the man must obtain a certificate from government medical inspectors within a year from his withdrawal from service, stating that he is suffering from injury or disease likely to cause death or disability. If death or disability does primarily result from such injury or disease, compensation will be paid; otherwise not. This prevents the practice which has prevailed of old soldiers claiming compensation twenty and thirty years after the Civil War for injuries received in that war. (2) Claim for compensation must be made within five years after the cause of such compensation occurred. This has the further effect of preventing widows from filing claims as an afterthought. (3) A woman who marries a soldier later than ten years after he receives the injury from which he dies will not receive compensation from the government. The disgraceful spectacle of young women marrying old soldiers for their pensions will consequently be avoided.

Though Congress passed this bill with all its barriers against future pension legislation, it yet raised (by means of a "rider") all existing pensions to widows to $25.00 a month. That Congress intends to turn over a new leaf is therefore not clearly demonstrated.

IV. INSURANCE PROVISIONS

The most bitterly contested article of the bill was that providing government insurance. The reasons for including insurance provisions in the bill were two: first, the non-insurability of the risks by private companies; second, the forestalling of future attempts at service pensions. The war has created two varieties of non-insurability: (a) The practical impossibility of soldiers' securing insurance from private companies. Many companies refuse to write any policies; others have fixed prohibitively high premium rates. Few will issue policies for less than $50.00 annual payment on $1,000 of insurance; some placed the rate as high as $100.00 per $1,000. (b) Many men now in good health will come back from the war in such impaired condition that private companies will not then insure them. Yet they may not be so disabled as to come under the compensation provisions of the act. Government insurance is then necessary to protect them.