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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
rean 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. Power,
swhich began in The Sunday American August 16, dealing with the fail
wre of the government to keep faith with the counry’s disabled heroes,
to make good its promises of war risk compensation or vocaional training.
BOSTON, Aung. 30.—Under the recent amendm&nt to the vo
eational training law, all persons accepted for training by the
federal board will receive, if single, SBO per month, and if they have
Adependents 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
pral board all along has assured officers that they were to re
zeive, 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 wonld receive allowanees on that scale. It certainly is not
fair to tell them now that, although they were promised a con
tinuation of their army pay, they will not receive it. It is a plain
case of enticing men under false pretenses.
TRAINING IS DELAYED.
The federal board pecause of its involved system of handling
eases and its devotion to red tape, has woefully delayed the train
ing of discharged soldiers. In many instances soldiers have be
eome so discouraged, through waiting to hear 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 the
board today that have been there from one to three months await
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 from clerk to clerk, has been the
means of tickling many of them to death.
It is a simple thing to find disabled men who believe that the
federal hoard should be investigated at onee 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 diseover
the other causes of delay. - '
WANT EXPENDITURES PROBED.
They would like to see the expenditures of the federal board
and War Risk Insurance Burean thoroughly serutinized and ex
amined, to learn how much 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
eharged from the military and naval service. ;
w 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 also admitted that 90 per eent of these telegrams
were nseless and that letters would have done just as well, is it
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 diseharged disabled soldier and sailor, worth while to the
eountry and to bring them up to a 100 per eent American plan,
they should simplify their forms and methods and take a more gen
“rous view of their duties.
And here is one very important point for the American Legion
to eonsider: There is no representative of the soldier, sailor or
marine in an important place in the entire service of the Federal
Board for Vocational Education.
NO SOLDIERS OR SAILORS.
The ease board in each district office, which decides how
eases 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 umpln_\'('ll_ but there is no official mprvsonwtion
of the soldier, sailor or marine on any ecase board, and the view
point of the soldier, sailor and marine is never in evidence,
These case boards, as a rule, are composed of honest, well
gatwing men who never bad war wervice and few of whom have
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relatives directly or remotely connected with war serviee. 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
physieally rehabilitated, he must ;o to work and prove that he is‘
not bale to fill the old job, or a new 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 watehing the game closely, it now
looks as if both the Federal Board for Vocational Edueation and
the War Risk Insurance Bureau are welching on their promise to
the soldiers and sailors.
In this tightening of the voeatonal 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 poliey? .
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 pref
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 pictured the untrained as pitiful objects of‘
charity, burdens upon their families or the ecommunity, and, sim
ply because of their war service, tolerated public nuisances. Surely
only sueh results can eome from the board’s present poliey, 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 suceessfully 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 considerable
expeuse an educational service both in France and in this oonnq.
ATLANTA, GA.,, SUNDAY, AUGUST 31, 1919.
It 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 respeets, equal in im
portance to medical and surgical services,
The attendance in the hospital elasses 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 patriotism?
WAR BUREAU TRICK.
What will be the direct effeet upon the morale of the dis
charged soldier and the indireet effect upon the community of the
new, cold-shoulder attitude of the ;ovornhwnt 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 Burean of War Risk Insurance in with
drawing compensation from wounded men found at work pending
vocational training?
In many instances, as stated above, these men have been urged
by the federal board for voeational education to add to their tem
porary compensation by wages from temporaty employment, Hav
ing followed that adviee, they are now receiving letters which,
stripped of their disguise would read like this: ‘‘lHa, ha! We
have eaught you at it. You can work, and friendly employers are
willing to give you now almost as much as you earned 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
ceepted a job, so live on it, if you can, and don’t expeet any com
pensation frem the government.”
Is that keeping faith? Thousands of disabled men are ask
ing that question.
“(o back to your 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
Fke 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 ean not do it you must try another one, and
then another, and keep on trying until one is found that you ean
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 doctor 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 deal? 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.”” THis 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 doctors 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 eents that the boy would live
five days. But he is going to be eured. 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 voea
tional education. His work was of a laborious nature, but he
probably eould do 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 is to be no reward for such
service as he gave, and no recompense for such suffering as he en
dured, says the board.
During his time in the hospitals this boy has advised with ts
surgeons and his friends as he read many of the ‘‘ opportumity”®
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 beeome a better personal and com
munity asset, It looks like a vain hope now. 4
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 met
believe them, but, in his quiet way, did his best to convince them
that they were all wrong about it. In the light of recent evemts,
were they wrong about it? The most he will get in section 3 help
-S3O from war risk compensation during a short training course
for which the federal board will pay only the eost of tuition and
books.
There was another boy in a reconstruction hospital and he
had a Distinguished Serviee Medal. All he did was to erawl
across a field swept by machine gun bullets to the enemy’s barbed
wire, eut his lieutenant down, cut the wires so that the lieutenant’s
detail eould 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.
For some time he did not take much interest in school work
at tile hospital or much stock in the promfise of a better future
through vocational training. The re-educational aides finally inter
ested him and convinced 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
voeational training with pay are slim if good results are attaned
- "I';'},‘:.,,":\..\\-413 a fine, earnest, ambitious Massachusetts boy who
came 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 bad been his
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ol SECOND
M MAIN NEWS
1 SECTION 1