Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1919-11-04
S7EAIMF|'T|'TERS '
 CAMbL. ]. ED WHILE
 SOLDIERS FR0zE
Sick Troops at Sherman Allowed to Suffer Through Alleged
 Negligence.
PAID TO WORK; THEY
 GRATED, HE CLAIMS
Witness States He Was Paid S5O.OO Weekly to Watch 3 Gravel Wag- ons Daily"-Destroyed Work
 to Make Extra Time.


 to Make Extra Time.
 Camp Sherman, Ohio, Nov. B. Charges that wilful negligence on the part of the steamfitters employed in the construction of the base hospital at Camp Sherman resulted in ex- 1 posture for weeks to the zero weather, prevalent late in October and all of November, 1917, of sick soldiers con- fined there, were among the disclo- sures made before the congressional subcommittee by Joseph Poole, Chil- llcothe contractor late today.
 The evidence given by Poole will i be followed up, to fix the responsi- bility for the suffering of the men, according to Chairman John c. Me Kenzie, and Chief Examiner Roscoe c. McCulloch of the committee.
 While sick soldiers were pinched and actually blue to their finger tips with the bitter cold, steamfitters sup posedly equipping the hospital wards With steam seat, were gambling and warming themselves over their gaso- line torches, Poole told the commit tee. He asserted that the weather was so cold the nurses wore their furs when they tended the sick, and the doctors wore their sheepskin lined coats, while the patients had no heat whatsoever.
 Poole, who was employed by the A. Bentley and Son company, of To- ! ledo, as a carpenter foreman at the base hospital, characterized the atti- tude of the steamfitters as "disloyal" 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.
 'That was a graft worked by some body" he declared.
 Watches Wagons at $50.
 Other witnesses, corroborating Poole's testimony as to the idling of the men and the wastage of material. generally agreed that the work could have been done more satisfactorily and in quicker time by from two thirds to one-half the number of men >n given job. Taylor Thornburg a Chillicothe laborer, told the com mlttee that his foreman told his gang to "hide in the corn field" and that from IS to 20 of them spent from a week to ten days in the corn. He said he drew pay from the Y. M. c. A. and from the government for the same week and that he did not dare say anything about it "because they weren't allowed to-
 "You might as we'll have some of the extra time the other men are get ting was the statement Jesse Bran don testified foreman made to him. on the following pay day, he said, hls pay envelope contained SIS extra. When he spoke of it to the paymaster. he declared the latter told him he couldn't count" On another occa- sion, he said, there was $6 extra in his pay. He said he was hired to "watch gravel wagons" and that as rule not more than three wagons appeared where he was, on a given day, and sometimes, he said, there was only one. For this he said he was paid $51.6O weekly.
 Present for General.
 When the men could not get any, thing else to do they chiseled pieces out of the floor so that they would have to cut and fit new pieces, ac- cording to R. D. Ferguson, Chilli cothe carpenter. He told of a man spending three days at the pay win dow to collect 30 cents he was short in his pay, all the while drawing his regular pay of sixty cents an hour as carpenter. Other witnesses re- lated how men hired as carpenters were utilized to carry water.
 That a collection was made to buy a mantelpiece for Major Gen. B. E. Glenn's Chillicothe home was the statement made by Poole. He said he knew of about $1,3OO that had been collected and that if the rest of the workmen had contributed pro- portionately fund of from $5,OOO to $6 900 must have been available. He declared the men never heard any thing more of the mantel.. Conclud- ing its testimony, the committee re- turned to Columbus late tonight and will go to Camp Grant, Rockford, Ills, to institute a similar investi gation.
 When Poole testified that more men were "idle than were working" members of the committee asked him how he accounted for the employ ment of the men who were not per forming actual labor.
 "I have an idea that every one of these men meant 60 cents to Bentley" was his reply.
 He insisted that agents and fore me nof the Bentley company "did know" of idleness and similar condi- tions among the men.
 When he pleaded with "straw boss es" to let him discharge some of the men in his gang, he said they told him to put them to "doing some
 tContinued on page six.)