VENEREAL DISEASES STALK ARMY CAMPS
Follette, Sen. Robert M. La Jr.
Venereal Diseases Stalk Army Camps By SEN. ROBERT M LA FOLLETTE, Jr. THE VERY ABLE Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Thomas Parran, and one of his highly-capable assistants, Dr. R. A....
...It is shocking not for its subject matter, but because it indicts some officials in federal, state, and local governments for their callous indifference to the serious menace of syphilis and gonorrhea...
...Speaking of a distracted general who had lost contact with his own infantry, a young Army lieutenant remarked, "It's SNAGU for the old man...
...An Act of Congress approved in July of this year expressly authorized the Secretaries of War and of the Navy and the Federal Security Administrator to take such steps as they deemed necessary to suppress and prevent prostitution within reasonable distances from military and naval camps...
...But I'm delighted it is so...
...Due to careful planning and all possible safeguards against organized vice, the rate of infection during those maneuvers was approximately one one-hundredth of the rate in recent troop concentrations elsewhere...
...Officials Have Failed Miserably I am proud that I had a part in sponsoring the initial legislation in 1938—the so-called La Follette-Bulwinkle Act—which authorized the Public Health Service to embark on a nation-wide crusade of'public enlightenment and cure of venereal diseases...
...All men infected with venereal disease were rejected, about 60,000 out of the first 1,000,000 examined...
...The time for action is here...
...To the list of possible scourges that will follow in the wake of the present war, a leprosy plague was added last week...
...Thanks to indefatigable research, sulfa-thiazole, a derivative of sulfanilamide, has now been developed so that if given by competent doctors, between 80 and 90 per cent of all gonorrhea cases treated can be cured within a week...
...Delighted...
...Those in charge have painted a rosy picture of present conditions (in comparison with World War days), and the Parran charges have, been casually dismissed as "misleading...
...Those cooperating with the Wisconsin State Board of Health, when extensive Army maneuvers were conducted in that state last year, proved that it could be done...
...Asked what he meant, he replied, "Situation normal—all gummed up...
...Ford...
...March of Time...
...So much so that he is frequently called at all hours of the night...
...No adequate explanation has been offered...
...Clark...
...Stiff penalties were provided for violations of the regulations promulgated...
...The detrimental effect of the Administration's policy of convoying on national defense was well illustrated when Secretary of the Navy "Knox last week announced that the torpedo attacks on the Kearny and Reuben James had resulted in a 15 per cent decline in naval enlistments...
...There isn't one correspondent left among them...
...After receiving a midnight call from one of the reporters of the Washington Post recently, Sen...
...Sen...
...Eugene R. Kellers-berger, general secretary of the American mission of lepers, told newsmen last week that "medical progress to eradicate the dreaded disease may be nullified by the privations of the modern war," and that "the migration, famine, and pestilence of war might mean that the numbers of lepers will begin to multiply...
...According to the book, the Army and local officials in the vicinity of troop encampments have failed miserably (with some notable exceptions) in coping with the problems of prostitution and venereal disease...
...In precisely the manner in which the younger generation grows and inclines, so the future of this nation will be bent...
...The government, as well as the home, has a deep obligation that all its citizens receive a proper environment for healthy growth and wholesome living...
...Service Department employes, whose anti-union deeds helped keep Ford's workers unorganized for so many years, last week appealed to the National Labor Relations Board to protect them from the company in their efforts to organize...
...Hence, it could be expected that with such an influx of uninfected men inducted, the Army rate could be sharply and permanently lowered, in line with the good results obtained in the nation-wide venereal disease program...
...Leprosy...
...Navy Enlistments...
...SNAGU...
...But, thus far, nothing has been done to invoke the Act...
...He immediately called Eugene Meyer, the publisher, and told him that for each time he was called from bed by a Post man he would retaliate by calling Meyer...
...Fortunately, it is no longer taboo to treat openly in public print and discussion the subject of venereal diseases...
...Great credit is due Dr...
...Such complacency about this serious problem cannot be tolerated...
...The nation as a whole cannot afford the sapping of present or future military or peacetime strength...
...R. A. Vonderlehr, collaborated in a recently-published book entitled Plain Words About Venereal Disease.* The book is a frank revelation of a shocking situation...
...Parran and others for breaking down within the past few years the hush-hush concerning the serious problems created by these social diseases...
...It is not pleasant for parents to contemplate that their clean-cut sons'who are drafted for military training will be placed in an environment and under such supervision, or lack of it, as to jeopardize their moral and physical well-being for the future...
...The Senate committee investigating the defense program last week reported that money was being spent in the following ways in the construction of a government ordnance plant at Wolf Creek, Tenn.: The chief timekeeper hired his father to "kill flies" at 65 cents an hour...
...special jobs of "transportation coordinator" and "researcher on historical records" had been created...
...I am happy to have made successful fights in succeeding years to secure enlarged appropriations so that the program might expand...
...Medical science has provided the weapons to defeat these two diseases...
...the personnel director had four relatives on the payroll...
...No U.# S. paper carried this story, but according to the London News Review for September 25, 1941, W. Averell Harriman, President Roosevelt's foot-loose Lend-Lease administrator, recently made a stop-off in London to tell newsmen: "I don't know why the American press keeps correspondents here...
...Rates Above Former Levels When the Army began last year to enlarge under the terms of the Selective Service Act, those in charge insisted they wanted only the very finest physically-fit young men...
...The failure is inexcusable because the Army should have learned from previous experience...
...British View...
...Clark determined to put an end to the practice...
...Names And Notes In The News Fly Killer...
...Taking a leaf from the Washington book of initialed agencies such as OPM, AAA, SPAB, and a thousand and one others, the Army has coined one of its own...
...Unwise attack on a free and honest press," replied Timed-itor Luce, great & good interventionist, promising "a complete report" on the article...
...Buck passing will not save the responsible authorities from indictment before the bar of public opinion...
...The Parran-Vonderlehr book observes that notable progress was made under the program, but that the efforts have been checkmated in recent months by an appalling situation arising in connection with manpower mobilization for military training...
...Plain Words About Venereal Disease, Parran and Vonderlehr, Reynal & Hitchcock, Inc., New York City, $2.00...
...Of Aguirre Cerda, late President of Chile, weekly newsmagazine Time quipped fortnight ago: He has "spent more and more time with the red wine he cultivates...
...Now, the rates have crept up again and even above former levels...
...Branding the Atlantic Charter "one of the grossest pieces of deceit in modern times" J. McGovern, Laborite, took the floor of the House of Commons last week to declare that the United States is no more concerned with freedom and democracy "than a large number of reactionary Fascists in this country are...
...Such was the case—but only at first, and, only with each new large addition of noninfected men...
...Time For Action Is Here The members of our armed forces can be protected from the ravages of organized vice without being treated as babies...
...Because of the frank way in which he discusses current questions with reporters Sen...
...Teller of a "disgusting lie" is Time, said Good Neighbor Roosevelt last week...
...Bennett Champ Clark of Missouri is a favorite with capital newsmen...
...The larger problem, that of the prevention and control of venereal diseases among the population as a whole, will have come one step nearer to solution if the Army acts now, and decisively, to combat prostitution and venereal diseases involving its own ranks...
...The most precious asset of any country is its young manhood and womanhood...
...The CIO, which recently signed a closed-shop agreement with Ford, has refused to admit servicemen to membership, claiming that the leopard can't change his spots...
...Chickens were coming home to roost in the Service Department of the Ford Motor Company at Fort Dearborn last week...
...They have all become British propagandists, and we pay them salaries...
...The responsibility for failure to protect the youth of the nation from them rests squarely on the shoulders of the Administration...
...Twenty-four years ago General Pershing and Secretary of War Newton Baker conducted an effective campaign against these deadly scourges...
...Since 1910 the medical profession has known how to control syphilis, but in 1917 there was no sure cure for gonorrhea...
Vol. 5 • December 1941 • No. 49
