GENERAL SAWYER: “Fellow workers, I certainly hope that this introduction this morning has given you two things; first, that it has given you the impression that the men engaged at the head of the affairs of this Government in this subject are capable, worthy men. I hope it will have given you the same inspiration that I carry away this morning,—to go on with this conference and with your work after you leave here more earnestly if possible, more sincerely if you may, and certainly with more determination to bring about the results we all have in mind.
This morning you have heard the various members of the Board of Hospitalization make their addresses, brief of course as they have been and in many instances not entirely fair to them, considering the subjects they have to handle; but they have done as well as time will admit.
This afternoon this conference, under the chairmanship of Colonel Forbes will take up a special subject or two, and will then go into the matter of the general discussion of the affairs as they have been presented today. We want you to feel that we are here to listen as you have listened this morning; and so we are going to ask each one of you to participate in the discussions. We want this to be an active meeting, of men in motion, so that when this conference does close we may have the satisfaction that has been expressed here by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs.”
General Sawyer asked that, upon adjournment, the members of the Conference assemble outside the building in order that a group photograph might be made.
_Second Session_ Tuesday, January 17, 1922.
At 2:00 P.M. the meeting was called to order by Colonel C. R. Forbes.
“The first paper of the afternoon was to have been read by Colonel Patterson, Medical Director of the Veterans’ Bureau; but in his absence, Dr. Rawls, of the Public Health Service, will deal with the subject of ‘Operation of Dispensary and Dental Clinics’.”
“I regret very much that Colonel Patterson cannot be here today, because he had some very definite statements to make about the dispensary problem of the Veterans’ Bureau. It was only last night that his physical condition warranted his telephoning to the Bureau his impossibility to come. In his absence I shall attempt to give you briefly a plan of the dispensary service of the U. S. Veterans’ Bureau.