The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1925-03-17
Need and Purpose of the American
Legion Endowment Fund for Disabled
Men and the Orphans of Veterans

the disabled men of the world war.
Many thousands of good citizens to-
day rest secure in their own minds as
to duty done in this respect, because
the congress has been liberal. Perhaps
relatively few Americans realize the
limitations which must always sur
round government relief even with
laws perfectly drawn and perfectly adj
minstered, as they OF course have
not been during the early years of
this work. Perhaps few Americans
understand why the American Legion,
with a cash outlay for national reha-
bittation work listed at $112,500 per
year (one-half OF the proposed en-
dowment income-the other half be-
ing 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 an
swer is that the Legion throws 900,-
600 or more members and auxiliary
workers into this task, and that the
sum total OF what is donated, locally
and by county and state groups, in
personal service, in supplies and some
times in cash, Jar exceeds the basic,
net cash outlay for the national di-
recting service. The endowment is to
make secure the national rehabilita-
ton service, the backbone, and central
generating plant OF the Legion's or
ganization of 1000 posts.
The case of the disabled veteran
with the government is an official, in
tricate, legal problem, involving many
technical complications. Under given
sets of facts, prescribed by law, the
government can extend legally speci-
fed medical or hospital treatment,
money compensation, or vocational
training. Within its necessary limits
the government on the whole has done
well, and is tending steadily to do
better. 1t does not and cannot have
completely intimate contact with the
disabled man, his family his needs.
The problem is that OF restoring to
physical, mental and spiritual health
and to a status Of self-support and
se1f-respect a man who has suffered
the wounds, diseases and shock Incl
dent to war Government machinery
however ample, remains machinery. 1t
is limited at the top by the limit OF
ability which government service has
been able to command. It is limited
at the bottom by the extent OF human
contact possible to government ma
chinery. The American Legion reha-
bilitation service knows no limit at
either end.
The American Legion, operating
under a motto Temporary Care
Permanent Cure, declared that not
one OF these men should be given up
to a hopeless future OF confinement
and domicilary care until every earth
" means OF cure had been tried FIX
pert psychiartrists, experimenting and
augmenting the government staff, were
brought into this problem by the Le-
gion and are still in it. The Legion
is not paying them. But the Legion,
speaking in the name OF its comrade-
ship for the disabled, has won them
to this task
New methods have been developed,
and are being developed. Men are go
ing forth cured and we'll every day,
who but for the long insstent battle
OF the American Legion would have
gone to insane hospitals for life. This
fight is being won, not by dollars but
by the spirit which the Legion and
the magnificent men who have rallied
to its aid and have put into it. The
dollar cost has been insignificant COM
pared to the salvaging OF the nerve
wracked men who were a hideous by
product of the war. That small dollar
cost must be assured, as it will be, by
the American Legion endowment The
Legion has gone above and beyond
where mechanical government system
could go.
Consider the problem at the bottom.
Presume the government 100 per cent
effective, which it cannot be, at hos
pftal;zation, medical care, compensa-
ton and vocational training. 1t has
not reached into the home OF the dis
abled men, nor taken hold OF his spir-
it and character. nor provided him
with the inspiration to come back from
shattered body and dismayed mind to
healthy, happy self-support, ambition,
independence. 1t rests with the Le-
gion, its posts and its members, to