Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-01-11
THE FORGOTTEN SOLDIER
WHO CAN MARCH NO MORE
Shameful Inefficlency Rules In the Fed
eral Bureaus Established to
HELD Disabled Men

! = tlOn OF tne 1eueral systems eStaDllShed tOT
| the relief of sick, MANNED and helpless SOL
| diers, the American Legion, the Veterans Of
| Foreign Wars and other soldiers organiza =
tions could present the case explicitly and in
| detail it would shock the country. But the
! crimes of omission committed against men
temporarily or permanently invalidcd in the
military service have been so numerous that
they may be discussed only in terrible gen.
eralities without reference to individual trag-
edies Of innumerabe soldiers left to die after
they had found less pity at home than they
found on battlefelds.
The laboted routine OF the Washington
mind and the invincible faith Of unteachable
bureaucrats In the card index as q substitute
for moral consciousness arc often costly,
often ridiculous. But the hard and infexible
forms Of official routine never seemed so
monstrously cruel, so utterly inadequate to
a fundamental human need, rs they have
seemed in the light Of what the country is
beginning to learn of the plight of disabled
service men. The national conscience seems
to have been completely submerged under
the welter of indexes, reports, invoices. let
ters, orders, forms, inquiries and phrases
that make any sort of motion difficult In
the War Risk Insurance Bureau, the offices
of the United States Public Health Service
and the Federal Board of Vocational Train
ing, three agencies that were established to
care fully for men who returned sick or
wounded from abroad.
When the soldiers went away they were
''the boys" Congress dropped tears of pride
for them and made the windows rattle with
star -spangled speeches. The nation and the
government promised that they should never
want.
A large number of these same soldiers
have returned sick or terribly wounded The
minds of some of them have been unbalanced
by their terrible experiences. And they have
returned to find the nation, its mood of exal-
tation passed, seemingly content to let them
drift and die.
The mind of Washington, which little
while ago seemed actually to have achieved
wings, is again bound up in red tape, heavily
inert in it's accustomed orbit.
The boys are boys no longer. They are
broken men, most Of them. And they are
not even soldiers. They nre leases to be
tagged, pgeonholed. investigated, indexed.
And even as leases they have been foully
dealt with.
Over 100000 soldiers returned to this
country in need of specialized medical at
tention About &C, 900 of these are in hos
pitals. Many are still waitng-after two
years! Many have died. Fororn and be-
wildered they tramped from office to Office
and waited in anteroom after anteroom in a
last bitterly lonely hike.
Meanwhile, the three war relief bureaus
at Washington, determined, apparently, to
have as little as possible to do with one
another, have continued monotonous debate.
They recognize the need for CO. operation,
but for some reason or another they have
been unable to cooperate. Congress has
known for year and a half that the mech
ansm of the three bureaus had slowed down
and was threatened with collapse. But Con-
gress, too, has a short memory and it did
nothing but listen to an occasional speech
on the general question Of relief for soldiers.
Things have been going from bad to worse.
In January of last year Secretary Baker, or
one Of his immediate subordinates in the
War Department, issued an order that still
stands unmatched as an example of the in
gratitude of republics and the inability of
the average bureaucrat to think like human
being during Office hours. This order was
for the discharge from government hospitals
Of all soldier patients who. having contracted
tuberculosis during their foreign service, did
not show improvement in year. The pa
tients were to be sent home to die And
many were sent and many died This was
because hospitals were overcrowded and
space was needed for men who might be ex
pected to recover quickly.
Since appropriations for the Public Health
Service have never been adequate. it may be
argued that this particular War Department
order was necessary and justifable But
doctors in the service institutions spoke bit
terly OF the psychological effect Of the brutal
Cdct on suffering men, who were made to
realize that IL they didn't begin to recover in
twelve months they would be abandoned
cast out from the one safe refuge left to
them and cut off from their last remaining
chance for life.
The War Risk Insurance Bureau is an in
stitution financed in part by the soldiers
themselves. 1t is what it's name implies.
The Public Health Service and the Voca-
tional Board are supported by federal ap-
propriatiOns and they were intended to re =
store sick and wounded men to health and
to rehabilitate and re educate them for the
new beginning in life that Is necessary to
badly crippled men.
Most of the cruel injustice that returning
soldiers have suffered has been due to the
inability of the three bureaus to recognize
or determine their obligations in given cases.
Shameless quibbling between one bureau and
another is almost constant. The simple fact
is of course, that in most cases all three
have a more or less equal responsibility But
since each is separately organized under Its
| own administration and since no means for
the co ordination OF their work or thought
! or aims has ever been sought or attained
DELAYS, waste and general ineficiency were
inevitable and soldiers who sought needed aid
| in Washington almost always found them
selves lost in a bewi'derinG maze of for
malities through which nothing could be ar
| rived at logically or quickly.
soldier making his appearance in either
| bureau was likely to be received coldly in
an atm sphere of doubt or vGiled antagonism
Only lately it was announced in the name
of the Public Health Service and the Wai
Risk Insurance Bureau that "the burden o.
proof" would be placed upon every man who
sought assistance OF any sort-as If thes,
men had not had burdens enough. Washing
ton oficialism had done its worst. II madr
an unresponsve and unteelng machine on
of an institution that was intended to be ar
instrument of mercy and the expression O.
a nations gratitude.
The Senate is eager to investigate Cuba