The Onslow County News And Views

WHAT IT MEANS
A number of people hereabouts, it must be admitted, doubted the wisdom of the War Department in converting Camp Davis into a convalescent and redistribution center. But the War Department in its integrity and probably with more information than we have said the action was proper.

The closing thereof now at such an early date after its opening is having legitimate repercussions.

We are informed the business people of Holly Ridge were encouraged, urged and, in a case or two forced, to spend large sums of even as much as five figures in enlarging, repairing, reopening and improving business establishments, eating and sleeping accommodations and recreational facilities outside the camp boundaries.

Expiration of the camp as a training center was expected and gradual, and business people of the community were able to adjust themselves and their enterprises to exist and profit without it. But expiration as a convalescent and redistribution center was sudden death.

Heavy profits during wartime are not to be condoned, but the encouragement by the War Department to Holly Ridge resulted in a waste of money, money that could have been put, or probably already was, in war bonds.

A waste of private capital, to say nothing of the heavy expenditure to which the government already has gone in making a mistake.