The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1919-11-04
MUCH GRAF 7 AND
NEGLIGENCE At
BASE HOSPITAL
Sick Soldiers Said to Have Been
Exposed to Zero Weather
PAY DRAWN FOR iDLING
Games of Chance Worked Among the
Men-ereat Wastase of Material
and Money

Camp Sherman, O., Nov. 3.-Charges
that wilfuL negligence on the part OF
steamfitters employed in the construc
ton of the base hospital at Camp
Sherman resulted in exposure for
weeks to the zero weather prevalent
in late October and all of November,
1917, of sick soldiers confined there,
were among the startling disclosures
made before the congressional sub.
committee by Joseph Poole, Chillocoth
contractor late today. The evidence
given by Poole will be followed up TO
fix the responsibility for the suffering
of the men. according to Chairman
John c. Mckenzie and Chief Examiner
Roscoe c. McCulloch of the commit
tee.
While sick soldiers were pinched
and actually blue TO their fingertips
with the bitter cold, steamtitters sup
posedly equipping the hospital wards
with steam heat were gambling and
warming themselves over their gaso-
line torches, Poole told the committee.
He asserted that the weather was so
cold that nurses wore their furs when
they tended the sick and the doctors
wore their sheepskin lined coats and
the patients had no heat whatsoever.
Poole, who was employed by the A.
Bentley & Sons company of Toledo. as
a carpenter foreman at the base hos
pital. characterized The attitude of the
steamhtters as disloyar' and as the
worst he had ever seen.
Games of chance were worked
among the men. the witness declared.
Two or three days every week some
body would come around and have
the men buy chances on automobiles,
wrist watches and other things, he
said. "Thar was a graft worked by
somebody, he declared.
Other witnesses corr0borating Poole's
testimony as to the idlying of the men
and the wastage of material and money
agreed that the work could nave been
done very satisfactorily and in quicker
time by from two-thirds to one-half
the number of men on given job
Taylor Thornburg, Chillicothe laborer,
tol dthe committee that his foreman
field and that from IS to 20 of them
spent from week to ten days in the
corn. He said he drew pay from the
Y NJ C. A. and from the government
tor the same week and that he did
not say anything about it, because
hey were not allowed to-
You might as well have some of the
Xtra time the other men are getting
vas the statement Jesse Brandon testi- .
led TO a foreman made to him On the
following pay day he said his pay enye-
ope contained S1S extra
When he spoke of it to the paymas.
er, he declared the latter told him "he .
couldn't count On another occasion .
le said there was Sc extra in his .
1ay. He said he was hired to watch
gravel wagons" and that as a rule not 1
more than three wagons appeared
when he was on a given day. and
he said there was only
me. For this lie said he was paid
'5l.60 weekly.
When the men could net get any
hing else to do. they chisled pieces
'ut of the floor so that they would
nave TO cut new pieces was
he assertion made by r. d. Ferguson,
carpenter. He told of a
nan spending three days at the pay Z
window to collect 80 cents he was
hort in his pay, all the while draw
ng his regular pay of so cents an hour
IS a carpenter. Other witnesses re.
ated how men hired as carpenters
we're utilized to carry water.