Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1898-12-16
STATE SOLDIER, HOME.
Some Interesting Fact. Regarding the Pro.
portion of the Inmates in the
Hospital DepartMent.

Some Interesting Facts Regarding the Pro-
portion of the Inmates in the
Hospital Department..
"The proportion of old soldiers in
South Dakota who are not self sustain
ing is only half as great as the average
for the country at large" This is the
declaration of Col. E. E. Clough, of the
board of management of the state Sol
diers' Home at Hot Springs, s. D., and
he has made the matter the subject Of
careful investigation, says the Sioux
City Times. "It is estimated that of all
the veterans of the civil war, in the
country at large, only 8 per cent have
been crowded into the necessity of &C.
cepting more or less help from the
commonwealth in which they live; but
In South Dakota only 21a per cent are
thus cared for. OF course a part of
this excellent showing is due to the
circumstance that the veteran popula-
ton of the state is selected material'
because the men were samples of the
special vigor and ability which leads
people to strike out for newer fields
and opportunities-other they
would not have been here. But large
share of the good record is due to the
fact that South Dakota offers better
chances than the average for the old
soldiers or anybody else to make an
independent living.
"The particular knotty feature of
such care as our state has to supply,
which must be furnished at the home
at Hot Springs, is the large proportion
of invalids among the occupants OF the
institution. In the soldiers homes
throughout the country only ono in
mate in twelve is in the hospital, but
in the South Dakota home the ratio is
one to eight. A very large share of
men who come to us do 80 because
their health has broken down, and not
because they are deprived of a normal
chance to make a living. This results
in an overcrowding of our hospital ca
pacity. We had organized the home
according to the experiences in other
institutions of the same character, and
had allotted hospital space upon the
basis of the requirements shown to be
adequate in many Of the states. Tx
perience has demonstrated that we
have not enough accommodations of this
special character, and the legislature
will be asked to give us money to in
crease our facilities for caring for q
larger proportion of patients.
sNecessarily the reputation of the
baths at Hot Springs has attracted
more old soldiers as invalids than
would be the case in the ordinary SOL
diers' home, and this has had tenden-
cy to make the population of the home
abnormally a hospital population. But
we are especially gratified at some of
the cures which have been effected
among old soldiers who have come to
us and had the benefit of the treat
ment it is possible to secure. There
are still hopes that this feature of our
location may induce the general gov
ernmens to take up the matter of es.
tablishing special home at Hot
Springs, in order to give veterans from
all over the country the advantage of
treatment by the waters.
1.-THE board of management of the
state home has just concluded q meet
ing at Yankton for the purpose of de-
Gliding upon the amount of various ap-
propriations we will ask from the com.
ing legislature. All the members were
present, in addition to myself there
being in attendance the following: G.
8. Palmer, of Sioux Falls; o. E. Dewey,
Of Watertown; Harvey Gunderson, Of
vermillion; Abram Van Osdel, of
Yankton. We went over the necessi-
ties of the institution very carefully,
and will show the legislature the fig
pres of the present attendance which
5. Is crowding US SO seriously, especially
in the hospital department, and we will
haveto say to the legislature that un-
less we can have the money asked for
there must be wholesale discharge of
inmates from the home. The best
we can possibly do in the way of main
, tenance is to cut the annual cost of an
individual ration down to $3.50, or
about 81 cents per day. We now have
234 inmates on the roll and 40 addi-
tional applications. It is mere mat
ter Of arithmetic to determine how
much we must have in order to keep
the home in operation and furnish &C.
commodations for those who are enti-
tied to them"