GENERAL SAWYER: “Representing General Wood we have Colonel Mattison.” COLONEL MATTISON read the following article prepared by General Wood: relative to the N.H.D.V.S. and its Relation to the World War Veteran: “Of all the various agencies utilized by the Federal Government in caring for disabled men of the World War, the National Home for D.V.S. is probably the oldest in this line of work, dating back over fifty years in its care for disabled soldiers. Immediately after the close of the Civil War, the necessity for some organization of the government to care for the many thousand disabled soldiers of that war became apparent, and in 1866, by act of Congress, the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers came into existence with a Board of Managers selected by Congress to carry out the purposes of this Act. Prior to this, several of the States, civic and benevolent organizations had taken up the work locally in many parts of the country, but the creation of a National Board superseded the local work and for quite a number of years prior to the time that State homes were established by various States the burden of caring for disabled veterans of the Civil War fell on the National Military Home. The first Home established was located at Dayton, Ohio and was known as the Central Branch, but as the necessities of the question developed, other branch Homes were established by Congress until at present there are ten different institutions under the control of the Board of Managers, scattered from Maine to California. But as the Civil War was practically a war between sections of the country, all the Homes, with the exception of the one at Johnson City, Tennessee, are located either in the North or on the extreme Northern border of the South. For example the Home at Hampton, Virginia. Membership in the Home was originally confined to disabled soldiers of the Civil War, but gradually as the need developed, this privilege was extended to soldiers of the Mexican War of 1846, the Indian campaigns, the Spanish American War, and the Philippine service, so that by the year 1917 when the World War occurred, practically all disabled soldiers who had served in any of the wars of the Republic, were eligible to membership in the Home. The high tide of membership in the Home was in 1906 when over twenty one thousand disabled soldiers were members of the various Branches. After the peak of the load had been reached there was quite a decided downward curve in membership owing to the advancing years and heavy death rate among the soldiers of the Civil War, so that by 1917 the membership had decreased to about thirteen thousand men, and there were in the various branch Homes many thousand vacant beds, both in barracks and in hospitals.