ellow fever, that deadly curse of Cuba, which the lack of proper
quarantine had so often allowed to invade the shores of the United
States. On the 3d of August, even before General Shafter had received
the round robin, the Secretary of War authorized the withdrawal of at
least a portion of the army, which was to be replaced by supposedly
immune regiments. By the middle of August, the soldiers began to arrive
at Camp Wikoff at Montauk Point, on the eastern end of Long Island.
Through this camp, which had been hastily put into condition to receive
them, there passed about thirty-five thousand soldiers, of whom twenty
thousand were sick. When the public saw those who a few weeks before
had been healthy and rollicking American boys, now mere skeletons,
borne helpless in stretchers and looking old and shriveled, a wave of
righteous indignation against Secretary Alger swept over the country,
and eventually accomplished enough to prevent such catastrophes in the
future.

The distressing experience of the army was too real not to have its
constructive effect. Men like William Crawford Gorgas were inspired to
study the sanitation and the diseases of the tropics and have now made
it possible for white men to live there safely. Men of affairs like
Elihu Root were stimulated to give their talents to army administration.
Fortunately the boys were brought north just in time to save their
lives, and the majority, after a recuperation of two or three years,
regained their normal health.

The primary responsibility for this gamble with death rested with
those who sent an expedition from the United States to the tropics in
midsummer when the measures necessary to safeguard its health were not
yet known. This responsibility rested immediately upon the American
people themselves, all too eager for a war for which they were not
prepared and for a speedy victory at all costs. For this national
impatience they had to pay dearly. The striking contrast, however,
between the efficiency of the navy and the lack of preparation on the
part of the army shows that the people as a whole would have supported
a more thorough preparation of the army, had the responsible officials
possessed sufficient courage and intelligence to have demanded it; nor
would the people have been unwilling to defer victory until autumn, had
they been honestly informed of the danger of tropical disease into which
they were sending the flower of their youth. Such a postponeme