If You Listen to Gossip and Spread Lies, Your Poison Tongue Is Helping the Enemy, Nov. 2, 1918

“Poison Tongues” from The Caduceus, Camp Greene edition, Nov. 2, 1918

Out-Pouring of Lies is Old Stunt in New Guise

Washington, Nov. 1—Should someone in camp or outside call you aside and tell you that Capt. So and So, a medical officer, and Miss So and So, an Army Nurse, were shot at sunrise yesterday or the day before, after having been found guilty of infecting soldiers under their care with influenza or pneumonia germs, take hold of him by the collar and gently, but yet with firmness, impress upon him that either unwittingly or designedly, he is furthering the cause of Hun propaganda, which is trying to destroy not only the Army’s but the civil population’s confidence as well as the Army Medical Department.

This is the implied advice in a recent official statement issued by acting Surgeon General Richard to nip a fast growing crop of rumors, which had sprung up in and around camps to the effect that influenza was being spread by German spies, parading as medical officers. The statement follows:

‘There have been no more insidiously false reports come to my attention that those recently widely spread to the effect that nurses or medical officers have been executed at the ‘stage hour’ of sunrise, for spreading influenza or pneumonia germs among soldiers.

“There have been no medical officers, nurses, or anyone else executed at any camp in the United States or abroad for any such cause.

“The reports are ridiculous and without the slightest foundation on fact. They have taken many forms, but through them all has run such a significant likeness of texture that it is not unlikely that they all originated from the same source, the German propagandist. Unfortunately, as is so frequently the case, those behind the baseless reports have been and are being aided in the nefarious dissemination of them by many thoughtless persons who have not taken the time to investigate before passing the reports on.”

The influenza germ only recently has been isolated and according to published accounts, still is dodging the eyes of scientists even when investigated under the most powerful microscopes.

It is hardly possible that the Germans learned all about the influenza germ, especially its control, while the rest of the world was at its mercy, and through underground channels communicated this information to spies in order to cause death and suffering.

In support of this it is only necessary to take into account that the armies of the central powers have and in probability still are losing hundreds of men through this disease in epidemic form. The first task of any general staff is to maintain highest efficiency and man-power among its own forces. This the German general staff surely would have done by stopping the spread of influenza at home, had it possessed the means or the knowledge.

The out-pouring of lies regarding medical officers and nurses infecting soldiers is merely the old stunt in a new guise, of trying to break down the morale of the forces in training and the home folks by magnifying the powers and agencies at the command of the enemy.

Of course, as inevitably once started the influenza-shot-at-sunrise rumor was picked up and relayed by hundreds, both soldiers and civilians. Within walking distance of Army Medical Department headquarters here, an infantry regiment is encamped. Almost to a man, that group believed that three officers and six nurses had been shot at Camp Meade, Md. No one knew just how the report started, except perhaps that one of the men, formerly with the regiment and now at Camp Meade who still visited his former pals each Sunday, might have told about it.

A visit to a different part of this city was rewarded by the “news” that traitorous medical officers were forced to dig their own graves at Camp Humphreys, Va., and then were shot inevitable while facing in such a way that they would tumble into them.

Follows a piece from the Baraboo Wis. Daily News along the same general line: “Over at Camp Grant they are just dying by the hundreds. Three of our undertakers and one from Beloit worked with the Rockford undertakers all one night last week getting bodies ready to be sent away. Mr. Wilback said the bodies were piled 16 deep waiting to be cared for. They found one old villain guilty over there this week—a doctor. Every soldier in his camp died. They became suspicious of him, examined his medicine and found poison in it, so they took him out, made him dig his own grave, and shot him right down. Even that was too good, though.”

Quite a while ago the Hun propagandist tried to put across another dose of demoralizing poison. That time the story was that hundreds of American soldiers were being returned to this country with their tongues out. The yarn spread with remarkable rapidity. Mr. Smith knew a woman who knew someone else whose cousin’s son was at a general hospital tongue-less, where his mother had seen him.

Again the Surgeon General’s Office was compelled to make a direct denial. Investigation had revealed not a single case of mutilation of American prisoners, wounded or otherwise. There was no chance for error because the records from every military hospital here and overseas pass through that office.

It was pointed out at the time that it is not America’s policy to make war by stirring up blind hatred for the foe—and that if it was the enemy’s desire to weaken home morale by spreading tales of frightfulness, that plan was doomed to failure.