The Bennington Evening Banner

SOLDIERS UNCARED FOR

South Dakota Congressman Tells of Visits to Hospitals

Washington, Jan. 27 -- Sick and wounded soldiers are not receiving the treatment "guaranteed them by law," Representative Johnson (South Dakota Rep.), who served in the A. E. F., declared today in telling the House of his recent visits to government hospitals.

"Because of ignorance or negligence, or because of willful disregard of the laws by Carter Glass, Secretary of the Treasury, or Rupert Blue, surgeon-general of the United States," said Representative Johnson, "sick and wounded American soldiers are receiving treatment that cannot be justified by anyone who has any regard for the well being of the men who fought to maintain the country."

Mr. Johnson's complaint of the care of soldiers was centered about Chicago hospitals.

"In Chicago January 15," he said, "American soldiers who had been seriously wounded and who had been and ought to be receiving treatment for their wounds, were requested to leave the hospital and discontinue in order that other men, in more serious conditions, might take their beds in the hospitals.

In these same hospitals men who have been gassed are quartered in dark hallways, where no ray of sunlight had been or ever will be permitted to enter, and this in spite of the fact that since March 3, 1919, $9,500,000 has been available and could and should have been used.

If this condition is permitted to exist for a few months more, there will be thousands of wounded and sick American soldiers who need treatment and will be unable to secure it. In my opinion, thousands of them will die and the persons responsible for these deaths will be the men I have mentioned, or some of them, because Congress has performed its duty in appropriating the necessary funds while they have not performed theirs in expending them."

Mr. Johnson said that on December 7, he saw sixty men at the Fort Sheridan Army hospital, "who were not fed and many others who could not secure sufficient food." He added that his complaint of this to Secretary Baker resulted in an investigation, which "admitted the truth of the complaint," and an attempt to remedy the situation.

The Representative exhibited a photograph of a bathroom, ten feet square, in the Chicago Marine hospital, which he said, was used for a vocational training work room.

"In that bathroom," he said, holding up the picture before the House, "ten men are supposed to work, and it would be crowded if three men were there at one time."