Newton D. Baker to Woodrow Wilson

Dear Mr. President:
Mr. Davison of the Red Cross called me on the telephone to say that he had in his possession the original of one of the letters read by Senator Chamberlain in his address to the Senate, and that Mr. Axson had mentioned it to you and you desired a copy of it, which he enclosed to me to send you, and which I herewith enclose.

I had quite forgotten the fact that Mr. Davison, some days before Senator Chamberlain's speech, had brought this letter into my office and, at the conclusion of a discussion about many other things, had called my attention to it as exhibiting a very beautiful spirit on the part of a father who had lost a son under distressing circumstances. I glanced the letter over at the time and handed it back to him, commenting upon the fineness of the father's spirit and the pathos of the circumstances. When Senator Chamberlain read the letter I did not identify it with the one which Mr. Davison had shown me; nor, indeed, did I then recall that Mr. Davison had shown me any letter. I did, however, immediately after Mr. Davison's call, and no doubt in part because of it, telegraph for Dr. Hornsby, one of the greatest experts in the country on hospital administration, to come to Washington so that I might send him as my personal investigator to bring me first-hand information as to hospital conditions at Camp Doniphan and elsewhere. In the meantime, I instructed the Inspector General to have his inspectors, who are constantly making general inspections of the camps, to make specific and searching inspections of hospitals and hospital conditions. I had also directed the Surgeon General, as the result of his own personal visit to some of these camps, to leave no stone unturned in the matter of immediate betterment of hospital conditions where any deficiency, either in service or equipment, existed.

I think I now have the names and circumstances of the letters used by Senator Chamberlain, and most thorough-going inquiries are and have been for some time on foot, so that I will be equipped with information both from the Surgeon General's Office and corrective or corroborative information from many independent sources. The reports which come to me now are that the number of nurses in the several hospitals is ample, and that great improvement has already taken place in such of them as were over-crowded or insufficiently officered. There seems to be, though, no safe reliance against emergencies disturbing such conditions, and I am therefore directing the commanding general at each camp to have an officer of his staff specially detailed to make a daily report to him of hospital conditions, thus adding the only safeguard I can think of additional to the professional and civilian inspections already arranged for.

Respectfully yours,