n the cities of Buffalo, San Francisco,
and Seattle. At the present time, nearly every large city in England
and the United States has one or more of these hotels, the latter
country having 71 men's hotels and 4 women's hotels, with a total
accommodation of 8,688. The tendency now is toward fewer of the lower
class hotels, and more of the higher class; in other words, toward fewer
hotels where beds can be had for 10c and 15c, and more where they will
cost 20c and 25c. The Army gives as its reason for this the fact that
the cheaper hotel cannot be maintained in a wholesome manner and be
self-supporting.[47] Similar to the Industrial Department in its
management, the Hotel Department has its divisions, its graded officers
with their various responsibilities, and its head officer in charge at
the national headquarters. In the United States, however, unlike the
Industrial Department, the Hotel Department has no separate financial
company, in the form of a corporation, behind it. In some instances,
deserving men are given bed tickets and meal tickets free, by officers
detailed for the purpose, and, to that extent the hotels are a charity.
This is done with due discretion and does not make an appreciable
difference. The amount of charity indulged in by the Army in this way
is, however, probably responsible for the fact that in 1907, there was a
loss to the Army in this department of $4,500.00, not a very large
amount, considering the number of hotels concerned.

Coming to the value of the Army hotels from the point of view of the
social economist, care must be taken to discriminate between their
commercial and their philanthropic aspects. The public has a mistaken
idea of the work carried on by this branch of the Army. Many people have
an idea that thousands of homeless, starving men and women are nightly
taken care of in these Army hotels. Putting aside the question whether
such would be good relief policy or not, the statement itself is not
true. In a majority of cases the man or woman in order to gain
admittance must have the price, and in many instances, that price will
also admit them to the regular cheap lodging house outside of the Army.
We are not finding fault with the system of charging, since from the
point of view of true relief, provided that bona-fide, destitute cases
are not left without help, the price should be required, as it would be
a great evil to throw open the hotels to the crowds of regular beggars
and