The Pleasantville press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1912-1929, 1923-04-18
NEW ERA FOR THE
VETERANS BUREAU
DIRECTOR HINES HAS PLANS
FOR GETTING HELP FROM
THE BIG INDUSTRIES.
ASKS EMPLOYMENT FOR MANY
Sympathetic Response Is Expected
From Leading Business Concerns
More Authority Is to Be Given to
the District Chiefs.
BY EDWARD B. CLARK

Washington.-It is felt that one can
write adyisedly IN the administrative
intentions of Gen. Frank L. Hines, the
new director of the veterans bureau.
Not only did the writer hear the direc-
tors first address to the service men
In Washington, but he has had the op-
portunity of personal contact and
personal conversation with the man
who has been asked to make of the
bureau what 1t should be, and to with
stand the shock troops of political and
personal influence.
Things are beginning to shape them
selves into a semblance of efficiency
in the bureau, a fact which ought to
impress veterans with claims, veterans
without claims, and with them a sym
pathetic but tax-paying public.
A direct appeal soo will be made
to the great industrial and the general
business establishments of the United
States to do what they well can do
in the work of rehabilitating veterans
who are anxious to help themselves,
who have a pride of labor accomplish
iNAAtt AIN "AO ACS0AAi tNth tiC ltClihk
thought that in any way they desire
to become objects of what some people
enormously think is government
charity.
Expects Big Industries to Help.
There are men taking vocational
training today who are not getting all
they should out of their courses. The
intention is to ask the directors of
great industries to take into their
direct employment veterans who have
ambition along self-help lines and who
want to work and TO earn, really carr
their daily wage.
There seems TO be no doubt In the
thetic response will come from the
headquarters of the great industries.
Veterans can be given employment of
a kind to which they are best fitted,
they will stand OF a plane with other
employees except Of course that some
of them in a sense will be learners,
but 1t is expected only that they will
be given opportunities to advance as
they deserve to advance and to become
fixtures in the places in which they
show they can make good.
One of the things which has injured
the reputation of the veterans bureau
has been that. men in directing posi-
tons have not felt they had sufficient
authority. Moreover, without authority
they did not think they should be
held responsible for results. Here
after, they are to have authority and
are to be held responsible for its
proper exercise.
Better Work in the Districts.
The country is divided into districts
and in each district there is a veteran
bureau chief responsible for matters
within the district. 1t Is not probable
that today the new director would
care to dwell on what he intends to
do to remedy certain districts def
ciencies. OF ones own knowledge of
what has happened here and there 1t
is easy enough to determine what
course will be pursued.
District chiefs know the needs of
the offices over which they have been
supposed to have control. They know
what sort of men should be put In
| charge of the different district activi-
ties. They have not been allowed to
select their men. The central office
has sent men to the district chief
tains who were told to put them at
work in this place or in that place.
There has been lnterferenees from
headquarters, and as a result the work
in the districts has not been efficient.
There have been complaints, many of
them, but now the belief Is that chief
| tains who know their work no longer
will be interfered with, that they will
be allowed to pick their own men with
a view TO securing the best results and
to the allaying of irritation among the
veterans, who learn soon enough that
the district office is not functioning
as 1t should function.
Director Hines has said this directly
upon the district subject:
"When l put a man in an official
position l believe in giving him the
necessary authority TO carry out the
duties imposed upon him. He will be
given a free hand. and then he will be
responsible for results"
There are increasing evidences In
washington that the veteran ~organiza-
lions are satisfied with the promise of
efficiency which is indicated by the
work thus far of the new director.
Weather Bureau VS.. Aviators.
The United States weather bureau
asserts that rain-making by the order
or through the act of man is still a
long way beyond sight.
This pronouncement of the scientist
on the heels of the promise held
out by the government aviators that a
way has been found by which the rain
could be made to fall on the Just to
the exclusion of the unjust. or the re-
verse. as circumstances might dictate.
Putting it plainly, the aviators be-
lieved they had found a means of caus-
ing the rain TO fall at will.
In the government patent Office there
are some rain-making machines which
worked but brought no results. Rain
making has been tried at various
times. generally with the promise that