The herald and news. [volume] (Newberry S.C.) 1903-1937, 1922-08-04
AMERICAN LEGION NOTES
Continued From Page ~

Continued From Page 1.)
barked upon. The Dawes-Galbraith
investigators quizzed experts on the
vacant bed" situation, and ascer-
tanned that the beds shown on the
statistical chart were unsuitable,
particularly to the needs of neuro-
psychiartic and tubercular patients.
| Their findings and the assertions OF
other experts failed to make an i'm
preston on General Sawyer for they
were ignored and the vacant bed"
stories are still used in the cover
disqualification" propaganda. The
ideas he brought to Washington in
March, 1921, are unchanged in Jan
uary, 1922. They cantinue to col
lice with the opinions of other ex-
perts. In an address before a gath
ering of disabled veterans in Wash
ington in January, 1922, General
Sawyer said:
81 am using my influence, wher-
ever possible, to prevent undue ex-
penditure and undue elaboration OF
the high-powered hospital, preferring
/ to use that mony, which certainly
will have reached the limitation OF
it's necessities within the next few
years, for the purposes Of develop
ing places of domiciliation that will
be comfortable and fit for the indiv-
idual who passes the hospital peri
od."
! There's your monkey wrench" in
the hospital building program.
The "domiciliation proposition is
all very well, but there are thousands
of veterans who will never live to
pass "the hospital period" unless
they obtain the treatment they re-
quire, the treatment for which the
government has provided millions
! (for hospitals, not asylums for in
curables), and obtain it now. Three
years ago the best medical expert
opinion was that many Of the neuro-
psychiatric patients could be cured
if given the proper treatment. They
also said that state insane asylums
were not the proper place to get this
treatment.
Thousands of beds available" and
| yet what is our attitude toward a
federal system which has sent thous-
ands upon thousands of men to in
stitutions which received two dollars
a day to care for ex-service patients
and spent only seventy cents; to in
stitutions so overcrowded that men
were bedded on the floors; to insti
tutions so undermanned that there
was only one doctor to 320 seriously
afflicted patients; to institutions
preyed upon by vendors Of liquor
and drugs-and worse, to institu-
tions more likely to produce insanity
than cure it?
Dr. Thomas W. Salmon, chief
psychiatrist Of the A. E. F., and an
international authority on mental
disorders, testifying before a con-
gressional committee, said:
81 have studied the care of the in
sane in many states but I do not
know today of any group of 5000
men suffering from insanity who are
so poorly cared for as the ex-soldiers
of the United States army. 1 do not
mean by that that they are all equal
ly bad cared for, but I know of no
group Of that size where men are al
lowed to remain in unsuitable places,
week after week and month after
month because there is divided au-
thor.ty on the part Of those respon-
sible for them"
Congress appropriated the money,
a committee of experts formulated
hospital building program, and busi-
ness looked promising until General
Sawyer came along with his "thou-
ands Of vacant beds" propaganda,
and the program was delayed. So
that of the 9,188 mental patients,
4,509 are not IL government owned
or managed hospitals, bus are CON
tracted" for on profitable ccr1mer-
cial basis bv publ: ana private nsti-
tutions These are mostly insane
asylums, mad houses where a pa
tent is given "custodial care" In
certain extensively patronized irsti-