Charges Against the Federal Board for Vocational Education

The CHAIRMAN. If there is no objection on the part of the committee we will proceed now with Mr. Husted's resolution, H. R. 478. Mr. HUSTED. Mr. Chairman, I assume that all the members of the committee are more or less familiar with the articles by Mr. Littledale, which have appeared from time to time in the New York Evening Post, and which were, I assume, sent out in a collected. form to the Members of Congress a few days ago. The New York Evening Post is one of the oldest and one of the most conservative journals in the city of New York. It has never gone into sensationalism; on the contrary, it is a newspaper that has kept about as far away from it as any newspaper in the city of New York. Mr. Littledale, who has written these articles, is a gentleman of reputation who did very important work in connection with the prison reform in New Jersey, and is a man of standing and character."

I understand that he has been personally conducting this investigation into the activities of the Federal Vocational Education Board. He states that the central office here in Washington has sent out what has come to be known as the "hard boiled order" to its agents who were invested with the duty of passing upon applications of disabled soldiers for treatment under the rehabilitation act. I think we are all more or less disappointed with the results that have been obtained by the board. I think we feel that they have had time enough, that they have had money enough to accomplish more than has been accomplished. We passed the law about six months before any disabled soldier applied for treatment. They have had time enough, it seems to me, to make their plans if they had been competent to administer this great trust and to get things in readiness for the reception of the soldiers and to give them actual treatment, but up to the 17th of January, as I understand it, less than 300 men had been actually turned out and given employment, and a great many thousands of men whose applications have been passed upon are still awaiting training, and a good deal of the training that has been given has not been at all practical.

I have had illustrations of that in many forms and I presume most of the members here have. I know one man in my district who did not have anything. He didn't have a dollar. He was rendered wholly incapable of earning a livelihood in the manner in which he had formerly been earning it before the war. He applied for training and after going over different lines of work he was advised to take up engraving. Well, he took it up on the advice of the man who questioned him. He took training for several months, and then he

found out that the tools for his trade were going to cost him about $450. Well, he did not have a dollar to spend for tools to carry on this trade of engraving, so that all the work that he had been doing and the time he had spent in learning the trade was lost so far as he was concerned. That simply illustrates the impractical character of it.

Mr. BLANTON. Right there, do you lodge your criticism upon the fact that only as you say you don't know how many have been turned out as you say only 300 have been trained, graduated, and placed in positions? Do you lodge your criticism merely upon that alone, only so few in number?

Mr. HUSTED. Oh, no, no, no.

Mr. BLANTON. We have just begun it recently. We can not expect a university to turn out graduates in a short time. It takes some time to do that--three or four years to graduate from a university. Of course, this training does not take so long, but it has got to take a certain length of time to graduate them after they apply.

Mr. HUSTED. We do not lodge our criticism on that. My resolution is not concerned in that at all. We are disappointed with the results, and I think that most of us feel that this work is not in competent and efficient hands. That is my personal belief from what I have learned about it. This New York Evening Post asserts, and they say that they can prove it, that an order was issued to their agents.

Mr. DONOVAN. Is this man here that makes that charge? Who is the man that makes the charge?

Mr. HUSTED. Mr. Littledale. They say that an order was issued to the men who pass upon the applications of disabled soldiers, and this is the language of the order:

The organs used in approving cases are the eyes and the brain. The ears and the heart do not function. Be hard boiled. Members of the district office staffs will beat you over the head with verbal pressure. District pressure causes all our mistakes. Put cotton in your ears and lock the door. If you are naturally sympathetic, work nights when nobody is there. Accept advice from central office. Take all the cigarettes yo i can get from members of the district office staffs, but no advice.

Mr. BLANTON. Now, then, the order to be worth anything would have to be issued by the headquarters, and the headquarters is down here within three blocks from the Capitol?

Mr. HUSTED. Yes.

Mr. BLANTON. Have you made inquiry down there to find out whether that order was given out?

Mr. HUSTED. I have not.

Mr. BLANTON. That information is easily ascertainable.

Mr. HUSTED. I will state my reasons for not making the inquiry. I do not rely entirely upon the statements published in the New York Evening Post. A representative of the Washington Herald called at my office and he told me that one of his intimate friends was one of those agents, and that his friend, this agent, had received this identical order containing this language. So there is not only the statement published in the New York Evening Post, but there is the statement of the representative of the Washington Herald, who can be called here to verify it.

Mr. BLANTON. Now, to clarify the situation right there, you want the truth, as well as the rest of us?

« Previous Continue »