The Chattanooga news. [volume] (Chattanooga, Tenn.) 1891-1939, 1919-09-02
OVERSEAS NURSES LAUNCH
FIGHT FOR ARMY RANK
Women Who Took Care of Boys France Claim Relative Army
Rank La Only WAY Efficiency Can Be Maintained.


Washington. Sept. 2.--The nurses
who served so nobly with the army In
France and who were responsible for
the amazing percentage of complete re.
coyery of wounded and sick soldiers
have started a real fight here in WASH
ington to secure relative army rank
for nurses In the service. AS the rea-
son for that demand they cite exc
periences while In the service In France
and England. Only through such o
system, they say. can the nursing corps
be maintained at the high STANDARD OF
efficiency which American preparedness
demands. In order to emphasize their
reasons they have asked the senate and
house to grant public hearing on the
Jones-Raker bill giving relative rank
to army nurses. At this hearing, which
shortly will be held. the nurses expec'
to show justification for their demands
One of their leaders. Mrs. Anne Calvert
Nicely, has prepared the following
statement setting forth the cause of the
nurses for the International News
Service:
(eY ANNE CALVERT NEELYJ
The transports that daily enter our
harbors are bringing back not only the
boys who saved our country, but the
nurses who saved our boys. When
urged these nurses will show their
doing so they always say: I'VE like
these things, of course. but what we
love Is the praise Of our wounded
boys"
That praise is unstinted. As one
poor crippled fellow in Walter Reed
hospital said to me yesterday; our
nurses pulled us through. They were
the bright light we saw when we got
out of battle. They brought back ia
our minds what we had gone In FOR.
And another: AN, believe me, they
We're never cutters. I've seen them
stick and go on taking out wounded
when men ran for cover
The services of these women to our
country is one of the thrilling ro-
mances of the war. Medical officers
who were with them on the firing line
public men who saw them at work al
the front. the boys whose lives they
saved--all testify to their devoted
heroism.
Said Representative Reavis. OF Ne.
hraska. on his return from France: i
saw gray-faced. hollow-eyed nurses
who admitted reluctantly and with q
smile that they had been on duty
under fire for thirty-six, forty-eight
even fifty-two hours. I've come back
to do what | can for those herolc
women who are doing so much for us
The war department UP to the pres
ent time has failed to reward the serv.
ices of our army nurse corps. In the
general staff plan for army reorgani'
zaton Just submitted to the senate
military affairs committee the one res
quest made by our army nurses or
their return from overseas service hal
been sidetracked and ignored. This re-
quest, made for the soldiers whom al
through the war they have stood b,
so devotedly, was that the nurses bt
granted rank in order that they coule
better discharge their duties.
In the acid test of the late war oui
nurses discovered that they could hav'
cared for their wounded more efli'
GENTLY had they possessed rank. And
this Is why: The army nurse corps
has the grave responsibility of seeint
that the medical officers orders arr
carried out TO do this. as the nurse'
| have as many as seventy patients IL
| their wards at time. they must dc.
| pend on the help OF orderlies who ara
| enlisted men. for the most part, un.
| trained IN hospital work and constantly
shifting. These men have been taught
| to obey officers who wear rank in
| sigma on their shoulder straps, bu
| not to obey nurses without rank o.
the insignia of rank. They think ex
| actly what one delirious man at a bas
hospital kept saying to his nurse: g
don't have to obey you. You're no
an officer: you're only a nurse"
has been found that this lack of ran
and the authority that goes with sue
rank results In friction between nurse
and orderlies: in delays that are dan
| gerous-sometimes fatal. Much OF tn