The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1901-01-13

Wars as more dangerous to health Eliza
beth Dodge, the Oldest army nurse in
America, thus refers to her Mexican War
experience: II think there is scarcely
a form of physical suffering that / did
not witness. Torture and death in the
form of bullet wounds were a compare
lively small part of the evils that we en-
countered" She rames the cholera, that
carried the brave boys off by the dozens.
then came the yellow fever, that spread
until all the hospitals were full; lastly
appeared the smallpox ito finish the work
that the others had so effectually begun.
Then we had them all three at once
During that terrible time we buried"
says Nurse Dodge, "over three thousand
soldiers"
And now Rev. Orvile ]. Nave, a post
chaplain, u. S. A, stationed at Mcpherson
barracks in Atlanta, comes out in three
column article against the army canteen.
am not in favor of the selling Of beer
or whisky to soldiers, but desire to have
such opponents OF the canteen show some
better plan to restrict such sales. Why
do they not advocate a better manage
ment of the canteen, which can be done
through an act of Congress? Chaplain
Nave admits that the canteen at Fort
Omaha paid dividends to the COM
panies of from $1,000 to $40, 900 a year Now
abolish that canteen and turn those SOL
diers and officers over to outside suffers
and barrooms and that $4,000 or less Is
entirely lost. BY the canteen plan it
comes back to the soldiers i'm profits and
keeps up reading rooms libraries, schools
etc. But Chaplain Nave makes a worse
break than this when he advocates
harsh and inhuman means to stop drink
ing on the part of soldiers. He would
have enlisting officers be very strict in
taking in new recruits and compel all
regimental and company officers to re-
strain their Incorporate soldiers. If sol
diers will drink, then he suggests their
discharge in distant colonies without
honors and with forfeiture of pay and re-
turn passage, with a few months at hard
labor on public improvements. Now, is
not this Christian (D, humane mode of
punishment for whisky drinking? Turn
the poor dis loose in a foreign country
holding back the pay honestly due them,
and branding them as dishonorably dis
charged from the service. 1t needs no
prophets eye to tell what wretched, wan
dering vagabonds they would soon be-
come.
Editors and writer's who are advocating
the closing up of West Point Military
Academy unless hazing can be totally
abolished, are showing very poor sense.
Apply this rule to all our schools and coll
leges, religious as well as literary and
military, and we should have thousand
institutions shut up at once. As Col. Mills
well says, human nature is human nature
and in this age of the world it can't be
controlled by cast iron rules and regu-
lations. In 1880, replying to Editor Murat
Halstead's article on Brutality at West
Point" as shown in the case of the Ne
gro Cadet Whitaker. Gen. VIM T. Sher-
man. wrote thus positively: mo such
event, nor anything like IL, ever occurred
at West Point / have never heard Of
life or limb being imperilled by the mis-
chief OF West Point Cadets. The mutila-
ton Of Whitaker, whether done by CT
6ets, by outsiders or himself. was grossly
exaggerated, In no manner dishguring him
or exceeding In pain what every girl feels
in having her ears pierced for earrings"
The brutality" Halstead condemned real
~ occurred at Cornell University, and tho
victim was son of Gen. Leggett, u. S.
", who was then Commissioner of Pat
ents. / repeat what I said weeks ago,
that there is no brutality al West Point
equal to that I'm other Institutions. Only a
few years ago a Princeton, N. j., Uni
vershy student was hazed to his death
m an inhumen manner. and yet the coun-
try did not go wild" over Il and want
the University abolished. Let as have no
"hsh" and flesh" business IN this mat
ter. Sidney Herbert.