Morris tribune. [volume] (Morris, Minn.) 1880-2000, 1918-08-16
More Nurses Needed

A call to enroll for military SerV-
ice 5000 nurses a week for eight
consecutive weeks has come from
Surgeon General Gorgas of the I'm
tied States army, according to a
telegram from Washington Red Cross
headquarters received at the North
ern Division Office today. The tele-
gram states that the Red Cross has
already set it's organization mach
inery in motion for the purpose of
complying with the Surgeon Gen
erals request.
The nurses for military service
have been enrolling through the Red
Cross, since the United States en-
tered the war, at the rate of about
1000 a month. During the recent
special effort put forth to obtain
nurses, the enrolment increased
about threefold. In order to meet the
most recent request of the Surgeon
General that rate will not only have
to be maintained, but increased mat
erially. The Surgeon Generals call
is as follows:
'sIn view of the great need of a
large increase in the number OF
nurses required for service with the
army at home and abroad, call upon
YOUR organization as the chief nurse
recruiting agency of the army to en-
ploy every possible means to increase
the enrolment of nurses for immedi-
ate assignment to duty.
with the contemplated increase
in the army both at home and over
seas, there must be proportionate
increase in the number of nurses in
the service. The army today is grow
ing faster than the nurses corps is
increasing and, as the armies overseas
enter the front line trenches in great
er numbers, the greater will be the
need for nurses in the army nurse
corps.
"I, therefore, urge upon the Am
erican Red Cross through it's agencies
to bring to the attention of the
trained nurses of this country the
necessity of the immediate offer of
service and their enrolment in the
army nurse corps.
st hesitate to deal in concrete
numbers but I desire to emphasize
the fact that I need today very
material increase in the army nurse
corps, and desire this increase in the
ratio of at least 1000 a week for the
next two months"
With reference to this emergency
call for nurses, Miss Jane A. Delano,
director, department of nursing Of
the American Red Cross, made the
following statement:
''The 5000 graduate nurses called
for by the army in groups of 1000
per week are, in addition to more
than $4,000 nurses, already supplied
by the American Red Cross to the
United States government for active
war service. This call has been made
with complete confidence in the
answer which the $4,000 graduate
nurses, not yet enrolled in the I'm
tied States service, will make to this
wounded.
IT have called upon the Red Cross
agencies and all training school sup
erintendents to carry this message
quickly to every graduate nurse re-
naming in their communities. We
plan to bring this call personally to
each of the nurses not yet in war
service and I feel that all who are
physically able to render this milit-
airy service will enroll at once.
know the sterling character of the
American trained nurse. Over many
years have seen her self-sacrificing
conservation to duty, I have been as
sured that she Is intelligently patri-
otto; she Is proud to be chosen from
millions Of women anxious to care
Tor the sick, as the representative Of