The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1898-09-21
.COMPL Amt FROM
THE NEW WORKERS
Dislike Their Camp at
Honolulu.
SAY THEY ARE NOT WELL FED
FREQUENTLY DRILL WHILE
HUNGRY.
SAY THEY ARE NOT WELL FED
Their Tents Pitched on a Lava Bed,
the Dust From Which Invades
Every Nook and Crevice,
Despite Precautions.
Special Correspondence of The Cali.

CAMP MCKINLEY, Honolulu, II. l.,
Sept Ion the evening of September
3, for the first time since July 20, when
Colonel Barber, with Lieutenants Win
throp and Griffith, sailed for Honolulu
on the St Paul, the First Infantry,
New York Volunteers, officers and men
were united. On that Saturday morn
ing at $3.50 the Scandal, bearing the
last of the four attachments, into
which the regiment was divided for
transportation, reached port after
pleasant voyage and tied up at the
wharf. The baggage and mail were
unloaded and in the middle of the at
terEcon the troops took up the dusty
line of march for Kapiolani Park.
Lieutenant Colonel Stacpole was in
command, with Major Scott, Major
Emmett and Companies A, and u.
They arrived in camp so late that it
IVES dark long before tents were up
and much dissatisfaction was expressed
By the men at having little or no SUP
Der served. Many visited The neigh
boring companies and either asked for
supper or used the Kitchen outuI Ior
preparing their own.
We are settled at last and can take
note Of our surroundings. Our camp
is at the foot of Diamond Head, slop-
ing plain cut by numerous little gull
lies of from three to ten feet in depth,
some of which are bridged over within
the encampment. Covering the sur
face of the ground is broken lava in
some places, but for the most part
couple of inches of very light volcanic
dust The particles of it fill the air
at all times. Companies marching out
to drill stir up great clouds OF 1t.
Everything is covered with the dust;
it sits into every crevice. The occu-
pants of some of the tents have spent
much labor in sweeping clear the space
fronting their tents, sprinkling it and
packing the earth down continually.
This does much toward doing away
with dust, but is quite useless unless
the whole camp is systematically po-
Iced in this way. The ground inside
the tents, too, is treated in this same
way in a constant endeavor to do away
with an eVer-present diScomforting fea-
ture of camp life here. Some inge-
NOUS men have constructed hunks and
hammocks in the trees which stud the
encampment and find their sleeping
quarters more comfortable than the
hot, crowded tents.
The food question is an important
and aggravating one here. 1t is adj
mitted by all that at no place since we
came out May has the food been so
insufficient. Last week one company
of our regiment refused to drill, COM
planning that they were insufficiently
fed and unfit for the labor of drilling.
There are kicks and kicks made to
commanding officers as to the quantity
and quality of the rations served. And
the depot commissary is blamed, and
refuteS all the accusations through the
daily press here, and, moreover, lays
the blame at the doors of the compa-
MES themselves. And while boards of
investigation are being appointed and
getting to work investigating, the men
are hungering. But better times are
promised, and even within a week i'm
provement is to be noticed.
The conditions outlined here, it may
be imagined, have made the men-well,
not quite discontented-but somewhat
doleful, homesick. All were eager to
see Hawaiian service while war was in
progress But now that merely the
conditions of peace are unsettled, there
is a growing feeling that duty is at
home and at business There is to be
no outlet for martial valor, and no pa
triotism remains with volunteer army
at peace. We are everything but SOL
diers by trade and profession, and anx
ious to be back to duty and home.
There is even envy for the Seventh
California, which is reported about to
be mustered out. At the Preside we
were envied by them.
This picture Of the feeling among the
enlisted men is as black as it can pos
sibly be painted. 1t can be relieved by.
a bit of softer color. I strongly suspect
that the failure of the paymaster to
rnaterialize on the list of the month
accounts even more largely than the