The American Legion-supported “Rogers hospital bill” (so-called due to tireless advocacy from Rep. Edith Nourse Rogers, (R-Mass.) commits $16 million to construct federal veterans hospitals nationwide. At this time, veterans are frustrated and waiting for health care throughout the country, including a list of 14,000 at one hospital alone.
With only 53 veterans hospitals nationwide, tuberculosis and mental illness are widespread among veterans who are relegated to insane asylums, jails and TB colonies in deserts.
“I have been very glad to sign the bill authorizing the construction over a term of years of further hospitals for war veterans. The load seems likely to still further increase and it is desirable that we should know the extent of it, and the policies which should be pursued. We are also in need of more coordination between different government agencies engaged in hospitalization.”
President Herbert Hoover after signing H.R. 234, known as the Rogers veterans hospitalization bill, Dec. 23, 1929
