TAMPA, May 29, 1898.
[DEAR CHAS.:]
The cigars came; they are O. K. and a great treat after
Tampa products. Captain Lee and I went out to the volunteer
camps today: Florida, Alabama, Ohio and Michigan, General
Lee's push, and it has depressed me very much. I have been so
right about
so many things these last five years, and was laughed at for
making much of them. Now all I urged is proved to be correct;
nothing our men wear is right. The shoes, the hats, the
coats, all are dangerous to health and comfort; one-third of
the men cannot wear the regulation shoe because it cuts the
instep, and buy their own, and the volunteers are like the
Cuban army in appearance. The Greek army, at which I made
such sport, is a fine organization in comparison as far as
outfit goes; of course, there is no comparison in the spirit
of the men. One colonel of the Florida regiment told us that
one-third of his men had never fired a gun. They live on the
ground; there are no rain trenches around the tents, or
gutters along the company streets; the latrines are dug to
windward of the camp, and all the refuse is burned to
windward.
Half of the men have no uniforms nor shoes. I pointed
out some of the unnecessary discomforts the men were
undergoing through ignorance, and one colonel, a Michigan
politician, said, "Oh, well, they'll learn. It will be a good
lesson for them." Instead of telling them, or telling their
captains, he thinks it best that they should find things out
by suffering. I cannot decide whether to write anything about
it or not. I cannot see where it could do any good, for it is
the system that is wrong — the whole volunteer system, I mean.
Captain Lee happened to be in Washington when the first Manila
outfit was starting from San Francisco, and it was on his
representations that they gave the men hammocks, and took a
store of Mexican dollars. They did not know that Mexican
dollars are the only currency of the East, and were expecting
to pay the men in drafts on New York.
Isn't that a pitiable situation when a captain of an English
company happens to stray into the war office, and happens to
have a good heart and busies himself to see that our own men
are supplied with hammocks and spending money. None of our
officers had ever seen khaki until they saw Lee's, nor a cork
helmet until they saw mine and his; now, naturally, they won't
have anything else, and there is not another one in the
country. The helmets our troops wear would be smashed in one
tropical storm, and they are so light that the sun beats
through them. They are also a glaring white, and are cheap
and nasty and made of pasteboard. The felt hats are just as
bad; the brim is not broad enough to protect them from the sun
or to keep the rain off their necks, and they are made of such
cheap cotton stuff that they grow hard when they are wet and
heavy, instead of shedding the rain as good felt would do.
They have always urged that our uniforms, though not smart nor
"for show," were for use. The truth is, as they all admit,
that for the tropics they are worse than useless, and that in
any climate they are cheap and poor.
I could go on for pages, but it has to be written later;
now they would only think it was an attack on the army. But
it is sickening to see men being sacrificed as these men will
be. This is the worst season of all in the Philippines. The
season of typhoons and rainstorms and hurricanes, and they
would have sent the men off without anything to sleep on but
the wet ground and a wet blanket. It has been a great lesson
for me, and I have rubber tents, rubber blankets, rubber coats
and hammocks enough for an army corps. I have written nothing
for the paper,
because, if I started to tell the truth at all, it would do no
good, and it would open up a hell of an outcry from all the
families of the boys who have volunteered. Of course, the
only answer is a standing army of a hundred thousand, and no
more calling on the patriotism of men unfitted and untrained.
It is the sacrifice of the innocents. The incompetence and,
unreadiness of the French in 1870 was no worse than our own is
now. It is a terrible and pathetic spectacle, and the
readiness of the volunteers to be sacrificed is all the more
pathetic. It seems almost providential that we had this
false-alarm call with Spain to show the people how utterly
helpless they are.
With love,
DICK.
