Conference of Officers in Charge of Government Hospitals Serving Veterans of the World War

by Unknown

“I do not often speak in public. Occasionally I attempt to speak extemporaneously, but today I shall claim your indulgence and confine my remarks strictly to what is written in this manuscript, for the reason that if taken in a disconnected sense some of the things I shall say might sound sensational, whereas if taken in a connected sense and in the way I shall say them, I think you will agree with me that there is absolutely nothing sensational in my remarks.

Attendance at this conference is indeed both a privilege and an opportunity. To be asked to address this gathering is a distinction worthy of the best that can be said on the topic assigned.

I take it that you are already familiar with the rights and benefits to which the disabled ex-service man is entitled; that you are familiar with the usual routine of paper work and other procedures in admitting, transferring and discharging, and I shall therefore omit some of the more or less definitely settled, fixed policies in this discussion.

I fully realize that my subject is an extremely important one and that it is in a measure connected with nearly every benefit extended to the ex-service man or woman, and with every service that is rendered in his or her behalf. On the intelligent administration of the functions of admission, transfer and discharge to, or from our hospitals, as the case may be, depends, in great measure, not only the economical and efficient administration of our entire hospital program, but in equal measure the recovery, the health, the happiness, the future usefulness, even the very lives of men and women, many of whom have made great sacrifices and passed through great agonies.

When I make these assertions, do not think for a moment that I am comparing these functions with the actual volume of work that is done in the hospitals, with the relief that is given therein, nor with the benefits which accrue to the patient, but, just as victory in a great battle may depend on the placing of the right troops in the right place at the right time, so victory, in the struggle of the disabled ex-service man for rehabilitation, for health, or for life, may depend on his being sent to the right hospital at the right time. Neither must he be discharged too soon, nor kept too long, and when he is transferred from one hospital to another there should be sound medical reasons therefor, barring those unfortunate cases, where the beneficiary may be transferred to a hospital near his home when it is seen that death is inevitable.

Going back now to the contact which hospitalization makes, or should make, with the other benefits extended to the ex-service man, let me picture to you the state of our past, and to a great extent, our present organization, by recalling to your minds the old story of the six blind men of Hindustan who went to see the elephant, each trying to tell what the elephant was like. The first man got hold of the elephant’s ear and said that the animal was very like a fan; the second got hold of his leg and said, “No, I can’t agree with you; this elephant is like a young tree.” The third man got hold of the elephant’s trunk and said, “The elephant is like a snake.” The fourth man grasped a tusk and said that the elephant was like a spear; the fifth fell against his side and said he was like a wall; and the sixth got hold of his tail and said he was like a rope. Now all were partly right and each was mostly wrong, and a somewhat similar condition exists with regard to our work.

This meeting, gentlemen, is an attempt to further co-ordinate the efforts of all the agencies that are at work for the ex-service man. Ours is a tremendous responsibility, both from the standpoint of our duty to the ex-service man and of our duty to the taxpayer as well.

No man except the man in the field knows better than I do that you have been circularized and regulated and instructed and uninstructed, informed and misinformed, ordered and dis-ordered, until I have no doubt you have been tempted to slam your fist down on your desk and say, “Well, for Heaven’s sake, how many bosses have I, anyway, and which lead had I better follow.” And as for reports, no doubt you have wondered, “Well, what will they want to know next?” And yet there has generally been a fairly good reason for every question you have been asked and a reasonably intelligent, honest, and often an enthusiastic, and sometimes an efficient man or woman behind the interrogation point.

In addition to having all these things done to you, I suspect that you and your colleagues in the hospitals, some of you at least, feel that you have been libelled and slandered by newspapers whose editors thought they were telling the truth, and by newspapers whose editors probably did not stop to consider whether they were telling the truth or not. You probably feel that you have been libelled and slandered, unintentionally of course, by men inside of legislative halls, and also, again perhaps unintentionally, if carelessly, by men and women outside of legislative halls, and by men and women both inside and outside of well-meaning civic organizations. And, I may say that in the Arlington Building in this city there are reams of evidence which might be cited in support of your beliefs, and at “C” Building at 7th and B Streets, there are tri-remes of such evidence, and these reams and tri-remes of evidence have cost the Government of the United States thousands, tens of thousands, yes, hundreds of thousands of dollars for investigations, when, as a matter of fact, the majority of the complaints that have been filed against hospital administration need never have been investigated by the Government at all if the individual who submitted the complaint had taken the trouble to do a little honest investigating on his or her own account.

The fact that these statements have been made with the best intentions in the world does not lessen the injustice contained in many of the charges, nor does it remove the sting which has accompanied these charges, and you, gentlemen, have listened to the soft pedal on the inside and to jazz on the outside until you have probably said, “For the love of justice, is there not some man who has grit enough to get up in public and tell the truth and say what he thinks?”