Urge Location of Army Recuperation Camp in Colorado
Governor Julius C. Gunter and Adjutant General Frank D. Baldwin
of Army Recuperation Camp in Colorado
Published by
DENVER, COLORADO, OCTOBER 1, 1917 |
ROCK-HAFFNER PRESS, DENVER
THE STATE OF COLORADO
EXECUTIVE CHAMBER
DENVER
JULIUS C. GUNTER
governor
WENDELL STEPHENS
secretary
Mr. William G. Evans,
Mr. John C. Mitchell,
Mr. Cass E. Herrington,
Committee,
Denver, Colorado.
My dear Sirs:
I herewith transmit a communication from General Baldwin most admirably setting forth reasons for the location of a recuperation camp in this state.
I fully and heartily endorse this forcible statement by this experienced and distinguished officer, and earnestly hope that your disinterested and patriotic efforts in the securing of this camp may prevail.
Governor.
THE STATE OF COLORADO
OFFICE OF THE ADJUTANT GENERAL
To His Excellency, Governor Julius C. Gunter:
As an officer in the service of my country for more than fifty years, I believe that I am more intimately informed as to the needs of our Army than the great majority of our people, and that it is not only my right, but my duty, to urge the consideration of those needs upon your Excellency and the authorities at Washington.
For many years I have recommended the establishment of Supply Depots, large Military Posts, Hospital and Recuperation Camp on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, where new levies for the active armies could and would become perfect in physical condition to meet the rigorous requirements incident thereto and where men disabled in the service of their country might be sent for that care and attention which would quickest restore them to a normal condition of health and strength.
The effort of the committee appointed by your Excellency and the Civic and Commercial Association to secure the location of such a camp here in Denver, therefore, meets with my heartiest approval. Such a camp would be of inestimable benefit, not only to our Army, but to the armies of our Allies. The deplorable condition of the men who have been infected by tuberculosis alone in the French Army serves ample warning as to the dangers which confront our own men—dangers which we are peculiarly fitted to cope with here in Colorado. In the New York Sun of September 2nd, a dispatch from Paris says:
"The increase of tuberculosis in France is so great that it threatens the life of the nation. All the great specialists agree that tuberculosis is curable, but that there is no cure for it save through a season spent in a high-altitude sanatorium."
The establishment of such a sanatorium here in this altitude and in this unrivaled climate, to which such men might be invalided, would mean the restoration to the service of thousands of fine young men who otherwise must be lost, not only to the Army, but as useful factors in civil life.
With so many millions of men engaged in this conflict on land and sea, under new and trying conditions of living, the daily toll of sick and wounded becomes a stupendous item. Hundreds of thousands of these men need only care and sunshine, change, rest and proper food, to make them once more fit for the fighting line.
The military base and line hospitals, as well as the Red Cross institutions, are fully occupied with the constantly flowing stream of emergency cases that pour back from the front. There is no room for the convalescent anywhere. It is these men who should be cared for, for reasons of conservation if no other—that can be sent back on the empty troop ships and forwarded from the coast to Denver at a comparatively small expense, where they can be given their chance for health and a return to duty. Economically, the advantages of this location are very great; within a very small radius everything in the way of produce for such a place can be purchased direct from the producer, eliminating almost all wastage, the middleman's profit, and the long haul.
Climatically, outside the boundaries of Colorado we have no rival. On these wonderful foothills, a mile above sea level, we have an unlimited amount of life-giving sunshine, and a freedom from excessive heat and cold that insures the very best condition for the restoration to health of the sick and enfeebled. No scientific medical man any longer disputes the pre-eminent advantages of Colorado as a health resort. The medical records and meteorological reports are all in our favor.
Colorado's prohibition laws are well enforced, and we have no segregated district. In fact, Denver could not be improved upon as the location for such a camp, which should be built upon a great and generous scale—-a camp which could not fail to attract the favorable notice of the whole world.
Never was there so great a need for such an institution, nor a day when it was more necessary to preserve, by every means at our command, not only the man-power of our own nation, but the man-power of the world.
FRANK D. BALDWIN,
Adjutant General of Colorado.
Major General, U. S. A. (Retired).