The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1898-12-15
STORY OF WOE
Red Cross Nurse Brings Back
Accounts of Suffering Among
Soldiers.
Scores of Boys Dying in the
Hospitals From Lack Of
NOurishment.
Men as Noble as God Ever Made
Doing Anything That Will
End Despair.
Petty Squabbles About Rank and
Precedence Preventing Good
Work.

HONOLULU, Dec. Z, via San Francisco,
Dec. 15.-The United States transport
Scandal has arrived here from Manila,
from which place she left Nov. 10. She
brings a number of officers, 81 dis
charged and furloughed men, and two
Red Cross nurses She brings the
largest mail that ever left Manila, 213
sacks for San Francisco and one for
Honolulu.
The vessel will resume her voyage on
or about Dec. 10. Miss Schaefer, Red
Cross nurse, who went from Honolulu
to Manila, arriving there Sept. &c. has
returned here. She makes startling
charges as to the way United States SOL
diers are taken care of in Manila. Miss
Schaefer made the following statement
for publication:
Dying From Lack of Nourishment.
"Scores of the soldier boys are dying
in the hospitals at Manila. just for want
of proper nourishment. They say the
government allows 60 cents a day for
each patient. You can save dozens of
lives on five cents day.
-"Oh, the utter woe Of the hospitals,
the helplessness of them! Men as bright.
as noble as God ever made given up to
death, hoping for it, seeking it, taking
poison, doing anything that will end the
despair that comes upon them.
Seeing nothing before them but days
of pain and nights of Indebtedness,
without proper food, alone, with no one
to give them sympathy or cheer:
to write to their friends, to soothe
the aching brow or moisten the
parched lips. If by sheer endurance
or obstinacy Of vitality they do get bet
ter, there is before them nothing but
the still more cherries period of con-
valescence with the probability of re-
lapse and the old WEAKNESS of despair
to be suffered again. No wonder ther2
are six or seven funerals a day. No
wonder the dead house is never empty.
squabbies Over Rank.
"And outside the HOSPITALS and even
in 1t such. indifference! Petty consider
a. ION of rank and position, squabbles
about precedence, lack of consideration
in prescribing and preparing food, while
men are dying, not merely Of heart hun
ger, but fo1 want Of nC1TishA1ent.
Il have gone through the wards day
after day, and as spoke to this one and
that they poured out their woes-men
who do not wear their hearts on then
sleeves, cried from the pure agony OF
their loneliness and despair, made polgn-
ant and vivid by their own telling of it,
Il got so just could not go through
the wards What could I do? l saw
the need of care, of proper nourishment,
of the most ordinary hospital treatment
and was utterly helpless to do anything
Just one cog in the great remorseless
grinding machine, whose material was
noble men, and whose grist was death.
81 do not mean that attendants of the
hospitals are careless or Indifferent,
Many are trying to do their best. Their
are lot of worthiness and unselfshness
among the attendants at the hospitals.
But there is SO much inexperience, sc
many clogs to those who woald dc
much. To think of an attendant going
through a ward with a pail of beef
| broth ladling it out to the 90 or 60 pa
tients unfortunately by the cupful.
In the whole pail there was not enough
nourishment for one. even if it were
made of good material. In whole
| ward there is not more than one nurse
with experience. and for helpers only
| one or two awkward boys, who perhap:
| never saw sick room before"