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IN REPLYING
ADDRESS THE SURGEON GENERAL
U. S. PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
AND REFER TO



TREASURY DEPARTMENT

BUREAU OF
THE PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

WASHINGTON


April 15, 1930.


Dr. L. M. Waugh,
476 - 5th Avenue,
New York City.

Dear Dr. Waugh:

I am in receipt of your recent letters regarding the proposed detail to Alaska. We have been getting together the things which you will need and have already shipped some of the supplies and equipment, to be taken on board when the Northland reaches Seattle.

In your letter of April 5th you seem to require promises from me that I am unable to give. I am sure that you have realized that I am keenly interested in detailing a dental officer to the Northland, but even more than that, I am interested in the many other phases of my work, and I would probably sacrifice the detail of a dentist to the Northland rather than other stations where the dental officers serve.

As I told you in a previous letter, I have been able this year to secure additional funds. If I an able to find the right kind of young men and they can qualify for the Service, it seems to me that in the future we will never be so destitute of officer personnel as we have been in the past. My reason heretofore for not taking on additional officers was that we had no law or regulation by which we could eliminate officers who were not qualified. We now have such a law since the President signed the personnel bill last week, and so in the future I can build up a corps of officers that will be worthy of the Service. So far as promising you, however, that an officer will always go with the Northland, it would be ridiculous for me to make such a statement. This year I was able to get the consent of Congress and the Budget Bureau to place an officer on board the Northland; therefore, it would seem to me that I would never be confronted in the future with arguments from some of the medical officers such as I have had to put up with in the past, and as long as an officer is available he will be detailed for that duty. This detail, however, according to law, would not be for the primary purpose of taking care of the natives but for Coast Guard needs. I am sure the Service does not want to include the natives of Alaska in its list of beneficiaries, but, from

[[right margin]] officer plad Northland [[/right margin]]