83,000 FORGOTTEN

The Boston Herald has brought to light by the publication of the results of some recent investigations, the unfortunate plight of many disabled veterans of the war. There are now, so the investigation shows, some 83,000 men, suffering from the effects of wounds or from injuries to their health brought on by their service in the army. Some of these men are in federal hospitals, others are paying for treatment from their own resources, many are in extreme need. The only hope of these last lies in getting their war risk insurance paid to them, and this, because of the numerous and devious methods of the war department, is not always forth-coming.

Not is the lot of those men who are being cared for by the army all that it should be. For peculiar reasons known only to officials of the Medical Department, men are placed in hospitals far from their own homes; are taken from hospital to hospital when not fit to be moved from their beds; are assigned to buildings inadequately equipped and in many cases unsafe. Sometimes tuberculosis patients are "farmed" out in small groups at the individual rate of three dollars a day, paid by the government for their care and food. Generally, such men are treated well, but cases have not been infrequent in which civilians have not been above appropriating part of the government money for their own use.

Merciless publicity and widespread investigation can bring facts such as these to the attention of the community. If the matter is not pressed, however, the interest in the ex-soldiers troubles will rapidly die. For men in the University, there is one very simple means of assisting. At the meeting of the James A. Shannon Post of the American Legion, committee of law school students might well be appointed to aid men in hospitals near Boston in drawing up the various documents required by the War Risk Bureau. Another committee of student and faculty volunteers could be selected to bring cases of injustice of this sort before the proper authorities. But whatever is done, can be done with the assurance that this is a field in which activity of any kind will not be wasted.