The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1905-01-01
Acclimation OF Troops in Honolulu

The city of Honolulu is in line with
the manifest destiny of the United
States, in that it offers an ideal place
for the acclirnation of American troops
destined for service in the tropical pos
sessions of America And this is
. true whether expansion is to take place
to the southwark of the present body
of States, as has always been believed,
or in tropical Asia, or IN both direc-
tons, as now seems most probable.
The United States, as result of the
Spanish-American war and of the re-
cent revolutionary movement in Pana-
ma, has indeed alreadv entered upon
paths. When the Spanish-American
war left the country in possession of
the Philippine islands and of Porto
Rico, with a reversionary interest in
Cuba, it was seen by far-sighted men
that new day had dawned for Ameri-
ca. 1t had become, n a day, world
power And perhaps the world at large
was more keenly alive to this fact even
than the most far-sighted Americans
were
Americans saw it, at any rate, with
sufficient c1earness to induce Congress
to pass laws for the increase of the
regular army establishment of the ma
ton. In fact, if these possessions ac-
quired as a result of the Spanish war
were to be held, it became incumbent
upon the nation to provide troops to
hold them The Filipino outbreak was
sufficient demonstration of that truth,
if any were needed And the American
people, when the question was put to
them IN the last appeal at the ballot
box, decided that the Asiatic posses
sions were to be held.
Fortunately at the same time that
the Philippines were acquired, the Ha-
waiian islands fell naturally into the
possession of the United States. The
climate of the Philippines, as everybody
knows, is one particularly trying to men
bred In the temperate zone. The Amer
lean troops serving in the Philippines
lost more men as a result of climatic
disease than fell victim to the bullets
of the combined forces of Spain and
the insurrectos.
The climate of Hawaii, on the other
hand, is particularly agreeable to the
physical system of men bred on the
mainland of America. This has been
number. 1t rs a tropical climate, that
of these islands, but the heat of the
tropics is so tempered by the trade
winds that men coming here from the
mainland suffer less hardship than in any
other spot in the same latitude in the
world. Not only is the range of the
thermometer here low, but the humidity
is of such character that. while the eli
mate is particularly humid, the rains
have none of that peculiar sticky quality
that make the rains of Manila and the
country around there absolutely deadly
to white men. You can be exposed to
the Hawaiian rain without danger to
health in the slightest degree and the
heat in the dry season Is not the de-
pressing heat of other places in the
same latitude.
For this reason, the islands form an
ideal place for the acclimatization of
troops enlisted on the mainland for SER
tice of the military authorities. as has
been already announced, to rotate the
service of the several regiments of the
army, so that every enlisted man will,
in the term of his enlistment, see ser
vice in every part of the American do {
r1iniorlEtnder the Arctic circle and in
the equatorial countries.
Now, in breaking men enlisted in the /
zone for service in the trop-
les, it would be more than folly, it t
would be almost criminal, to take them
at once and without preparation into (
the deadly miasmatic swamps of Luzon t
Or Panama Panama, of course, must &
be counted IN this connection, because
when the Panama canal is built it will
become incunbent-in fact, it has al
ready become incumbent, upon the t
United States to police the canal zone, n
and that must be done by men, for the b
most part, enlisted In the United States. f
The canal zone ON the Isthmus of Pam |;
ANA is perhaps the most deadly strip b
Of country in the world. There is the r
nome of the Chagres fever. f
Admitting the folly of taking men b
,ut of the temperate zone and into the b