The Winslow mail., 1923-11-16

he would find he had taken over the
hardest job under government.
The story is that the generals an
swer to this was: well, that is one
of the reasons l must take it,
From the day that the bureau was
established until Director Hines as
sumed office the complaints against
the service were constant There
were not only complaints against it;
there were charges against it, some
of which were unquestionably true.
But probably the fault did not lie so
much in the officials of the bureau as
with the politicians who tried to make
of the service a dumping ground for
refuse friends who said they needed
jobs and who could not get them any
where else
When it is said that former chiefs
Of the bureau perhaps were not to
blame for conditions, it is meant only
that they were blameless so far as
their initial intentions were con-
cerned. Apparently they did not have
sufficient backbone to stand up against
the job-seeking ones who had politi-
cal backing but who were devoid of the
qualities which make for good work.
Every official Of the veterans bureau
since the day Of its establishment prob
| ably has meant well, but the trouble
has been until recently that they did
not do we'll.
Good Effects of Discipline.
When Frank T. Hines was asked
by President Harding to take the job
men said, and a good many of those
who said it were veterans, that Hines
was an old-time regular army officer;
that he would be "hard boiled' in his
methods and that camp discipline
would be brought into play in a place
where it was out of place.
There recently has been discipline
in the veterans bureau, apparently,
but it has been the proper kind of Of
fee discipline which has kept en-
ployees at their work in behalf of the
veterans There has been no loafing
and as a result, work which used to
lag has gone steadily on at a quick
pace
Director Hines perhaps did show
some "hard boiled" tendencies, but the
veterans, so far as their claims and
their cases were concerned, have had
no personal evidences of it. The dt-
rector was hard boiled toward the
! job-seeking politicians who did not
care at all whether the men for whom
| they wanted appointments were fit for
| the work or not. All that they wanted
to do was to get them into places
where they could draw their pay.
| 1t did not take the job seekers long
to find out that with the new director
the first consideration was the good
of the wards of the government. One
does not hear today that men in four
thousand-dolla positions in the veter-
ans bureau are drawing their pay
while. junior clerks do their work for
| them
No Politics This Time.
There does not seem to be any poll
tics in the direction of the work Of
the bureau. The writer of this, al
though he knows General Hines per-
sonally, does not know to what po-
| litical party he belongs. President
Harding picked the general for the job
| because of the commanding excellence
| of the executive work that he did dur
ing the war. The appointment of the
| director to Office was one of the few
appointing acts which was not fol-
| lowed by charges that another poll
tician had been given a job
This article is written by an ex-
service man, who like other ex-service
men, felt in the past that the bureau
which was established for the benefit
of wounded and sick veterans was not
doing it's work. The ex-service men
from the very beginning have not
cared the prOverbial whoop whether
the director was Democrat or Re-
| publican, wet or a dry. All that
| they wanted and all that they want is
that the men who were shot up in the
war or brought low by illness be given
proper care. AS things stand today
| the ex-servfce men seem to be salts
| fed with the bureaus work.
OF course General Hines has been
in office only six months, but the one
great thing has been accomplished
the job-seeking politicians in Wash.
| ington have read, understood and
obeyed the order of Hands off, II
| politics can be kept out of the bu-
reau, efficiency will stay in it, but
otherwise there will be return to
first conditions. The veterans seem
| to hold the comfortable belief that
General Hines will stay on the job and
will continue to do as he has done.