The Bottineau courant. (Bottineau, Bottineau County, N.D.) 1895-1929, 1922-08-31

can Red Cross tried 10 get this com
~pensation Increased without success.
Markham was Iat upon his back,
meanwhile, and had 10 hire q man TO
care for his place. Markham objected
To leaving his wife until he could pro-
vide for her more amply than, his So q
month check from the government
would do. But by September his con
dition had become 80 much worse that
he entered the Methodist hospital at
Hutchinson temporarily. He remained
there for two months, and Nov. IS,
1921, was transferred to the govern
ment hospital at Kansas City, which
on Nov. 20, 1921, transferred him to
the Veterans Bureau tuberculosis
hospital at Fort Bayard, New Mexico.
This is a large group of frame
buildings, Of the cantonment type of
construction, at that time the largest
tuberculosis hospital in the world,
housing more than 1000 veterans Of
the war who had contracted tubercu-
losis in war service.
Writing in the July 20 issue of the
Journal Of the American Medical AS
ISOLATION, Hugh !. Cummings, surgeon
general of the United States, Public
Health Service, says of these hospit-
ais: ~ Il =
"The character of the temporary
army hospitals Of the cantonment
type is too well known to merit de-
scription. The widely separated, one
story wards, the connecting corridors
with numerous i~nclines, the numerous
heating units, the fire risks, the diff
Guilty of supplying hot food, are we'll
known. The sagging foundations,
warped floors and leaky roofs of these
temporary buildings were eloquent al
lies at a time it was necessary to
plead for new hospitals"
With his entry in this hospital
Markham was thoroughly ~dishearten-
ed. He had been forced to turn his
farm over to renters, whose payments
were not sufficient to keep up the in
terest due ON his loans, much less are
for his sick wife, who had stayed by
him so loyalty. L,
But at Fort Bayard, in spite Of the
character of buildings which housed
them here, he encountered a group of
fighters, veterans of the war, suffer-
ing from the white plague, who had
banded themselves together under the
banner of an American Legion post,
$50 strong, to aid each other in OBJ
tanning their rights from a govern
ment service SO entangled in red tape
that at times it seemed impossible to
make Roadway against it.
Markham told his troubles to- the
post, and J. P. Quirk, the post COM
mander, Immediately started working.
All during the winter this Legion
post under Quirk,sT guidance kept up
the fight, bombarding the Washing
ton, Denver and st. Louis offices of
the Veterans Bureau with letters on
the case. The Legion at Denver and in
Kansas also took a hand, but Mark
hams papers were scattered, and de-
lay followed delay,
During the winter one of Mark
hams loans came due, and he would
have lost his farm but for the prompt
action of the Kansas Legion, which
obtained a extension or this loan UNI
til May l., 1922. o>
Still there was no action from the
government regarding a, review of
Markham's case. In the midst of this,
his wife2died. The fighters in the Lee
gion post at Fort :Bayard Hospital
wrote in, March to the National Ser
vice Division of the Legion in Wash
ington. As is known, the Legion main
tains branch office. at the nations
capitol in charge Of experts in their