Miss SMART. I would like to make a correction. The correct statement is that the Army estimates that it will be short 9,000 by

I still would feel, Mr. Chairman, that the suggestion of the Fenton amendment was a good one, because that provides for the draft following the efforts to get volunteer nurses, and I am pretty thoroughly convinced that you will have the volunteer nurses if you will follow out the suggestion of the Fenton amendment.

STATEMENT OF MRS. MABEL K. STAUPERS, EXECUTIVE SECRETARY OF NORTH EASTERN REGION OF NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COLORED GRADUATE NURSES (READ BY MISS CHARLOTTE K. MAY)

MARCH 21, 1945. To: The Honorable Elbert D. Thomas, chairman, Senate Military Affairs Committee.

From: Mabel K. Staupers, Registered Nurse; Executive Secretary, National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses.

We are concerned that bill H. R. 2277, which is now before your committee for hearings, retain the safeguards as passed by the House of Representatives. We are especially concerned that the amendment in the bill (p. 3, lines 9 to 12, inclusive) which states

"In the selection, induction, voluntary recruitment, and commissioning of nurses by the land and naval forces there shall be no discrimination by reason of race, creed, or color,"

be retained for the following reasons:

1. Negro nurses must meet the same qualifications of the States in which they are educated and employed, as white nurses. There are no separate standards for the education or registration of Negro nurses in the United States. (See enclosed fact sheet, p. 2, No. I.)

2. Retaining this amendment would strengthen the position of the officials of the War Department who are concerned with the assignment of Army personnel regardless of race or color.

3. This amendment would give assurance to all nurses that they would have the opportunity to serve their country with equal status.

4. The American Nurses Association in their testimony before the House requested such an amendment.

5. The National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses pointed out in their testimony before the House Military Affairs Committee that discriminatory practices exist and prevent full utilization of all qualified nursing personnel.

6. The National Nursing Council for War Service, ever since its establishment, has worked with the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses to abolish discriminatory practices which lessen the effectiveness of the Army Nurse Corps. A copy of this memorandum, together with a fact sheet, is being mailed to each member of your committee.

Sincerely yours,

MABEL K. STAUPERS, R. N.,
Executive Secretary.

STATEMENT OF ARTHUR J. WILL, DIRECTOR OF HOSPITALS, LOS ANGELES COUNTY, LOS ANGELES, CALIF.

Mr. WILL. I am the director of hospitals for the county of Los Angeles. We operate three principal tax-supported hospitals: One, the Los Angeles County General Hospital, which is for the care of the acutely ill; another, Olive View Sanatorium, for the care of the tuberculous; and another, the Rancho Los Amigos, for the care of the chronically ill. These 3 institutions provide care for approximately 8,000 bed patients.

We employ approximately 5,000 workers. Of these 5,000, there should be theoretically approximately 800 graduate nursing positions. This does not include the entire professional classification of nurses

but merely the working or general duty and the head nurse classification in each ward. Thus, contrary to the popular concept, hospital personnel is largely composed of nonprofessional help including dishwashers, laundry workers, kitchen help, janitors, clerical workers, and so forth. In fact, this latter group represents about 70 percent of all hospital personnel, and only 30 percent is composed of professional people including doctors, nurses, and technicians.

At the present time, of the 800 positions which would be normally required to operate these 3 hospitals only 360 are filled. These particular hospitals have led on the Pacific coast, and as nearly as I can gather, throughout the country in increasing the pay to graduate nurses both before and continuously since the beginning of the war. At the present time the level of salary paid to graduate nurses by these hospitals is in the top level of salaries for corresponding positions throughout the country. There is no difficulty apparent to me that would mitigate against the employment of nurses by our hospitals. Therefore, our inability to secure proper registered-nurse personnel seems to be due entirely to a lack of sufficient nurses willing to accept employment in the care of the sick.

I am not aware of the local situation in other communities in the country, but in Los Angeeles County the State nurse registry carries the names of 9,000 graduate nurses licensed to practice nursing in the State of California and resident within Los Angeles County. The same course indicates that only 4,500 are working in the practice of nursing; which clearly indicates that approximately 50 percent of all trained nurses in Los Angeles County are not engaged in the practice of nursing. Of the 50 percent working as nurses in doctors' offices, private-duty nursing, small industrial emergency hospitals, and in general hospitals, only 2,150 are actually working in hospitals. This represents less than 25 percent of the total number of nurses indicated as living in Los Angeles County and entitled to practice nursing. According to all available local figures, 63 percent of all the nurses who have gone into the armed forces have come from this small group of 2,150 working in hospitals. This is undoubtedly due to the ease with which nurse recruitment agencies can communicate with nurses within the hospitals as compared with nurses working in other more scattered localities.

It seems to me that it is vitally necessary to increase the number of trained nurses actively engaged in the practice of nursing. If this is done it will be entirely possible to staff the armed services with nurses of an age desirable to the armed forces and in reasonably good physical condition to withstand the rigors of the work. At the same time older nurses, who could not fulfill the physical requirements of the armed forces, could satisfactorily carry on the nursing work in civilian establishments. Thus, all essential nursing requirements would be more easily fulfilled.

It is apparent that the voluntary program of recruitment of nurses. has not only failed in its objective of providing sufficient nurses for the armed forces but has also greatly curtailed the number of nurses working in civilian hospitals. This curtailment has brought about extremely potentially dangerous conditions insofar as the patients are concerned and has unfortunately reduced considerably the efficiency of the cadet nurse teaching facilities in all hospitals maintaining a nursing school.

To draft nurses only for the armed forces would merely press an additional hardship on all civilian hospitals. The alternative might be the registration of all graduate nurses, regardless of age, to the end that many who are not now engaged in the practice of nursing could be drawn into civilian hospital work.

It is my earnest hope that this honorable body will, in its deliberations, give consideration not only to the needs of the armed forces but also to those of civilian hospitals, and I have presented the facts as they obtain in the county of Los Angeles to become a part of the information which you have secured and will consider. While this statement presents specifically the nursing problems of the taxsupported hospitals of the county of Los Angeles, I am the official representative of both the California and Western Hospital Associations, and the general statements made in this communication are applicable to most of the hospitals on the Pacific coast.

STATEMENT OF MRS.

AGNES

WATERS, REPRESENTING THE NATIONAL BLUE STAR MOTHERS OF AMERICA

(The following is a reproduction of the statement of Mrs. Waters before the House Committee on Military Affairs, February 14, 1945)

Mrs. WATERS. My name is Agnes Waters, and I live at 3267 N Street NW., Washington, D. C. I am the official representative of the National Blue Star Mothers of America and 100 other groups consisting of millions of American women, who are opposed to this draft bill. I have fought every step to war and every draft bill.

I oppose this bill on the ground that it is unconstitutional and is class legislation, penalizing and enslaving the most patriotic group of women in all the world, which is the American nurse, and it would set a precedent to draft all women and all civilians as labor slaves and destroy our Republic.

This would injure, rather than help, our war effort. I represent mothers all over this Nation, whose sons are in this war, some of whom are wounded and lying in hospitals, probably dying at this very moment, and who are most anxious that our boys be provided with the utmost care when sick or wounded.

But we do not feel that this bill to draft women nurses is the proper approach or solution in this terrible crisis.

We think the solution lies in opening the bottlenecks and cutting the red tape which exists under the Red Cross. Mr. Chairman, may I add that I went down to the Printcraft Building and to all buildings where the Red Cross is supposed to be processing applications made on a voluntary basis, and I found the confusion is so tremendous that it is terrible. They are short of clerks; they are even appealing wildly on streetcars to women to come down to help get out those applications, that they cannot handle, as their help is poorly paid or volunteers. I understand the processing of voluntary nurses is in the hands of the Red Cross. Now, this country has appropriated millions of dollars for our war effort, and certainly the most important thing we can do is look after the welfare of our wounded and sick. If this is to be left to a charitable or relief organization, I think the war effort has failed to a tremendous degree.

I think the Army should take it over, with some of the appropriations that Congress has made for that particular purpose. I am sure

you must have made appropriations for the care of our sick and wounded boys. Why should it be left to a charitable organization which collects pennies and dollars and handles it through a very incompetent and obsolete manner?

We think the recruiting of nurses on a voluntary basis has been neglected to a very large extent by the executive departments, leaving this all-important matter to a charitable agency such as the Red Cross, and I want to call your attention to the fact that in 1930 I demanded an investigation of the Red Cross, and Senator Walsh of Montana held that investigation in the Senate. I believe former Congressman LaGuardia at that time in the House, made the statement on the floor of Congress that the head of the Red Cross was paid $75,000 a year, that they had contributed over a million dollars for a building to hold social teas in, and they had $44,000,000 on deposit in banks, frozen assets, that they would not release at that time, when our people were dying and needed it. So they wanted an appropriation of $25,000,000, and you probably remember that. You remember the time LaGuardia came out of the closed hearings where John Barton Payne was being examined. I was behind that investigation, and I am thoroughly disgusted with the Red Cross, if that is the method they are using today, which was obsolete in 1930. They are behind the times a hundred years.

I suggest that these functions be brought up to date under voluntary methods by Government-financed programs under the Army. Certainly, our Army officers have a great stake and a great interest in providing our boys, and our soldiers, with the proper medical care. I believe you have a Surgeon General in the Army with an office and equipment ready and efficiently set up for that purpose. Why should it be delegated to the Red Cross, where bottlenecks are causing this crisis? Fourteen thousand applications in a month, from free women, and those free women must be penalized because the Red Cross is absolutely obsolete. Trying to handle 14,000 applications with poorly paid help. That is not fair to those people. There is no doubt that almost every girl who ever took her oath as a nurse has done so actuated by her childhood dreams of being of service to her country in time of war, and I do not think there is a woman who has a sweetheart, husband, relative, or son, who would not voluntarily go to his help today. Yet when they do volunteer they are held up by inefficient outmoded charitable racketeers handling the Government's business.

There is no doubt also that the story of Florence Nightingale has in some measures inspired and influenced their decisions to become nurses, and most of them stand ready and willing to serve our wounded boys as volunteers and wonder at the delay.

I want to tell you that I had information, when I went out to lunch, today from the Nurses' Association that over 25 percent of the nurses of this country have already volunteered in the Army, and the balance stand ready to volunteer further.

This bill would penalize and enslave women, because it sets a precedent for a national service act.

We stand ready and willing to serve our wounded boys as volunteers, but no one would want to be stigmatized as a slave under this enforced draft bill. That is contrary to our American Republic; contrary to everything. In fact, my grandfather fought a war, the Civil

War, and my granduncle also, who was colonel of the New York Volunteers, and raised his own regiment against slavery. I am dedicated, and I think every women is dedicated, against slavery of every form. That is why we are fighting the war, to stop slavery, supposedly.

The boys themselves would not want such slavery over their women as this bill provides. The bottleneck lies in the processing of applications by the Red Cross and this should be taken over by the Army, where 14,000 applications are delayed under Red Cross inefficiency. There are 20,000 Army nurses in this country, yet 11 hospital ships were sent across without nurses.

This bill, if passed, would set a precedent for total slavery. The hysteria of war is no reason for us to be stampeded like goats into relinquishing human rights that we have fought wars for, and died to preserve. We should stand firmly now against any and all propositions or bills or drafts that would overthrow our form of government, which is more precious to us than life itself, our Republic.

I am the widow of a veteran of the last world war. He was on eight fronts in France, and I am a mother of a soldier who volunteered for this war.

I do not question that some of the patriotism of the Red Cross and some of the women of the Red Cross, are wonderful, but they are absolutely incapable, inefficient, and obsolete. They cannot handle such a situation. They are inefficient, and they hire very incompetent, poorly paid clerks, if any at all.

If you gave the money to the recruiting of nurses, that you have given to the recruiting of WAC's, which has never been done, to be spent for propaganda to obtain nurses for the Army things would be quite different.

The fact was mentioned the other day that large signs saying, "Recruiting of WAC's" were being shown in New York, on the sides of tremendous busses. It seems to me that it might be a good idea to do that for the nurses. There has never been any money spent to save our women from a draft or to save our boys from dying, so far as I can

see.

We would have less wounded and there would be no need for larger numbers of nurses if the Commander in Chief had properly provided for those boys in the matter of shells and ammunition instead of giving these supplies all to England and Russia. Mr. Churchill would not be able to boast today that 60 Americans are dying to 1 Englishman, if that had been done. When he came over here several years ago he told you that if you gave him the implements of war that is all you would need to furnish. Step by step, they have destroyed this Republic.

We are lend-leasing everything to Russia and Great Britain to the extent that we are sacrificing our own men and our Republic and now in this country we are great only because we are free, only because we are willing to fight for this freedom, and this free enterprise. Every other country, Mr. Chairman, allied with us, is a slave country. And our enemies are slave nations who cannot win the war because they have slave systems.

England adopted this program, which you are suggesting be adopted in this country, and today England is not able to take care of herself. Russia is in the same position. Russia looks to America, a free