Our Wounded Soldiers Aren't Receiving All the Care They Need, May 1919

From The Daily Times, Wilson, N.C., May 6, 1919

Urges More Care for the Wounded

In a letter to Col. Fred A. Olds, Mrs. Pride Jones, writing from what is known as the Hall of State, 27 West 25^th Street, New York City, says:

“The list of sick and wounded soldiers from North and South Carolina is growing rapidly and other States also have long hospital lists, and naturally they look after their own men first, the result being that our boys have little done for them. I have sent an appeal to the News and Observer asking for contributions of a dollar or more. I send you a letter which tells you what to do for the boys when they are able to come to the hall. Unless you could see them standing in bunches, as they say, on the street corners, you could not realize how helpless they are. Please see if North Carolina will not wake up to the fact that her boys need help to get well and get home. I am deeply mortified to say that of all the women working in the hall, I am so far the only native born North Carolinian. I send you a card and a folder to show you what we sent to each soldier, after he reaches the hospital, and some of the replies are pitiful.”

Miss Elvira B. Wright is the representative for both the Carolinas and she writes that the Hall of States is under the supervision of the Government represented by the New York War Camp Community Service, that it is the largest institution of the kind in New York and is really a clearing house for every problem of the returned soldier. It is a fine old house where 43 States are represented, and it has an employment bureau which in three weeks has secured 3,000 jobs. She says that so far no Southern State has made an appropriation, probably because there is a mistaken belief that Southern soldiers do not touch at the port of New York. She says the fact is that wounded Southern men have been brought to New York in large numbers and that 12 Southern States have in four weeks had 2,500 men in two New York hospital, 374 of these being from North Carolina. She declares that all should co-operate and pull together to create an emergency fund to meet the requirements of these men and that many of the States have created such funds ranging from $5,000 to $35,000. Mrs. Wright adds that she is running what is known as the Carolina desk mainly out of her own funds.