“ No body of men in Government service has more complexing situations to meet than you have. You are surrounded by every embarrassment. In these days, when the pinhead demagogues are flourishing; when the mere politician is willing to capitalize anything, even a wounded soldier, to catch votes, you know that you are liable to have your constructive work unjustly attacked. To get into the lime-light many men will sacrifice right principles, and it is distressing to see the antics of the puny men in public life seeking to ingratiate themselves in public favor in connection with soldier relief. ”

“ There is always a possibility that the medical man may become so enamored of his refinements and of his scientific methods as to forget that his business is the treatment of the sick. It is a truism so trite as sometimes to be overlooked, that all organization and all methods in clinical medicine have for their ultimate end the care of the patient and everything else must be subordinated to his interests. ”

“ I believe that the service we should render and that we must render, and the only service that is worth while to the veteran, is to make him well if possible, and, if not, to make him as nearly well as he can be and as resourceful as he can be and put him back into life again with confidence in himself, with respect to his Government and with ambition to make America the leading Government of all the governments of the world. ”

“ One of the things that they contend for more than anything else is that the Federal Government, in supervising and administering the affairs of the Indians should, before they put into operation any policy for their uplift and their advancement, have the consent of the Indians. What an absurd proposition! When you contemplate sending your boy to some educational institution, are you going to permit him to dictate and say to you what you shall do, or, when he selects a certain institution and tries it for a few weeks, say that he does not like it and is going to try some other institution? ”

“ 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. ”

“ I have no desire whatsoever to take away from any man anything that ought to be given to him in the way of service or care by the Government. On the contrary, no man will go as far as I will to see that proper care and proper attention is given to every man that served the nation; but I believe that in the payments we make to these men who are being hospitalized, we ought to have some control over where that money goes, while they are in the hospital. ”

“ In the midst of your discouraging embarrassments, when carefully thought out measures of sane relief for wounded veterans are often attacked by unscrupulous men, who thereby can advertise for a little time their insignificant personalities; if you sometimes are tempted to take the easy way and join the yelping pack of destructive critics, be comforted in the thought of that everlasting truth that in the long run the man who fearlessly does right in public place survives, and the man who weakly takes the wrong way because it is easy receives only ignominy. ”

“ Keeping before us at all times the meaning of the work involved is a great aid to the elimination of misunderstanding, and personal conferences serve to smooth out and adjust overlapping of authority. One ex-service man maimed or injured, replaced into his particular niche of our social fabric should make us feel appreciative of what our work means, and the knowledge that we are rebuilding men who have suffered in the service of our country, should fortify us very strongly against the annoyances and trials which must sink into insignificance when compared with the work done. ”

“ If I do not work hard I feel fairly comfortable, and yet I am not well, I receive $30 a month when I am outside the hospital, I receive $80 a month and my board and room when I am in the hospital. Personally I would much prefer to remain at home, but when I work hard enough to make a living I break down. I have seen so many men in the hospital who are receiving their board and lodging and their $80 a month who are not as deserving of this as I am that I do not propose to remain at home and work on my present compensation, and I would just like to see you keep me out of a hospital. ”

“ In this connection, it might be said that a mistake which is made in many government institutions, and one which is not made by the most successful business men, is to attempt to start on economy at a place where one can least afford to economize, that is in the pay and allowances of the personnel immediately responsible for the management of the institution, the responsible heads of departments, etc. In other words, we are not always willing to pay for brains, a price commensurate with the business responsibility involved. ”

“ To care for convalescent and Veterans’ Bureau patients is to serve long hours of duty in which little change in the physical condition of the patients is noted; and yet so great is this responsibility, so important is the work from humanitarian and economic viewpoints that the nurses must ever be on guard against the insidious lack of interest which comes from routine care; and they must keep themselves so alert that their great opportunities for personal influence among these men shall not be neglected in any particular. ”

“ There is nothing a man holds to like this right to exercise power, and the best illustration of that is shown by the fact that the greatest war of all ages was fought for four years without a central command. Napoleon’s 44th maxim in war was that nothing is more important in war than a unified command, under one chief. Everybody knew it, but it was not until the unnecessary loss of hundreds of thousands of lives and billions of dollars worth of material that Great Britain bent its pride and accepted that plain, common-sense provision of unified command of the allies under Foch. ”

“ Let me emphasize once more that the concern that the Administration has is not how you may entertain them while they are in the hospital, is not how easy and sympathetic you may be with them, but it is how you engender in them a spirit of determination to get back into the world again as productive citizens. ”

“ I know that you all realize this and that your every effort and energy is bent to the accomplishment of the purpose for which we are all working together; that we are making headway in the proper direction is beyond question; that we are helping to rebuild the disabled is becoming more apparent as our work goes along, and we all, I know, are not only proud that we are having a part in this work, but feel privileged that our services are helping to bring about these ends. ”

“ Think for one moment of the situation if there were no nurses to work side by side with the medical man and to cooperate with him in securing for the patient that which he, with his special preparation, considers necessary for his healing. What results would be obtained? The time has passed when the need of professional nursing in the care of the sick is a debatable question. And yet nursing, as vital to the modern scientific restoration of the war veteran, has not been mentioned. ”

“ I know of no more patriotic men than those who confront me, and no more patriotic women than those who devoted themselves to the service of the nation during the war. There are no more patriotic men and women than these anywhere. ”

“ Obviously it would be most desirable to have all classes of personnel working in our governmental hospitals to be paid governmental employees. We are working toward the millennium but we are far distant from it, hence, we must avail ourselves of what we find at hand. The United States is populated with a kindly, sympathetic and generous people, which fact makes it possible for the unfortunate hospitalized to enjoy the generosity of our citizenry, much of our social programs in hospitals is made possible by the great membership and charitable organizations of our country. ”

“ I refer to the drug addict who is entitled to hospitalization for some Service connected disability. We haven’t any place to put such patients and we do not know what to do with them after we put them there. We do manage to take care of some of them but at great inconvenience, and without being able to treat them for their own best interests. We cannot get them admitted as irresponsibles by the Courts. We have no such thing as involuntary commitment, and if one of them desires to walk out of the hospital, out he walks if he is persistent enough about it, and we cannot stop it. ”

“ We too infrequently consider the sum which the aggregate saving of the few cents here and the few cents there will reach at the end of a year in the larger hospital services. With supplies abundant and seemingly easy to secure everyone who uses them is prone to become prodigal in their use and I cannot emphasize too strongly the need for economy along these lines. The application of the old saying, “take care of the pennies and the dollars will take care of themselves” to the every day use of supplies in hospitals would result in enormous savings at the end of the year. ”

“ In reciting the activities of the Navy in providing hospital care for veterans, I trust it has become apparent that I have the honor to represent an organization, equipped to aid the Veterans’ Bureau in fulfilling the pledges of our government to its veterans, disabled in the Great War, and manned by a personnel actuated in all ranks by an earnest desire to contribute in the discharge of our obligations. ”

“ Each patient must be treated separately, prescribing for his individualism when he is abed and while still unable to attempt a return to group action. The morale of the patient is just as important as the administration of drugs or surgical relief. In fact, I do not believe it too broad a statement to say more so, for every patient must be treated from a morale standpoint. While some patients need medical, others surgical treatment, a great many need neither medical nor surgical attention, but only mental rehabilitation. ”

“ We are told that neuro-psychiatric, contagious, and tuberculosis cases predominate. Right here is one difficulty as far as nurses are concerned. To contribute the highest type of service to people so afflicted requires that the living conditions, the mental and physical recreation and up-building of the nursing staff, be of the finest order. I think that this is conceded by all who consider the long hours during which the nurse is in close contact with the patient and who realize that no individual, barring none, has so large an opportunity for personal influence upon patients as the nurse. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ But to my mind that does not hold where the disability is clearly a mental disorder; that man is ambulant. The other man gives no trouble whatever because he is bed-ridden. I have no doubt that every t. b. hospital commander here today has had such cases. Your ambulant case, with few if any indications of active tuberculosis but who notwithstanding is tubercular, when he develops mental symptoms is not only a source of annoyance in the tuberculosis hospital but is destructive of morale. His place is clearly in a hospital for the treatment of mental cases. ”

“ I think Congress can say that Compensation is payable when a man has completely recovered and is discharged from the hospital. We cannot undertake to protect the patients from sharks. For instance, we give a man a pass; he goes down town and spends his money. As long as he has money in his pocket, he will spend it. I think it would be legal for Congress to say that Compensation will be payable when the man has reached maximum hospital treatment or when he is properly discharged. ”

“ Most important of all we have striven in every way to secure a qualified medical personnel, a matter of no small difficulty. The demand for competent medical men is greater than the supply. In the operation of such a large hospital system it is by no means easy to secure men skilled in special lines of endeavor. We have, therefore, felt the need many times of establishing some system of educating our medical staffs in various matters and, while funds have not permitted the extension of this system, we have availed ourselves of educational methods as far as possible. ”

“ The steady trend towards greater educational requirements, the development of refinements in diagnosis and therapy and the straining after what are believed to be higher scientific standards, creates in many minds some uneasiness as to whether the medical profession may not, by such things, be led astray and forget the very purpose for which clinical medicine exists, that is, the comfort, welfare and relief of the patient. ”

“ On the other hand, if you will give them the best within you, if you will keep yourselves professionally and administratively in the vanguard of such affairs, if you will go whole-heartedly, persistently and determinedly forward to the carrying out of the highest ideals your constructive visions can invent, the world War Veteran will realize that in his Government he has the care and appreciation of the best Government under the sun. ”