The DAV, the American Legion, and the Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) all denounced the bill. Omar B. Ketchum, national legislative representative of the VFW, explained that his organization had no objection to civilians receiving rehabilitation, but that they were “unalterably opposed” to the idea that a single bill could address the needs of veterans and civilians. American Legion members flooded Congress with a wave of opposition letters. Senator Clark, himself a World War I veteran, complained that the bill tangled “the special rights of the veterans” with the question of the federal government’s obligation to civilians. For their part, Representative Barden and Senator La Follette argued that a program that addressed the needs of both civilians and veterans made sense given the vital link between military success and industrial production. The labor of disabled civilians, they maintained, would be necessary for victory, but this labor would be lost without an expanded rehabilitation program. Moreover, in a total war, the nation had to be ready to rehabilitate men and women injured on the battlefield and home front by enemy attack or on the production lines. Finally, they sold the new rehabilitation program as a cost-saving efficiency measure, reasoning that a single rehabilitation bill would reduce waste and duplication and save money. Efficiency, savings, and arguments that workers were as necessary to victory as soldiers, however, did not convince a Congress wary of any action that might be construed as threatening “the special rights of veterans.” In the end, La Follette and Barden removed the provisions for dealing with veterans’ rehabilitation from their bills. The House and the Senate passed a separate veteran rehabilitation bill in March, which the president quickly signed into law.93
When the House and the Senate returned to the issue of civilian rehabilitation, the question of veterans’ rights continued to impede progress. Barden and La Follette had removed the major provisions for veterans from the measure, but Barden sought to ensure their access to the civilian program in case they did not qualify for VA assistance, which would be the case for veterans with disabilities not certified as service-connected. He sought to compel states that accepted federal funds through the civilian program to cooperate with the VA if the agency wanted to use their services in rehabilitating veterans. Ketchum argued that veterans were being used “for sugar-coating purposes and to gain support of the bill by appearing to favor veterans.” He charged that the bill referenced veterans twice unnecessarily, once giving the program authority to work cooperatively with the VA to support veterans’ rehabilitation and again by opening the program to veterans with disabilities not connected to service-related injuries. As citizens, disabled veterans not eligible for services from the VA would be eligible for rehabilitation through the civilian program, whether they were referenced in the bill or not. Ketchum concluded if the sponsors wanted to serve veterans, they would give them preference in obtaining services. Short of that, he argued, they should not be mentioned at all. Representative William Jennings Miller (R-CT), a disabled World War I veteran, pointed out that state directors of the civilian program “would like by hook or by crook to bring under their control the training of disabled veterans” to make the task of securing state appropriations easier. After much debate and further evidence of the displeasure of veterans’ organizations, Barden yielded and removed veterans from the bill entirely.94
Aside from the jurisdictional controversy over veterans, several congressmen raised questions over states’ rights and on federal spending. In the 1940s, policymakers marshaled states’ rights arguments both to push back against the tremendous growth of the federal government under the New Deal and defend the South’s Jim Crow system. In the case of rehabilitation policy, both sides of the states’ rights coin mattered. In anticipation of states’ rights-based opposition to any federal expansion of disability policy, many supporters of the bill offered arguments that sought to distinguish the program from New Deal social policy and reassure states’ rights proponents. As Committee on Education members from both sides of the aisle argued for the bill on the floor of the House, Representative George Dondero (R-MI) noted that he, like Barden who chaired the committee, believed the measure was “a States’ rights bill.” Another committee member, Representative Charles Vursell (R-IL) argued, “When this bill came to us it had a good many ideas promulgated there that drifted away from the protection of the States. During some 30 days the 21 members of this committee attempted at all times to curb the power of the Government, not to extend bureaucracy but to retard its onward march in this country.” Vursell also claimed that the bill represented “legislation of economy,” in that it would position disabled people “to get off the financial back of the National Government,” a prospect that would have resonated with policymakers frustrated with New Deal state growth. Physician and committee member Walter Judd (R-MN) addressed concerns about extending aid programs and increasing national dependency, fears that shaped New Deal opposition. He distinguished rehabilitation, which would help disabled people “to acquire productive capacity or earning power, so they can be independent and self-sustaining” from programs that would make people with disabilities “objects of charity,” which would cause them to lose “self-respect” and become “victim[s] of pauperization and paternalism.”95
Still, the assurances did not stop questions about how the bill might change the relationship between states and the federal government. Representative Henry O. Talle (R-IA) questioned whether the bill’s liberalization of federal funding—the federal government covered all administrative costs, while states received one-to-one matching grants for other costs—would “deprive the States of any power they now have.” William Blackney (R-MI) expressed concern whether the bill grew out of “the apparent policy on the part of the Federal Government to encroach on the educational policies of the States.” Others criticized the fact that the committee had removed the limit on federal funding in the original act.96
An amendment to ban discrimination “on account of race, creed, or color” in the program, proposed on the House floor by Earle Willey (R-DE), shone light on the other side of the states’ rights coin. Representative John E. Rankin (D-MS), himself having led the charge against the bill on veterans’ issues, railed, “this amendment would just kill the bill. If the gentleman wants to destroy this legislation, that is the way to do it.” Barden also objected to the amendment claiming, “There has never been the slightest inference of any discrimination.” He argued that legislating protections for African Americans would unfairly portray the program as discriminatory. Debate over the amendment was short, and it failed to pass. But the response to the amendment revealed how the fight for states’ rights was also about protecting the South’s system of separate and unequal. Despite these challenges and questions, the bill passed both the House and Senate in June, and President Roosevelt signed the bill into law in July 1943.97
Taken together, Public Law 16, which established the new veterans’ vocational rehabilitation program, and the Barden-La Follette Act, aimed at addressing key war crises, discharging the debt owed to disabled veterans, and addressing the country’s labor shortage. Moreover, rehabilitation had the potential to extend the New Deal promise of opportunity, employment, and security to Americans with disabilities. Yet, by separating veterans as a special class of citizens, these laws perpetuated divides in disability policy based on how, and whether, one earned access to federal assistance.
Vice Admiral Ross T. McIntire, Surgeon General and Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the Navy, argued that the VA rehabilitation program sought to help the disabled veteran understand that “he should be a useful citizen and make his way, earning his living,” instead of existing on a pension. The program worked to give the veteran the tools to become that productive citizen.98 On the whole, Public Law 16 aimed to make veterans with service-connected disabilities employable. To be eligible for services under the new law, veterans had to have served after the attack on Pearl Harbor, been honorably discharged, and have a disability from or aggravated by service that limited the individual’s vocational