St. Paul recorder. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1934-2000, 1945-12-14
Dear Joe"
A Weekly Column by and
for Veterans
By JAMES L. HICKS

| Lear Joe:
Every time you pick up a paper
these days you read where some
organization is holding a meeting
to determine, "What Can We Do to
Help the Returning Veteran"
After attending about ten of
these meetings (and dropping
our little bit of change in the col
lection plate each time) we have
yet to see any veterans receive
any direct benefits as the results
of such a meeting, and since we
are pretty well fed up, and our
change for the collection plate is
running low, we are Offering a
few concrete suggestions our
selves in hope that some Organi-
cation will get the idea and get
something done.
If you are planning to attend one
of these meetings soon, Joe, take a
copy of this letter along and lay it
on the chairman's desk and then
sit back and see what happens.
These are our suggestions for
any organization that asks "What
Can We Do to Help the Returning
Servicemen?"
1. FIND THE VETERAN A
HOME! One of the biggest prob
lens facing returning soldiers in
crowded cities today is finding a
place where he can live with his
wife, who, in nine of ten cases, has
been rooming with someone while
he was in the service. This situa-
ton is really bad and if your or
ganization is successful in placing
one veteran and his family in
home, it will have done more than
any organization that we can point
to at this date.
2. GET THE VETERAN A
JOB! If you find a home for him,
he needs money to pay the rent.
The American way to get money
is to earn it by working for it.
Joe wants to earn his the American
way, so find him a job. Don't just
tell him to see Mr.. Jones. If you
know Mr.. Jones, call him up while
Joe is in your office and ask him if
he can use a good man. They're
all good, mister-good enough to
win the war; In short, don't stop
following through on the veteran
until you know he is on the job
working.
This might mean a lot of work
to your organization-but remem-
Der, Joe didn't stop work until the
war was over.
3. SET UP ONE, AND ONLY
ONE, CENTER IN YOUR COM
MUNITY WHERE VETERANS
CAN GO TO LEARN ALL THEIR
RIGHTS AND HOW TO GET
THEM.
AS Bernard Baruch puts it, "Set
your center up in dignity-not
charity"
Set up one center-let all your
community organizations have a
hand in it but don't let all your
community organizations have a
center. 1 know it's hard to get the
Baptists to working with the Metho-
dists or the Elks to working with
the Legion, but get 'em together.
The CPS got together and won the
war. Civilians should be able to
Iget together long enough to win the
peace.
Judge your veterans center not
by the number of veterans who
visit it during the week, but judge
it by the number who came to your
center and GOT WHAT THEY
CAME FOR.
Let this be your test: Ask the
soldier before he leaves, "JOe,
did you get what you came here
to get?" If the answer is mo-
more often than the answer is
YES" then close your veteran
center because it is not doing its
job. It's better not to have a
veterans center in your COM
munity at all than to have one
which is nothing more than just
another stop on the ring around
the rosy that veterans are being