Message to Congress on a Veterans' Rehabilitation Service.

To the Congress:

We are going to win this war but the winning will require the best efforts of every individual. Among those who are already making full contribution are those physically handicapped people who have been rehabilitated. Upwards of a million persons are now waiting for services of the type that only a fully developed rehabilitation program can give them. We know that there is nothing wrong with the spirit of these people, but without special assistance they may become a social as well as an economic liability. With an adequate program in their behalf they will become a national asset ready to serve in war industries, agriculture, and in other essential occupations.

In addition, the increasing participation of this Nation in the war is resulting in an increase in military casualties and will result in a greater increase. Because of the tremendous strides in medical science during the past two decades, a much larger proportion of these casualties will be non-fatal and will require rehabilitation service.

Our present provisions in this field are inadequate to meet this task. They need to be strengthened and standardized through the creation under the Federal Security Administrator of a Rehabilitation Service. Provisions should be made not only for persons now handicapped but also for persons disabled while members of the armed forces and for the increasing number of accident cases that are accompanying the rapid expansion of our war industries. In order to secure the most effective utilization of the capabilities of the physically handicapped it is important that a single Rehabilitation Service be established for both veterans and civilians.

Veterans, after receiving the benefits and services provided by the Veterans Administration would be certified to the Rehabilitation Service for vocational rehabilitation whenever this is indicated. While the present plan for Federal-State cooperation should be preserved in this field of training, where it has chiefly operated, the Rehabilitation Service should look after the other aspects of this problem and discharge what is plainly a Federal responsibility—the provision of service to all persons whose disability grows out of the conduct of the war.

Such legislation should permit the establishment of a program adequate to our present needs and should at the same time provide the experience and personnel which will be able to meet such additional burdens as the war may bring.