THE GORGAS REPORT

On the heels of the ordnance embarrassment comes the news that the sanitary conditions in four of our camps are poor, that winter garments are lacking in many cases, and that much of the disease and especially of the pneumonia so prevalent in our camps is due entirely to inefficiency in supplying the men with the right kind of clothing at the right time. This state of affairs may and probably does exist in other cantonments, but Major-General Gorgas, the Surgeon-General of the Army, has only inspected four of the camps.

Gorgas reports the plumbing often defective, no base hospitals completed except at Funston, and winter overcoats issued to only a small number of men. The report reads like an account of the Spanish-American War camps, where so many thousands were killed by disease. A repetition of those days seems impossible, but we must see to it that our camps are clean, that men are not sent in herds of six thousand to places where no one is ready for them, as recently occurred at New Rochelle. The nation is willing to give its manhood up to face bullets and shells, but not to be slain by disease which comes from criminal carelessness.