The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1925-08-14

| ilitation and child welfare.
The Legion is asking this endow-
ment fund from it's own members
and the American public jointly.
| The Legion asks it confidlently In
the knowledge that it will be given,
and that it will be the backbone of
the most important public service
confronting the American people to-
day Each dollar accepted in this
trust means vital responsibility to
| the Legion to this service, and to
other unselfish and public service.
| The sum total of the absolutely
necessary financial endowment is
| relatively small. The extent of the
spiritual endowment which goes with
it is unlimited.
The Disabled Men.
The United States Government
has passed liberal laws and made
liberal appropriations {! money to
care for the disabled men of the
World War. Many thousands of
good citizens today rest secure in
their own minds as to duty done
in this respect, because the Con-
gress has been liberal. Perhaps rel
limitations which must always sur
round government reneI, even with
laws perfectly drawn and perfectly
administered, as they =. course have
not been during the early years of
this work. Perhaps few Americans
understand why The American Lee
gion, with a cash outlay 1or national
rehabilitation work listed as $112,-
| 500 per year (one-half of the pro-
posed endowment income-the otner
half being for child welfare) can
perform a vital, nationwide, and
thorough part of a task to which
the government Is appropriating
three thousand times that sum of
money this year.
To the latter question the basic
answer is that the Legion throws
100000 or more members and Aux
iliary workers into its task. and
that the sum total of what is don
ated locally and by county and state
groups, in personal service, in sup
plies, and sometimes IN Co.., far ex-
ceeds the basic, net, cash outlay
for the national directing service.
The endowment is to make secure
the national rehabilitation service,
the backbone and central general
ing plant of the Legion's organiza-
ton of 1000 posts.
A Human Problem.
The case of the disabled veteran
with the government IS an official,
intricate legal problem, involving
many technical complications. I'm
der given sets of facts, prescribed
| by law, the government can extend
| legally specified medical or hospital
treatment, money compensation, or
vocational training. Within its nee
essary limits, the government on the
whole has done well, and is tend
ing steadily to do better. 1t does
not and cannot have completely in
| innate contact with the disabled
man, his family. his needs.
The problem is that of restoring
to physical, mental ard spiritual
health and to status of self-sup-
port and self-respect, man who
has suffered the wounds, disease
and shock incident to war; Govern.
ment machinery, however ample, re-
mains machinery. 1t is limited al
the top by the limit of ability which
government service has been able tt
command. 1t is limited at the bot.
tom by the extent of human con
tact possible to government machin
cry. The American Legion rehabil
itation service knows no limit al
either end.
Consider only one group of wal
victims, the sufferers from neuro
pSychiatricl diseases, crudely describ
ed as "shell-shocked," but actually
covering the whole --..e~ menta
and nervous Affections, usually &C
companied by physical disorders
The early governmental approach tt
this group, which has run into the
hundreds of thousands of cases, wa!
10 assume that those men were, un
happily, made lunatics by the war
and government must perpetually
care for them in lunatic asylums.
Il A Legion Motto.
i The American Legion, operating
under motto, Temporary Care
Permanent Cure" declared that no
one of these men should be given
up to hopeless future of confne
ment and domicilary care unit
every earthly means of cure ha,
been tried. Expert psychiatrists
supplementing and augmenting tn
government staff, were brought in
to this problem by the Legion an
are still in it. The Legion is no
paving them. Most of them hav
refused even expense allowances
But the Legion, speaking in tn
name of its comradeship for tn
disabled, has won them to this tasl
81 New methods have been devel
oped, and are being developed. Me
/ are going forth cured and we
every day, who but for the long in
sistent battle of The American Ii
: gion would have gone to insane hos
4 pitfalls for life. This fight is bein
won. not by dollars, but by til
! spirit which the Legion and the mas
8 nificent men who have rallied to il
4 aid have put into it. The dolls
3 cost has been insignificant compare
3 to the salvaging of the nerve-racke
3 men who were hideous by-produ,
4 of war. That small dollar CO
4 must be assured, as it will be,
= American Legion Endowment.