IV. The Centralized System. The centralized system caused but little change to be made in the system of the Rehabilitation Office itself. With the organization of the sub-committees, a requisition blank was introduced. Whenever a committee desired a particular case, it was asked to fill out one of these blanks, and send it to the registration office. Secretaries of the committees had supervision of the clerical work done in connection with each of their departments. The bookkeeping and tracing systems remained practically the same.
V. Consideration of Cases out of Turn. The following letter was issued by the superintendent in July, 1906.
Letter of Information No. 5
Regarding Emergency Cases
“To all Sections:—
“A number of cases have been forwarded with emergency cards, which should not have had them. The Committee assumes that few emergencies can possibly arise after a lapse of 3 months, which require immediate settlement.
“An excellent illustration of a ‘mistaken’ emergency:—A carpenter, idle since the fire discovered eight days ago that he must have tools to go to a job the following date.
“The emergency card was taken off by direction of the Superintendent because the natural query arose why had he not been working long before at something. As he had not, he could very well wait until his case was reached in regular order. Carpenters are at a premium.
“Emergency cases delay appreciably the progress of other cases and should be reduced in number.”
The letter notes an important point; namely, the delays and inconveniences that are caused by cases having to be considered out of turn.
On July 23, 1906, the Rehabilitation Committee voted that ordinarily no cases should be considered emergent unless sickness or death were involved. It goes without question, however, that such a rule could not be strictly lived up to. Unusual situations arose which had to be attended to. From time to time cases were sent back when the Committee refused to handle them as emergent. It is probably true that this particular question cannot be adequately dealt with by rules. The necessity is for responsible committees to maintain the closest sort of supervision and to refuse to consider out of turn cases which obviously do not demand immediate attention.