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_1 ARESHERGH SR QR ADAGA DA NG AOA GG
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WOUNDED URGE PROBE OF FEDERAL BOARDS
‘HOW MUCH PAID TO SOLDIERS, HOW MUCH TO OFFICIALS?’
THEY ASK; ‘HOW MANY TRAINING CASES ARE HELD UP?”
Monthly Bill for Telegrams $3,000, and 90 Per
Cent Are Useless, Officers Admit—Men Want
Blame Fixed for Conditions in War Risk Bu
reau and Rehabilitation Department.
BY CHARLES 0. POWER.
For Seven Months Special Vocational Adviser at U. S, A. General Hospital
No. 10, the Great Human Repair Shop, Parker Hill, Boston.
This is the final installment in the series of articles by Mr. Powen,
which began in The Sunday American August 16, dealing with the fail
ure of the government to keep faith with the counry’s disabled heroes,
to malke good its promises of war risk compensation or vocaional training.
BOSTON,"Aug. 30.—Under the recent amendment to the vo
cational training law, all persons accepted for training by the
federal board will receive, if single, SBO per month, and if they have
dependents certain additional amounts. This means both officers
and men.
Without arguing the merits of the question as to whether of
ficers should receive a larger allowance than the enlisted men
while under federal board training, this fact remains: The fed
eral board all along has assured officers that they were to re
ceive, while in training, a sum equal to their pay during the last
month of their service.
Many of these men have refused other opportunities and ar
ranged their‘affairs to take a course of training in the belief that
they would receive allowances on that scale. It certainly is not
fair to tell them now that, alth gl they were promised a con
tinuation of their army pay, they ¥ilmot receive it. It is a plain
case of enticing men under fal tenses.
TRAINING IS®BELAYED. * .
The federal board because of its involved system of handling
cases and its devotion to red tape woefully delayed the train
ing of discharged soldiers. In m%xncos soldiers have be
come so discouraged, through w‘iting;,%ear from the board
that they have gone to work and absolutely abandoned their
rights to a training. There are many cases in the offices of thci
board today that have been there from one to three months uwait-‘
ing action. The scheme of analyzing cases, of referring cases from
one room to another, of tickling them ahead and of tickling them
from one official to another, and fl%mv-elerk to elerk, has been the}
means of tickling many of them to dea_th. ‘
It is a simple thing to find disabled men who believe that the
federal board should be investigated at once in order to learn how
many cases are awaiting decision as to training, to discover to what
extent the War Risk Insurance Bureau is culpable and to discover
the *other causes of delay.
WANT EXPENDITURES PROBED.
They would like to see the expenditures of the federal board
and War Risk Insurance Bureau thoroughly scrutinized and ex
amined. to learn how mueh has been paid for administrative pur
poses to officials, clerks and for traveling expense, and how much
has been paid to the supposed beneficiaries, the disabled men dis
charged from the military and naval service.
When it is admitted by the officials of the central office of
the board that the monthly bill for telegrams has averaged 3,000,
and when it is adso admitted that 90 per cent of these telegrams
were useless and that letters would have done just as well, is if
not fair to assume that this bit of extravagance and waste in office
procedure is but a drop in the bucket ?
NO REPRESENTATION FOR MEN.
To make the War Risk Insurance Bureau, Compensation Di
vision. and the Federal Board for Vocational Training worth while
to the discharged disabled soldier and sailor, worth while to lhel
country and to bring, them up to a 100 per cent American plan,
they should simplify their forms and methods and take a more ;::‘n-’
erons view of their duties,
And here a 4 one very important point for the American Imgion'
to consider: There is no representative” of the soldier, sailor or
marine in an importapt place in the entire service of the l“wlvrul!
Board for Vocational Education. |
NO SOLDIERS OR SAILORS.
The case board in each_district office, which decides how
cases shall go to the case board in the central office, is supposed
to be composed of the chief federal board official, a doctor, a
member of the training section, a representative of the employers
and another of the employed, but there is no offieial representation |
of the soldier, sailor or marine on any case board, and the view
point of the soldier, sailor and nn:n"inv I 8 never in evidence, ’
These case boards, as o rule, urn-v«'nmwmvd of honest, \\‘o'”-|
~eaning men who never had war service and few of whom have |
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relatives directly or remotely connected with war service. They
‘have a small idea of what the wounded men have suffered. This
is best evidenced in the case of the central office, which makes the
rule that, if a man, after months of suffering, becomes fairly
‘physically rehabilitated, he must g'o to work and prove that he is
‘not bale to fill the old job, or a mew one, bfeore he may receive a
course of training.
| Even then it might mean only free tuition and books. And
nothing at all if he has had his compensation taken away for
trying to work.
| BREAKING PROMISES.
| To the man who has been watching the game closely, it now
looks as if both the Federal Board for Vocational Education and
the War Risk Insuranee Bureau are welching on their promise to
the sqldiers and sailors.
| In this tightening of the vocatonal training lines and the
withholding and withdrawng of compensation from dsabled sol
ders or sailors who are attempting to add to their incomes while
awaiting possible training, a good economic policy? |
In form letters and in many of its publications the federal
board has given solemn warning to the disabled men of the folly
of accepting work merely because it offers high wages in prvf-%
erence to taking training which would qualify them, in a short
time to be skilled workmen. The board has touchingly emphasized
the danger of a physical breakdown of the disabled soldiers and’
their sad plight working in competition with normal men when
such a thing happens.
STRIKING PICTURES.
It has strikingly pietured the untrained as pitiful objects of‘
charity, burdens upon their families or the condnunity, and, sim
ply because of their war service, tolerated publie nuisances. Surely
only such results can come from the board’s present policy, which
is to turn that picture to the wall. On the other hand, it has por
trayed the happy future of the disabled soldier trained under the
guidance of the federal board to overcome the handicaps of phy
sical disabilities. With bold strokes it has sketched him as com
peting successfully with a normal man—a happy husband and fa
ther, and a respected member of his community. Good economie
policy beyond question, but it is not being done very much in
federal board cireles any more,
The surgeon general’s department maintained at cnnsiclemble'
expense an educatiopal service both in France and in this country.
ATLANTA, - GA., SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 1919.
milons to Make Them Fit to Fight—Nothing to Make Them Fit to work.
Tt has been one of the great successes of the war. Those in con
trol of its policy seem to have been possessed of unusual far
sightedness. They realized both the opportunity and necessity
for disabled men during convalescence, and so they selected and
assigned to the task a corps of men and women especially and
splendidly qualified. Educational service in the United States re
construction hospitals has been, in many respects, equal in im
portance to medical and surgical services,
The attendance in the hospital classes has been of a high av
erage, and the results obtained very gratifying both to pupils and
instructors. Through the efforts of the re-educational aides and
the hospital school instructors an ambition has been aroused in
many a man to be a better civil soldier. A'purpose to be a good
citizen and to appreciate the institutions of this country has been
arrived at by many men of foreign birth after a short course in
the army hospital schools. Is all of this work to be an economie
wastage, to say nothing of its loss as an asset of patriotismn?
WAR BUREAU TRICK. |
What will be the direet effeet upon the morale of the dis
charged soldier and the indirect effect upon the community of the
new, cold-shoulder attitude of the government as exemplified by
the amended act of Congress and new rules of the Federal Board
for Voecational Education relative to the training of disabled sol
diers? Of the trick of the Bureau of War Risk Insurance in with-‘
drawing compensation from wounded men found at work pending
vocational training? l
In many instances, as stated above, these men have been urged
by the federal board for voeational odl'u-ation to add to their tem
porary compensation by wages from temporary employment. Hav
ing followed that advice, they are now reeeiving letters which,
stripped of their disguise would read like this: ‘“‘Ha, ha! We
have caught you at it. You ecan work, and friendly employers are
willing to give you now almost as much as you eafned before.
Don’t try to explain that it is only one-half as much as you earned
before. Don’t try to explain that it is only about one-half as much
as the prevailing wages of today, or that the purchasing power of
your dollar is only about half as great as it was before you went
to war. It won’t do you any good to kick, anyway. You have
aceepted a job, o live on it, if you ecan, and don’t expeet any com-l
pensation from the government.”
Is that keeping faith? Thousands of disabled men are ask
ing that question. : l
““Gio back to vour old job,”’ says the federal board to all but
{
Disabled Heroes Ordered to Seek One Job After
Another Until One Is Found Where They Can
Eke Out an Existence—*“ls That Keeping
Faith?” They Ask. '
the very badly smashed, ‘‘and go back to it without any training.
If you find that you can not do it you must try another one, and
then another, and keep on trying until one is found that you can
do without too much discomfort, but remember, you will not re
ceive any training from the government unless, after an exhaus
tive physical examination by our doector and an affidavit from
your former employer the fact can be established that you must
have some sort of a training to earn enough money to eke out an
existence.”’
Is that a square Teal? Thousands of discharged wounded
service men are asking that question.
Lying wounded for months in reconstruction hospitals in
this country was a boy of the ‘‘Lost Battalion.”” His leg was frae
{ tured both above and below the knee. In all the weary days and
nights of his convalescence there was never a whimper out of him.
He had been in the first home hospital many weeks before any
one knew he was one of the gallant few that stood with Whittlesey
when he told the Hun to ‘‘go to hell.”” This boy had one of the
sweetest dispositions and finest characters ever given to a mor
tal. To every suggestion of the doetors and nurses he responded
willingly and intelligently.
INFLUENCE FOR GOOD.
The surgeon who took charge of him after he landed in this
country said he wouldn’t bet five cents that the boy would live
five days. But he is going to he cured. He is going to have a
strong leg and it will be shortened so little that his limp will be
very slight. His attitude toward the hospital workers and to
| ward his own future has had a wonderful influence for good over
other suffering men.
} This boy never had an opportunity for a professional or voca
|lionul .education. His work was of a laborious nature, but he
probably’ eould de it again. Under the new rules of the federal
‘board he ‘will have to try himself out on that work if the board’s
| doctor says he is able to do it. There iBtobe no reward for such
service as he gave, and no recompense for such suffering as he en
‘durml, says the board.
During his time in the hospitals this boy has advised with his
surgeons and his friends as he read many of the ‘‘opportunity™
monographs of the federal board. He has been buoyed up by the
idea that he will have a chance to learn something worth while
after he is discharged, and so become a better personal and com
munity asset. It looks like a vain hope now.
GIVEN ONLY S3O A MONTH.
There was a time when some other disabled boys tried to tell
him that the printed matter of the federal board, distributed
throughout the hospitals, was all bunk. He not only would not
believ® them, but, in his quiet way, did his best to convince them
that they were all wrong about it. In the light of recent events,
were they wrong about it? The most he will get in seetion 3 help
S3O from war risk compensation during a short training course
for which the federal board will pay only the cost of tuition and
bhooks.
There was another boy in a reconstruction hospital and he
had a Distinguished Service Medal. All he did was to erawl
across a field swept by machine gun bullets to the enemy's barbed
wire, cut his lieutenant down, cut the wires so that the lieutenant's
detail could pass through and then carry his wounded commander
back to his own lines. While doing this simple little stunt he was
wounded in the arm quite severely,
HIS CHANCES SLIM.
IFor some time he did not take much interest in school work
at the hospital or much stock in the promise of a better future
through vocational training, The re-educational aides finally inter
ested him and convineed him that he was neglecting his oppor
tunities. He became, after a while, one of thte best patients in the
hospital and one of the best students in the hospital school. He will
probably be able, when discharged, to go back to his old job or
take another one without training, but he has a desire to learn a
good trade and to be a good American citizen. His chances of
vocational training with pay are slim if good results are attaned
in his arm. '
There was a fine, earnest, ambitious Massachusetts boy who
ecame back from overseas with a badly smashed ankle, the result
of a gunshot wound. After many months in the reconstruction
hospital, he was discharged with a 10 per cent disability mark.
Before he went away to war he married a girl who had been hig
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