Mr. BATES. The United States attorney?

Commissioner MASON. The United States attorney. And it would have to be prosecuted by the United States attorney.

Mr. BATES. You cannot bring a nonsupport case into your local district court?

Commissioner MASON. We have no local district court. We have municipal courts.

Mr. BATES. The municipal court. Is that true?

Commissioner MASON. Unless they have got children.

Mr. BATES. Mr. West, let me follow that question. If a wife wanted to take a nonsupport warrant out against her husband for nonsupport of her family to the municipal court, would the municipal court have a right to issue a warrant?

Mr. WEST. The juvenile court.

Mr. BATES. Call it the juvenile court. That is for the arrest of a man for nonsupport?

Mr. WEST. That is correct.

Mr. BATES. Where would it be tried?

Mr. WEST. In the juvenile court.

Mr. BATES. So that it is entirely a local matter?

Mr. WEST. Entirely a local matter unless he has left the jurisdiction, and in order to bring him back it is necessary that he be indicted in the District Court.

Mr. BATES. But that should not stop the local officials from exhausting their remedies.

Mr. WEST. No.

Commissioner MASON. They do what they can.

Mr. BATES. Apparently, you were under the impression that they had to have a warrant from the United States attorney.

Commissioner MASON. I say in the local cases there is no extraditable power. In the juvenile cases the juvenile court has jurisdiction.

Mr. BATES. But she can arrest him and have a warrant issued by the juvenile court?

Commissioner MASON. That is right.

Mr. BATES. Is that ever done in the District?
Commissioner MASON. Yes; very frequently.

Mr. BATES. I see. All right.

Commissioner MASON. But we have this situation: We have a segment of our population that comes under this, and it is a simple matter for them to move over to Alexandria or Arlington.

Mr. BATES. Yes; but then when he gets over to Arlington, Arlington is not going to take care of him.

Commissioner MASON. He does not stay long. He is down in Georgia, or Alabama, or the Carolinas.

Mr. BATES. Maybe he goes into Delaware.

Commissioner MASON. He does not go north very often.

The CHAIRMAN. We get a lot of them from some place.

Mr. BATES. I am sorry for the interruption. I did want to clear that point up.

Commissioner MASON. In the welfare we have jumped up over the previous expenditure in 1948. We are up to $11,771,300. Now, that

is due to increased loads, due to the fact that the system was starved for several years for want of help, lack of professional help, using mostly custodial force, and in the evolution of the welfare work they have gone from custodial to rehabilitation. It was a long time. For many, many years nothing but a custodial problem was considered, and now it is a rehabilitation.

School training, and all that goes with rehabilitation of a child or a semiadult, like a 16- or 17-year-old girl or boy.

The CHAIRMAN. This branch of service is asking for $3,000,000 out of $11,771,300; is that correct?

Commissioner MASON. I was going to come to that. Out of $11,771,300, there is a $3,000,000 excess for St. Elizabeths.

Mr. WILDING. The total for St. Elizabeths, 1948 estimated, was $6,200,000.

Commissioner MASON. $6,200,000.

The CHAIRMAN. You have increased your budget $3,000,000.
Commissioner MASON. Bill, have you got the figures?

The CHAIRMAN. Eight million in one case and eleven in the other?
Commissioner MASON. I have jumped from Health to Welfare.
The CHAIRMAN. Oh, I see.

Commissioner MASON. What were the figures for 1947 on Welfare? Mr. WILDING. Including the supplemental appropriation necessary for the pay increases, there was the St. Elizabeths Hospital, in excess of the estimate for 1948, inasmuch as the Department of Corrections, Mr. Mason, has now been put on a separate basis and is not included in the Welfare basis.

1947, the total estimates including appropriations already made for Public Welfare, $13,594,590.

For 1948, as you have indicated, $11,771,000.

Commissioner MASON. What were the Corrections?

Mr. WILDING. Corrections for 1948 are estimated at $2,564,000. That figure, or a relatively comparable figure to that, was included in 1947.

Commissioner MASON. But it was cut off from Welfare when we took Corrections away from them?

Mr. WILDING. Yes, sir; but in 1947 that is still included.

Commissioner MASON. It is an increase in Welfare of approximately $2,000,000 over 1947. That is what I am trying to get at. Mr. WILDING. Yes; that is quite true.

Commissioner MASON. That is due to the pay increases, expansion of the service to include the professional type instead of the custodial type, and to bring the budgets of the indigent families to a living condition.

Rent is the biggest item of the budget.

Mr. BATES. What percent of the patients at St. Elizabeths, would you say, are nonresidents, Mr. Commissioner?

Commissioner MASON. I think Mr. Wilding would have those figures.

Commissioner YOUNG. I guess he would have those figures.

Mr. BATES. I think you have already given some indication that it was around 50-50-something like that.

Commissioner MASON. No; I think the number of local residents and nonresidents whom we do

Mr. BATES. I mean permanent residents.

Commissioner MASON. In the case of the insane, there is a little different treatment of them by the States from which they come. They do take them back, and they pay for them, and we deport them, and take them back physically by conveyance and with attendants, and the States accept their responsibility in that respect.

The difficulty is, of course, this, Mr. Bates: That folks get here, we pick them up at the White House, pick them up at the Capitol, the Capitol Police pick them up, the White House Police pick them up, and our own police pick them up, and we cannot wait to ascertain where they come from or how they get here. We have got to get them off the street.

They come before a lunacy commission, and at the time the Commission takes them before the court they ascertain the exact residence status.

Then the court fixes the charges for those people.

So, in the meantime, we pay for them until we get them deported, and we pay for them at a rate fixed by the Federal Social Security and not by the District of Columbia.

The CHAIRMAN. You are not reimbursed for that?

Commissioner MASON. No, sir; there is no reimbursement. Is there, Mr. Wilding?

Mr. WILDING. Not for the expense of deportation or the conveyance of the insane to the other jurisdictions, where the other jurisdictions have agreed to take them.

Commissioner MASON. Or the maintenance of the men.

Mr. BATES. But I think someone testified in the hearing that there are a number of patients who are not local patients and who are permanent residents at St. Elizabeths whom no State will recognize. Commissioner MASON. That is true.

Mr. BATES. I understood you to say that about 50 percent of those are people whom no State recognizes, but who are not local-who are nonresidents.

Commissioner MASON. I think that is a little high.

Mr. WILDING. I do not know the percentage.

Commissioner MASON. I think we can get that from the Welfare Board and the Commission on Mental Health.

Mr. BATES. Put that in the record, will you, please? (The information above referred to is as follows:)

NOTE. It is estimated by the Commission on Mental Health that of the patients in St. Elizabeths Hospital paid for by the District, about 15 to 18 percent are not residents of the District, or their claims to residence barely meet the legal requirement of 1 year's residence here prior to commitment.

Commissioner MASON. The Department of Correction, as Mr. Wilding stated, has been divorced from the Welfare Board because it deals with adult criminals largely, and we have set up for that budget, $2,564,000 for 1948.

They worked on the balance of the Welfare budget for the fiscal year, at the time they were divorced, plus the deficiency appropriations,

which we secured from Congress. And, again, we were operating the jail and infirmary and the workhouse on the basis of the cheapest way we could. We had custodians, for instance. A lot of them could not even read or write.

We let out 13 on an examination to elevate the standards. Thirteen people were dropped who could not meet the simple requirement. Of the 13 only 3 were colored and the rest of them were white. It shows the type of custodians we employed.

Now, these other figures you have there, I have no other observation to make on them.

The library and the schools, of course you have had that, and it is here in much the same condition as these other institutions due to the starvation over many years.

Now, that it is not all attributable to Congress. That is attributable to the fact that we were slow in developing those systems and buildings, to bring them to what is now known as national standards.

On that question they affect the schools, the library, the health, and the hospitals.

The standards of operation of those institutions, as you gentlemen well know, having been executives in your own States, they raised those in the last 20 or 25 years all over the country.

The nurses, for instance, have all been by act of Congress, given a professional status under civil service. All of the standards of care of. patients have been raised.

They reduced the number of patients per nurse. The requirements for specialized services. Psychiatry.

There are 6,000 psychiatrists in the United States, approximately, and a demand for about 50,000. The country and the Nation goes through these evolutions, of course.

Mr. BATES. And every city, of course, does.

Commissioner MASON. Every city has the same problem.

Mr. BATES. I think practically every city in my State is faced with a tax-rate increase, according to the recent reports.

This gentleman who sits beside me here is a special adviser to the Governor on matters of taxation this year, through a special commission.

Every city in that State is facing a tax-rate increase this year from 50 cents to $1.50 a hundred.

Or we can describe it as $5 to $15 a thousand increase.

Every city in that State. That is what we are up against.

I do not know what the situation in Delaware is, but I think you will find that true in most industrial States,

Commissioner MASON. Well, our surveys indicate clearly that that is true all over the United States in every city and every small town. Mr. BATES. I said this morning rather flippantly that you have not seen anything in your problems here.

Commissioner MASON. Well, we think we have seen it. We are experiencing some phase of it, but we have not met it as boldly as some of you folks in Massachusetts and Delaware have done. We have not met it as boldly as New York.

Mr. BATES. I know, but the taxes are terrific everywhere.

Commissioner MASON. I am not speaking of taxes. I am speaking of the problem of bringing institutions up to standard.

I, for one, think they are all below standard, and think they should be brought up to standard. I do not think it is a smart thing to keep the nurses on their feet for 12 hours a day, taking care of 50 patients, when they should be taking care of three.

Mr. BATES. Will you proceed with anything further, Mr. Commissioner?

Commissioner MASON. I have nothing more to add.

Mr. BATES. This morning I asked you, Mr. Commissioner, about this utility tax. Have you had a chance to talk that over yet? Commissioner YOUNG. We are going to meet tomorrow, and we would like to be able to let you know on that.

I would like to say that this morning at the session, I think Senator Cain wanted to know a little bit more about the retirement of the police and firemen.

Mr. BATES. I inquired extensively about that myself.

Commissioner YOUNG. I sent for Dr. Reed. He is a busy man, and I wonder if you would mind having him testify next.

Mr. BATES. First of all, can you tell me what the retirement figures are, what they have increased, say, in the last 2 or 3 years, the retirement cost?

STATEMENT OF DR. JOHN A. REED, CHIEF, BOARD OF POLICE AND FIRE SURGEONS, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

Dr. REED. I do not have the cost, sir.

Mr. BATES. Retirement of police and firemen, what the expenditures were 2 years ago and now.

Mr. WILDING. In the fiscal years? I have that information here. For 1944, ended June 30, 1944, the amount expended for policemen's and firemen's relief, and that includes not only the payments to retired members but also costs of treating temporary injuries, and I do not have the break-down on that, but I will merely give the total amount expended for policemen's and firemen's relief as $1,532,388 in the fiscal year 1944.

Mr. BATES. Have you got 1946 there?

Mr. WILDING. Yes, sir.

Mr. BATES. That is all I want.

Mr. WILDING. Very good-1946, the actual expenditures were $1,792,190.

Mr. BATES. That is over a quarter million increase.

Most of it is for retirement pensions to retired firemen and policemen?

Mr. WILDING. Yes.

Mr. BATES. In a period of 2 years?

Mr. WILDING. However, Mr. Bates, would you not like to know for 1947 that it is $1,875,000, which has already been appropriated, and we have just had, and there is included in the first deficiency bill that is now pending before the Senate Committee on Appropriations, $560,000 additional.