The Washington herald., 1913-07-10
THE OPEN FORUM
FIFTY-CENT FUNERALS
NOT FOR MEN OF NAVY
Treasury Department Let Contract ia
Cairo Undertaker for Burial Of
Merchant Sailors.

To the Editor: The following is quoted
from a communication addressed to the
| department Of the Surgeon General OF
the Navy. In Mondays issue. June 30.
1913, the following editorial appeared in
The Washington Herald:
'Indignity in Economy-It is not to be
| wondered that people are shocked at the
announcement that the Navy Department
has awarded a contract to an undertaken
in Cairo, ILL.,, to bury veterans who die
in the Naval Hospital there for so cents
each. While We ali deplore any ten
dency to put a money value upon senti-
ment the association of the meager
amount OF half a dollar with the solemn
ceremonial Of death is repugnant. To all
men. even to those despised in life. We
hold ourselves obligated to bestow a
certain decency OF sepulture. To no men
more than to our soldiers and sailors do
We feel under greater obligation to do
honor with this last service We can do
to our fellows.
The Navy Department placed its con-
tract under the competitive system used
in the governments business. Compe-
tition is the death nearly as often as ii
is the life of trade. Speculation as to
how the 5o-cent undertaken can take the
contract at such a price leads one to
the thought that perhaps his low bid is
to put competitor out OF business
perhaps only to advertise. Department
officials. confident that whatever the
price. the contract insures proper burial.
seem not to have inquired into causes.
The effects were their only concern.
But even a governmental department
must be human. 1t is an agent of the
people. who are very. very human In
most things. In the case at hand the
officials of the Navy Department would
have done well TO be human enough to
inquire how and why any undertaken
felt justified in offering to bury sailors
Of the United States Navy for half a
dollar each There is indignity in such
cheapness.''
such an editorial. rejecting as it does
upon the honor of the department, and
the form Of respect shown to naval dead,
is apt to be extensively and injuriously
quoted by other papers because published
in Washington, where IL may be sup
posed the truth could have been ascer-
tanned of the statements alleged.
''The statements made are entirely
without foundation in fact, In that the
Navy Department has not awarded and
does not contemplate awarding such
contract for burial of naval dead. and,
further. that there is no naval hospital
at Cairo.
at is recommended that the attention
of The Washington Herald be invited not
only to the gross injustice done the naval
service but to the possible humiliation
and distress caused members Of the fami-
lies OF enlisted men of the navy and |
Marine Corps.
Every possible care is taken in the |
navy to conduct all matters pertaining
to the funerals of naval dead in accord |
ance with navy regulations and naval |
usaees. The 'decency of sepulture' is al
ways recognized and the honor of the last /
service is never omitted.
FRANKLIN d. ROOSEVELT,
Acting Secretary Of the Navy"
(The statements upon which the editorial
quoted by Acting Secretary Roosevelt was
based were issued by the news assocja-
tons and printed in numerous news
papers. including those Of Washington.
An investigation shows that the govern
ment hospital at Cairo is for the care Of
of the merchant marine, and is
under the management Of the Public
Health and Marine Hospital Service in
the Treasury Department. The Treasury
Department awarded the Cairo undertake
er the contract to bury veteran seamen
Tor so cents each. Omcials Of the Treas
ury Department make the same surmiseI
As was made In the editorial-that the
who took the contract did 30
with a purpose to put competitor out
II business or to advertise his own busi-
hess. These ofiicials state, however, that
he undertaken in the case has had the
before and has always per-
'ormed II, providing the veteran seamen
who die in the government hospital att
cairo with . proper funeral)