The Irish standard., 1916-05-27
Memorial to the ''Ange|s
Of the Battlefield !"

anXiously awaiting the decision c
Honorable Newton ID. Baker, Secre
tary of War, regarding the permits
sion to erect the memorial to tn
Nuns of the Battlefield" in Arlington
National Cemetery Letters and re
quests relative to this memorial have
been pouring into the war depart
mcnt the last few weeks. and the de
cision is looked for now at an early
| date.
Secretary Anthony Matre, of the
American Federation of Catholic So
cieties, sent the following letter to
the secretary on May II:
Honorable and Dear Sir:
The AMERICAN FEDERATION
OF CATHOLIC SOCIETIES, repre-
senting three million members. is
greatly interested in the contemplate
ed work of erecting a monument in
Arlington cemetery for the nuns of
the battlefields by the Ladies Auxiliary
of the Ancient Order of Hibernians.
We understand that a favorable de-
cision from you will result in Con-
gress approving of the matter. 1t is
needless to inform you of the great
services rendered by these sisterhoods
during our late wars and that their
services, like the services of our sol
diers, deserve monument i'll our ma
tional cemetery.
THE AMERICAN FEDERATION
OF CATHOLIC SOCIETIES expects
that your honor will give this matter
your earnest consideration and will
appreciate your efforts in behalf of
this worthy memorial, which is to be
erected by the noble daughters of the
Ancient Order of llibernians and at
no expense to the government.
with sentiments of high esteem. |
VERY faithfully yours.
"ANTHONY MATRE,
National Secretary"
When permission was first sought
of the war department objection was
made to the erection of this memorial
in Arlington. on the ground that it was
NOT the custom to erect memorials
to those who were not actually in
tered there, or who had not been reg
ularly enlisted in the service of the
govcrnment-whcna as u matter of fact
memorials have been erected in this
cemetery to persons who are NOT
buried there. and many of the sisters
are on the pension roll Of the govern
ment which proves and is admitted by
the department, that they were in the
service.
Data has been filed within the last
few days with the war department
giving a list Of the memorials erect
ed where the remains have not been
inferred, and in order to establish the
fact that the Orders of Sisterhood re-
ferred to in the House Joint Resolu-
tion were regularly enlisted in the
service during the Civil War attcn-
ton has been called to the following
passage taken from the congressional
record of July 2G, 1892. page G797:
"Mr Davis: We have been putting
army nurses individually on the pen
sion roll for fifteen years; the remain
der of them have grown old, many of
them are over 20; and the question is
whether we shall do that by one COM
prchensivc act of Legislation which we
do by special acts just as fast as they
come up for PENSIONS
"MR. COCKRELL: When the first
bill was introduced on the subject of
granting pensions to nurses Il very
comprehensive bill, in my Judgment it
would have included cooks and every
body of that kind We had consid-
cradle wrangling over it. here in the
senate, and | took some pains to get
at all the data in regard to the ques-
tiOn of army nurses. have quite a
mass here which ] have collected at
different times from the war depart
mcnt. have all the orders which
were issued by the war department
authorizing the employment Of army
nurses, and also the pay they received.
Some of them we're paid 40 cents a
day, and other rates of compensation
were paid. The whole question have
got together as fully as | could.
81 also have made a classified sched-
ule of female hospital employees as
shown by the records on file in the
Record and Pension Division, War De-
partmcnt, that shows under the differ
ent heads of nurses, cooks, matrons,
!aundresses, and undetermined, the
number under all of these various
heads.
when we come to the nurses-and
this bill includes only the nurses who
we're hired under contract-there were
497 white and 28l colored, making
| 778 in all hired under contract. OF
those who were volunteers, Ga were
white and none colOred.
Miss Dix, who had great deal to