THE FIRST VA
SCANDAL
“Hospital
delays are killing America’s war veterans.”
Thus flashed a headline from CNN in November 2013, news that revealed
widespread system failure in the Veterans Administration. But this was not the
first VA disgrace. A major corruption scandal marred the hospital system at its
very inception.
Following the Civil War Congress established the National Home for
Disabled Volunteer Soldiers to care for soldiers with
war-related disabilities.
After World War One Congress agreed that veterans of that war should also receive
medical care and appropriated money to the National Home and to the Public
Health Service to use their facilities. In 1921 the veterans’ scattered medical
care and hospital services were consolidated into one organization, the
Veterans Bureau. President Warren Harding appointed Charles Forbes to run the
Bureau.
 |
| National Home for Disabled Soldiers, Virginia (National Library of Medicine) |
Forbes was unusual. Educated at Columbia University and MIT, he enlisted
in the Army as an engineer, was arrested for desertion but reinstated without
trial and remained for 8 years. After discharge he worked as a civilian engineer, dabbled in
politics, and ended up in Hawaii involved in construction at the Pearl Harbor
Navy Base. When (then) Senator Harding visited Hawaii on
vacation Forbes hosted
him and the two became good friends. Forbes later enlisted in WWI, earning the
Croix de Guerre and the Distinguished Service Medal. Soon after the War Harding
ran for president and Forbes, now a civilian, helped him gain the Republican
nomination.
 |
| Charles Forbes (Wikipedia) |
Once in office Forbes threw out all restraints. He hired large numbers
of his friends and “good Republicans”. He took long trips to inspect hospitals
and hospital sites with contractor friends, nicknamed “joy rides”. Drinking
parties and expensive hotels took more time than inspections. He paid excessive
sums for new sites, pocketing the difference, and engaged in various kickback
and insider bidding schemes with his construction firm cronies chosen to build
new hospitals. He gave the general counsel for the Bureau, Charles Cramer, a
generous cut on the profits, ensuring legal cooperation. Hospital conditions
for the veterans were often inadequate, and often patients who no
longer needed treatment were kept in, depriving others of needed care. The newly built hospitals were poorly
made, one without a kitchen and another without a laundry (the one in Palo
Alto).
 |
| Veterans Bureau meeting, with Forbes (Library of Congress) |
A huge government warehouse in Maryland full of
medical supplies caught Forbes’ attention. The contents were valued
at between 5 and 7 million dollars (between 70 and 98 million today). He sold most of it for about 20% of its
value to a Boston firm, Thompson and Kelley, expecting profits on resale. 150
freight cars showed up, into which disappeared sheets, pajamas, bandages, drugs,
liquor, and many other supplies. Protests erupted, especially from Hugh
Cumming, Surgeon General of the Public Health Service, entitled to 20% of the
warehouse contents. It proved to be Forbes’ downfall.
President Harding had brushed off earlier rumors of Forbes' shenanigans, but now called him in, twice. At the second interview Harding became so enraged that he grabbed
him and shook him “as a dog would a rat”, ordering him to resign. Forbes
slipped off to Europe and resigned from there, returning later. On March 2, 1923,
the Senate announced their intention to investigate.
Twelve days later Charles Cramer shot
himself in the head in a bathroom, leaving on his bureau a poem about death that he had clipped from a newspaper. The Senate hearings brought out the whole story,
relying especially on testimony from Elias Mortimer, a contractor included in
the scam who had become incensed when Forbes took a trip with his wife. Forbes and
John J. Thompson, purchaser of the warehouse contents, were later convicted at
trial of defrauding the government and each fined $10,000 and sentenced to two
years in prison. Thompson was sick and died before he got to prison and Forbes
was let out after eighteen months. His wife had divorced him. He lived quietly
in Florida until his death in 1952.
The VA scandal was one of many that the Harding administration endured.
It was costly in money and in neglected care of veterans. But the Veterans
Bureau lived on and was reorganized to the modern Veterans Administration in
1930, though not thoroughly immunized against subsequent scandal.
Sources:
Murray, R K: The Harding Era. 1969
Ferrell, R H: The Strange Deaths
of President Harding. 1996
Werner, M R: Privileged Characters.
1935.
(to leave a
comment click on "no comments" and a box will come up)
(to subscribe
enter email address or send request to gfrierson@gmail.com)
