The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-09-20
TIE WINTER CAMPS.


The administration has not permitted
the yellow journals of New York to run
the army, and ii is not taking advice from
/ them with regard to what ought to be
done in the matter of quartering the troops
for the winter or until such time as they
shah be ordered 10 Cuba. The yellow jour
nails, therefore, are using every endeavor
to bring the administration into dsrepute,
and in their efforts to injure the admins
tration if the truth stands in the way, so
much the worse for the truth.
The New York World affords an Illus
| tration. The World thinks it knows more
about how an army should be handled
! and where quartered, than expert military
men who have made soldering their pro
/ fession and have spent the greater part
of their lives in learning the business. 1t
has been decided by the army authorities
| that the men shall be sent into winter
camp in the South, and board of officers
is now in the South selecting camp sites
The proposed transfer makes the World
furious. II says:
The war department in spite of the
warnings of experience, in spite of the
to happen. keeps right on with its plan
/ to concentrate the troops in Southern
camps, there to breed pests and fevers
and die of them.
This is much worse than an erroneous
statement. 1t is vicious and untruthful
attack upon tie war department, and a
malicious SANDER upon the South. 1t i'm
plies that the war department is abso-
/ III
which every intelligent person knows is
not so, and that the South is a hotbed of
pests and fevers, which Is equally I'M
true.
In moving the troops South, the depart
ment will unquestionably be acting for the
good of the men. Within a few weeks
! the weather in the North will be entirely
too cold for a camping life. To subject
the men to the rigors of winter at Mon
tauk Point or elsewhere in as high lati-
tude would result in a high death rate
/ from pneumonia, pleurisy, consumption
and similar diseases, not to mention the
suffering from cold that would be ex-
perienced by those so fortunate as to es-
! cape disease. All of this would be escaped
IN the South.
! In so far as the healthfulness of the
South is concerned it will compare with
1 that of the North at any season of the
| year, summer or winter. In winter, how
ever conditions at the South are far bet
ter than at the North There has been no
epidemic of fever in either of the Carolinas
| or Georgia for many years, and there
| never has been an epidemic after frost.
Every epidemic of yellow fever that has
visited the South, experts say, has been
| imported. There has been no yellow fever
in Savannah or Charleston for more than
1 twenty years, and there has been none in
| the South for many years except in New
| Orleans and a very small section of the
! Southwest. And that small section of
the Southwest which has been infected is
not "the South" There would be just as
much sense in saying it was dangerous to
| live in the North in summer because sew
| eral hundred persons died from heat in
| New York two or three weeks ago as 10
say 1t is dangerous to come South in
summer because there CHANGED TO be a
few cases of fever away over on the Gulf
coast in the Southwest To claim fear of
fever or pestilence in the South in winter
is simply ridiculous,
The truth is that there are no finer and
more healthful sites in the world for win
ter encampments of troops than there are
in South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and
Alabama. This is especially true of South
Georgia. The climate here is equable and
baimy, the water good and the ground
dry. 1t Is to be hoped that the Worlds
SANDER will have no influence upon North
ern public opinion. 1t certainly deserves
to have none.