Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 40 Part 1.djvu/890

 nevertheless be made and the medal or cross or the bar or other emblem or device presented, within three years from the date of the act justifying the award thereof, to such representative of the deceased as the President may designate; but no medal, cross, bar, or other device, hereinbefore authorized, shall be awarded or presented to any individual whose entire service subsequently to the time he distinguished himself shall not have been honorable; but in cases of officers and enlisted men now in the Army for whom the award of the medal of honor has been recommended in full compliance with then existing regulations but on account of services which, though insufficient fully to justify the award of the medal of honor, appear to have been such as to justify the award of the distinguished-service cross or distinguished-service medal hereinbefore provided for, such cases may be considered and acted upon under the provisions of this Act authorizing the award of the distinguished-service cross and distinguished-service medal, notwithstanding that said services may have been rendered more than three years before said cases shall have been considered as authorized by Act, but all consideration of and action upon any of said cases shall be based exclusively upon official record now on file in the War Department; and in the cases of officers and enlisted men now in the Army who have been mentioned in orders, now a part of official records, for extraordinary heroism or especially meritorious services, such as to justify the award of the distinguished-service cross or the distinguised-service medal hereinbefore provided for, such cases may be considered and acted on under the provisions of this Act, notwithstanding that said act or services may have been rendered more than three years before said cases shall have been considered as authorized by this Act, but all consideration of and action upon any said cases shall be based exclusively upon official records of the War Department.

That the President be, and he is hereby, authorized to delegate, under such conditions, regulations, and limitations as he shall prescribe, to the commanding general of a separate army or higher unit in the feld, the power conferred upon him by this Act to award the medal of honor, the distinguished-service cross, and the distinguished-service medal; and he is further authorized to make from time to time any and all rules, regulations, and orders which he shall deem necessary to carry into effect the provisions of this Act and to execute the full purpose and intention thereof. That American citizens who have received, since August first, nineteen hundred and fourteen, decorations or medals for distinguished service in the armies or in connection with the field service of those nations engaged in war against the Imperial German Government, shall, on entering the military service of the United States, be permitted to wear such medals or decorations.

That any and all members of the military forces of the United States serving in the present war be, and they are hereby, permitted and authorized to accept during the present war or within one year thereafter, from the Government of any of the countries engaged in war with any country with which the United States is or shall be concurrently likewise engaged in war, such decorations, when tendered, as are conferred by such Government upon the members of its own military forces; and the consent of Congress required therefor by clause eight of section nine of Article I of the Constitution is hereby expressly granted: Provided, That any officer or enlisted man of the military forces of the United States is hereby authorized to accept and wear any medal or decoration heretofore bestowed by the government of any of the nations concurrently engaged with the United States in the present war.

That the President is authorized, under regulations to be prescribed by him, to confer such medals and decorations as may be