Store Research
Title 10 United States Code section 1203
As derived from former 402 of Public Law 81-351, Title IV, section 402 October 12, 1949, 63 United States Statutes 802, 816
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House of Representatives No. 5007 [hereinafter referred to as “H.R. 5007”], enacting the “Career Compensation Act of 1949” was introduced on June 6, 1949 by Representative Kilday. (See Exhibit A, #2a)
H.R. 5007 was referred to the House Committee on Armed Forces and that Committee reported the Bill with an amendment on June 10, 1949. (See Exhibit A, #2b and #3) After the measure passed the House, H.R. 5007 was reviewed by the Senate Committee on Armed Forces. (See Exhibit A, #2c and #4) The Senate Committee reported the Bill with amendments. (See Exhibit A, #2c, #2d, and #4.) When the House rejected the Senate amendments, a conference committee was formed. (See Exhibit A, #5) The purpose of a Conference Committee is to bring together legislators, called “conferees,” from the Senate and the House of Representatives in an attempt to reach a compromise on a bill’s language which is acceptable to both. However, after the Conference Committee was appointed the House concurred in the Senate amendments and the Conference Committee never met. (Id.)
Thereafter, the bill was presented to President Harry S. Truman, who signed it into law on October 12, 1949, enacting Public Law 81-351. (See Exhibit A, #1)
The background of H.R 5007 is discussed in detail in the Senate Committee on Armed Forces Report No. 733. (See Exhibit A, #4) This Report states in part as follows:
There has been no general realinement of the military pay structure for over 40 years. In the meantime, there have been numerous piece-meal adjustments within the general framework of the structure, each change having been made in response to a specific situation but without much thought to the general compensation pattern. As a consequence, the laws governing basic pay, special pay, allowances, and retirement pay have gradually developed along separate and diverse lines, to form what is now a literal hodgepodge that is so complicated and so lacking in cohesion that it can be fairly stated that the Federal Government actually has no identifiable plan which governs the career compensation of persons in uniform services. When this situation is measured against the huge annual pay roll involved, it becomes obvious that appropriate remedial action is imperative.
In recognition of this need, early in 1948 the then Secretary of Defense, the late Mr. James Forrestal, appointed … an Advisory Commission on Service Pay to make a detailed study of the problem, and submit recommendations. This group, generally referred to as the Hook Commission out of recognition of its distinguished Chairman, Mr. Charles R. Hood, investigated the situation for nearly a year before submitting their detailed report on December 10, 1948. … the findings of the Hook Commission are regarded as a thoroughly stable foundation upon which to base legislation designed to provide a career compensation plan for the uniformed services.
In February 1949 a subcommittee of the House Committee on Armed Forces under the chairmanship of Mr. Kilday began hearings on H.R. 2553, a bill drawn to implement the recommendations of the Hook Commission. These hearings lasted for nearly 3 months, and printed record of the hearings cover over 2,000 pages. The resulting Kilday bill was then reported to the full committee, and ultimately to the House of Representatives. The bill was given a most critical scrutiny on the floor of the House, and ultimately referred back to the Committee on Armed Services. This committee then reexamined H.R. 2553, with the result that the pending bill, H.R. 5007, was reported back to the House, and was passed on June 15, 1949.
H.R. 5007 does not propose either to implement all phases of the recommendations of the Hook Commission, nor to conform exactly to the details of all of the recommendations made by the Commission with respect to the material contained in the bill. Notwithstanding these facts, the Hook Commission supported the bill as passed by the House.
(See Exhibit A, #4, pages 1 and 2)