Remarks to Regional Office and Hospital Managers of the Veterans Administration.

GOOD MORNING. Maybe it's a little bit early for some of you, but I am an old soldier. Actually, I am a veteran--some of you people some day are going to have to take care of me.

I wanted to chat with you a little bit because of the great importance your organization achieves in the United States Government, and your part in that organization. Alter all, the third item in our budget is for the Veterans Administration, and it gets something over five and a half billion and with 170,000 of you people--office managers and hospital managers--dealing with this matter of some 22 million veterans all over the United States, it is not only important that you meet in such places as Washington to talk among yourselves about your problems and how you can improve the service, but it is also important that all of the United States knows that you are doing your job well.

Since the United States does provide generously for, as Lincoln said, "the widow and the orphan and those who have been disabled in the service of their country," then, in order that that generosity may be properly expressed, you people have to do it. Mr. Whittier or any other individual here in this office can set a tone. You people do the work.

Consequently, from all these angles of the great amounts the Nation provides, the need and the numbers of veterans who have in some form or other been receiving help through your hands, this is a very important and really a vital function that you perform.

Now in the last few years I have been more than gratified by the reports I have from Mr. Whittier's office of the increasing efficiency. He tells me that there is something on the order of 3 percent of all our appropriations that can be allocated to overhead. This, to my mind, is really great efficiency. I am sure in view of the reports that have come to me from leaders of the Veterans Administration, about the way that our veterans are treated, you are also doing your part in making this a human organization. I realize that it is through your recommendations that many of the administrative improvements are achieved. But when you come down to it, it is the 170,000 people, starting with the Philippines and Hawaii and Alaska and down into the heart of our country here, our Continental United States, it is through you that the human touch that is so important to these people is brought about.

So not only do I congratulate you for the work you have been doing, I urge that every one of you continues to make his ideas and beliefs and convictions known to the headquarters concerning efficiency, effectiveness, and even reporting how to take care of these people--not that they are given a dole, but that they are treated as human beings who have deserved well of their country. All of this, it seems to me, from every report that has come to me, outside of Government and inside, you people have been doing.

So I have, then, besides the duty of thanking you, one of expressing very great personal satisfaction in this matter. I had, in Europe, the greatest number of people ever sent into the field under one command, and of that command over three million were Americans. They are the ones that are our responsibility. I saw them--many of you saw them--there and in the Pacific, dirty, muddy, sometimes cold and freezing, nearly always tired--and looking for a coca cola.

But today, as I go .back in my memory to the days when I was living among those people all the time, I feel again that tremendous hope that some way they would get to know America's real appreciation of the sacrifices they make, and I think it is through you people more than anyone else that they do.

So, my personal thanks on behalf of all those people who served and for the widows and orphans or dependents of those who did not come back.

I apologize again for bringing you out here at this early hour of the morning, but it was the only way I could see to meet you, and I did want to do that. I thank you for coming out, because it has been a great pleasure to talk with and see such a great group of dedicated Americans.

Thank you very much. Goodbye.