Franklin D. Roosevelt

Statement on a Rider to a Defense Measure.

April 04, 1939

In signing the Bill for emergency National Defense in relation to the Air Service and the purchase of a large number of additional planes, it is necessary to call attention to a so-called rider which was added to the Bill but which has no relation whatsoever to the title or the purpose of the Bill.

This rider gives the same retirement and pension privileges to Reserve Officers and enlisted men who may become disabled while on temporary thirty day duty as is accorded to regular Officers and men of the Army. In other words, any civilian, under certain circumstances, would get the same disability retirement privileges as those whose whole time is in the Government service.

This question is, of course, open to full and adequate study, but it seems a pity that without this study this clause, which will cost the Government a large sum of money, has been tacked onto an emergency defense measure to which it has no relationship whatsoever.

Franklin D. Roosevelt, Statement on a Rider to a Defense Measure. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/209493

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