Things Have Greatly Improved of Late, But There Is Still Considerable Confusion as to Authority, and Our Heroes and Their Families Suffer – Suggestions as to Remedying Conditions.
By Gregory Clark, December 18, 1915.
Toronto, the city that Ottawa called “the place that put the kick in kick,” has already begun to speculate as to how long the present organization for the care of returned soldiers can last. That it fails utterly to recognize the tremendous proportions and the hidden dangers of the problem is evident from the fact that no permanent and far-reaching plans are being laid, even though the problem is already posed in no small figures. That the present organization is shifting of responsibility from one place to another until no responsibility remains is pitifully plain.
It is six months since the first of our heroes began return to us. Three of those six months were passed in what might be called indifference to the problem. Originally the returning men were landed at Halifax, lodged in a jail, given a typewritten sheet of flimsy paper that purported to be a discharge, and were so launched over the Dominion home. After a few weeks the Discharge Depot at Quebec began to deal exclusively with the men. It was hopelessly undermanned. What short-sighted, foolish, and ineffectual means were taken by the Discharge Depot to cope with the problem are well-known now that the tragedy, oft-repeated, of sick men being discharged and left to court death with their own devices.
The last three months have seen the awakening. These tales of woe, of consumptives discharged, of money promised but never coming, have been written up fully in the press, despite very plausible charges that the press was attempting to hamstring the Government.
Now, after six months of battle with the problem the soldier who returns has a much better and more considerate reception than his comrades who preceded him. When he lands at Halifax, instead of being lodged in Melville Prison or on the docks, he is taken by train to Quebec in the best of coaches, and three square meals. At Quebec a sufficiently increased staff of doctors meet him. If, like 75 per cent. of returned soldiers, he is in need of medical care, he is sent forward to a central convalescent home. In the past he would have been lodged in none too clean immigration sheds, taken before a medical board, given his discharge, and a sum of money, and tuned adrift. Now he travels with a party to the convalescent home. He is enrolled on the books, and allowed to go home for a few days. His money is forwarded to the divisional officers. Thus far all is ship-shape. He is the charge of a well-conducted system. He cannot, even if he will, go out and kill himself by superinducing pneumonia or tuberculosis.
Discharge Depot Regulations
These matters are very clearly dealt with in the regulations of the Discharge Depot at Ottawa, which are here given for the first time:
Class No. 1: Men who are cured and ready for discharge are given discharge with pay and arrears, also fifteen days advance pay, so as to enable them to procure a situation in civil life, and, if deemed necessary, one pair of boots and their choice of a civilian suit of clothes and overcoat or the regulation allowance of $13.00 for purchase of same.
“Class No. 2: Men suffering from complaints which will probably respond under treatment or who require time and rest to be restored to normal health; men in this class are privileged to go to a Military Hospital or Convalescent Home, or if the case appears to be one which could be so disposed of, will be permitted to return to their homes and families until formally discharged. They are entitled to pay and arrears to date and advance pay for one month; boots, if required, and their choice of either civilian clothes or an allowance of $13.00 for same, and are not given a Discharge Certificate, but instead, a descriptive certificate stating that the holder is in Class No. 2, and entitled to the privileges provided for in such class.
“Class No. 3: Men permanently disabled in such a way as to be not likely to be needing other treatment, such disability having been caused by military service. Men in this class are riven a Certificate with a description of the individual and stating that he is in Class No. 3. He is given pay and arrears to date, with advance pay for one month; pair of boots, if necessary, and is choice of civilian clothes or an allowance of $13.00 for same. In the case of the above class an advance in cash, not to exceed $20, will be paid to every man, and immediately upon departure of the men from Quebec, a cheque for a sum not exceeding $100.00 will be forwarded to the A.A.G.1 of the Division to which the man belongs issuable to him on reaching home, after his case has been dealt with by the Division authorities. Each man’s address and last pay certificate will be immediately forwarded from the Discharge Depot at Quebec to Ottawa, where a special branch has teen formed to handle all future, payments.”
Things are Better Now
The scores who returned before this new order of things have a terrible tale of suffering and neglect to tell. It is a joyful thing to be able to say that at last after months of neglect, these splendid fellows are being looked out for. Numbers of them have been taken into the military hospitals. The others, who are not so badly off in health, have received the back pay that has been so outrageously neglected.
But this is only the medical side that is so excellent. May it improve! May it continue the good work! And no doubt it will under the guidance of Lieut.-Col. Marlow, the A.D.M.S., whose ideas have been largely followed out in the recent reorganization of the system. It is proposed to institute a series of branch convalescent homes all over the Province. And a further improvement is that the Discharge Depot is to move over to Liverpool, and all the clerical work will be done on board ship, so that the returned men will have no heel-kicking to do around to do around Quebec.
The fault, however, lies in the fact that there is no central head, no single office or officer responsible for this great work that will be with us for a generation. The Military Hospitals Commission was appointed by the Government to deal with the problem generally. Then sub-commissions requested in the Province, and the Soldiers’ Aid Commission was appointed to deal with the problem generally. Then the municipalities were requested to do a little something, and the Mayor of this city appointed a Soldiers’ Welcome Committee, and a military secretary, who opened a special office in the City Hall where returned soldiers are directed.
A Confusion of Authorities
Thus, the Military Hospitals Commission wrote the returned soldiers for full particulars. The Soldiers’ Aid Commission wrote likewise and enclosed a blank form of questions to the number of dozens to be filled in. The city wrote to returned soldiers asking them to enrol on a list in the City Clerk’s office. Military Hospitals Commission has a local office.
From the Military Hospitals Commission, from just plain Militia Department, from the Pensions and Claims Board, and from the Paymaster-General, the returned soldier receives equally authoritative letters. When it comes to his writing, he has not the faintest idea to which he should refer. He is confused by the multiplicity of departments, the variety of authorities. It is an almost unheard of thing for a man to receive an answer to a letter within a week. And I have seen answers coming a month after the original letter was sent.
Such confusion must surely go. The duty of attacking and solving the problem is certainly the duty of the State. And the only solution can be in the formation of a distinct department, or at least a very distinct branch of the Militia Department, with powers over the pay, pensions, and medical departments. The longer we dawdle along under the present system and larger the problem becomes, the harder will it be to break away from it in time to avoid the great dangers and the grave injustices and cruelties that are in it.
No scattered commissions, not knowing what the other is doing, but a single, clearly defined department. permanent and fully manned, with its officers, in every city and town. The Pensions Board cannot deal with the problem. For it is vastly greater than mere pensioning. It is the reinstatement into civil life of those whom the State has removed from civil life. It is the fathering of those forever helpless in the nation’s name. It is the work of re-making as many as possible into contributors again to the nation’s life.
Permanent Jobs Wanted
The present system is so vain. The human element has gone out of it. Money is being sent, very late. Jobs are being got by the Provincial organization, the Soldiers’ Aid Commission. But what is a temporary job? The men must be re-made fit to go into a job permanently. Christmas mails are not forever. But remade muscles, remade lungs, built by a period of rest with a liberal allowance, and then a job that to the best of the commission’s and the soldier’s belief is a permanent job – these are different matters. The State must remake the man and then find him one job. If the commissions flutter about, getting job after job or giving money in place of lacking jobs to men, all will end in disillusionment, disgust, confusion.
Samples of the confusion arising out of too many authorities are not scarce. One man who was given subsistence for three. months was neglected for one month, left on his uppers, in fact. When he raised complaint the medical officers of the division came to him and said, “If you are too sick to work, then enter the convalescent home.”
The soldier had a wife and three children to support. He was doing it at the expense of his health, which was officially marked “unfit,” from wounds and trench exposure. The military officials, however, acting on the belief that it is safer to discount such cases as this as false, put it up to the man. He entered the home. His wife and three children went unprovided for. He had written to the Militia Department, to the Hospitals Commission, and to the Pay Department about his case. He did not receive money for his family until his story was printed in The Star Weekly and Daily Star.
In such a case as this the divisional authorities were in no way to blame. Not until the recent reorganization of the Discharge Depot were the divisions fully notified of their returned men.
Princess Pat a Peddler
Another case in point is that of a Princess Pat man whom I discovered peddling metal polish.
“Why are you doing that?” I asked.
“To make ends meet,” said this man who had taken part in some of the greatest battles around Ypres.
From his papers I learned that he had come home in October, was discharged, and was recommended to have $50 a month for three months. He received his $50 in October, but in November he only received $30. He wrote at once to Ottawa and received a reply from Mr. E. H. Scammell, secretary of the Military Hospitals Commission, explaining that $20 had been deducted on account of assigned pay for August and September, 1914, over a year ago, which had not hitherto been deducted from pay.
“I have a wife and six children. I unable even to do the lightest kind of work, but seeing that the officials do not consider these things and send me only $30 for the month, rent and all, I am obliged to peddle metal polish.”
“Man, didn’t you write back and explain at once?” I cried.
“Oh, yes,” said the soldier.
But he got no reply. Furthermore, he is of the opinion that there was no such thing as assigned pay that early in the war. It was, he believes, instituted later.
The Militia Department is overloaded, as it is, with the business of sending soldiers away from Canada. That department at least cannot be blamed for regarding the returned soldiers as of secondary importance There should be department to consider the returned soldier as of prime importance. It should take charge of every soldier the moment he is released from the hospital in England, and should thereafter never let go until the man is fit again, working at a job; or, if unfitted for life, pensioned and cared-for for life. There should be none of these horrible cases of neglect. There should never be a soldier peddling pencils because his money did not come from Ottawa. There should be no referring from one department to another, long, dreadful days to the returned men: light, busy, chatty, and talk full days for the officials.
The Soldier Who Spat Blood
I shall not soon forget an experience in this regard. At the street entrance of the Toronto office of one of the committees I met a returned soldier coming out.
“Hello, Bill!”
“Hello,” said Bill, the soldier with three wounds and destroyed lungs. “I’ve just been listening to a lady and gent telling me I’m no soldier. Why? Because I grew peeved when they said, for the fourth time in ten days, that they had written to Ottawa about my case. I want money! My kids need food! My God!”
And in a sort of fury he spat.
He spat blood!
When I reached the offices the soldier had come from I was assured that the soldier was a kicker and a drinker, and a greedy grasper-
“He is a hero, twice in action, thrice wounded, and now in our midst with tuberculosis on him,” I pointed out.
“Well, we’ve written to Ottawa and that’s all that can be done,” replied the officials.
Editor’s Notes: The Department of Soldiers’ Civil Re-establishment was only established in 1918 to handle the major problem of returning Canadian servicemen to civilian life after the First World War. In 1928 it merged with the Department of Health to form the Department of Pensions and National Health. The department of Veterans Affairs was not created until 1944.
- The Assistant Adjutant General. ↩︎
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