Special Message to the Congress Transmitting Report on the Training of Veterans Under the Servicemen's Readjustment Act.

To the Congress of the United States:

In the Budget Message for 1951, I stated that there is some question whether some of the training being received by veterans under the Servicemen's Readjustment Act is conforming to the original sound objectives of the law. I also said that I had asked the Administrator of Veterans Affairs and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget to study this situation thoroughly and to recommend to me any corrective measures, administrative or legislative, which should be taken to assure that our expenditures for this program yield a proper return both to the veterans and to the Nation as a whole.

The contribution which the Servicemen's Readjustment Act has made to the postwar development of the Nation's most important resource--its young men and women--is very great. It is now approximately four years after general demobilization. During these four years the overwhelming proportion of all veterans have completed their readjustment or moved far in that direction. For the great majority of those who have made use of the education and training provisions of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, the law has been of real and lasting service. A great deal of fine education and training has been provided. The Nation will be better prepared to face the difficult problems of the future because of the improved education and skills provided to millions of its worthy and capable young men and women.

Because the law has contributed effectively to the successful transition of so many veterans, I am confident that veterans and nonveterans alike will wish to see that the record of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act shall not be blemished by the belated growth of certain kinds of trade and vocational training which do not contribute materially to the prompt and constructive readjustment of veterans. It was this conviction which led me to ask for a careful study of this aspect of the veterans' training program.

The Administrator of Veterans Affairs and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget have now reported to me. Their report makes it clear that the recent rapid increase in trade and vocational training has included training of less than acceptable quality. In a number of cases, veterans have not received instruction which meets reasonable standards. In a good many instances veterans have been trained for occupations for which they are not suited or for occupations in which they will be unable to find jobs when they finish their training.

It seems evident that each time a course of trade and vocational training does not contribute in a substantial way to the occupational readjustment of a veteran, it constitutes a failure of that portion of the program. Such failure is costly to the veteran, to his family, and to the Nation. While nothing that we may do can entirely eliminate such failures, I feel that steps can and should be taken to give greater assurance that every trade and vocational course under the Servicemen's Readjustment Act will provide good quality training and will in each instance help a veteran to complete his occupational readjustment and find satisfactory employment.

The report of the Administrator of Veterans Affairs and the Director of the Bureau of the Budget, which I transmit herewith, contains recommendations to achieve this purpose. I commend the report to the Congress. In the interest of veterans as individuals and in the interest of the Nation, I urge that the Congress take suitable action, as it has done previously with respect to other types of training, to assure that all trade and vocational training conforms with the original sound intent of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act.

HARRY S. TRUMAN