Only a builder of secure financial standing could handle such a construction contract. Frequently his pay roll and current bills for supplies amounted to half a million dollars in a week. Let the Government delay a few days in its payments to him and he might find himself obliged to raise a million dollars in cash on the instant to meet his immediate obligations.
To avoid such embarrassments the Construction Division adopted the policy of paying its bills the day and sometimes the hour they were incurred. At each cantonment job it stationed a disbursing officer with a checkbook. This officer reported by telegraph each night, and the next morning there was deposited to his credit in the Treasury a sum of money sufficient for his immediate needs. On numerous occasions this officer paid for materials the instant they were unloaded from the cars and checked. The Government maintained an auditing organization at each job. This organization checked and inspected all material as it was received, comparing the delivery in each case with the original order, and counted the workmen at least twice a day.
An intense rivalry sprang up in the construction of the 16 cantonments. Sixteen teams, with an average of 10,000 men on each team, began racing for the goal, which was to be 80 per cent completion by September 5, the date when the first contingents of selective soldiers were to be received by the cantonments. It was more exciting than any campaign in any professional baseball league, because the time was shorter and the stake vastly greater. The Cantonment Division kept alive this spirit of rivalry by posting each day in each cantonment the figures showing the rates of construction at all of them. The team, from the superintendents down to the humblest unskilled laborers, discussed these ratings as fans talk about the baseball averages.
The race was a close one, being won by Camp Taylor at Louisville, which was 79.4 per cent complete on the day the contest ended, lacking only six-tenths of 1 per cent of coming up to the maximum 80 per cent of completion regarded as possible in the time available. But other construction gangs were pressing that at Camp Taylor closely: Camp Travis, with 78.6 per cent of completion at the end of the contest; Camp Lee, 78.5 complete; Camp Devens, 74; Camp Lewis, 72; and Camp Sherman, 70. The Camp Lewis percentage was taken on August 31.
All construction work, including numerous additions not contemplated in the original plans, was virtually complete by November 30. These additional structures included cantonment base hospitals, on which the Government spent $10,000,000 for the National Army and $7,500,000 at the National Guard camps. With one or two exceptions these hospitals each had facilities for 1,000 patients at once, being the largest in the United States, at that time.
At several of the cantonments the water problem was simplified by the near presence of water mains of the systems of adjacent cities. At the other camps, however, it was necessary to construct independent water systems sufficient to furnish 55 gallons of water daily to each of 45,000 men. This is nearly twice as much water as was then being furnished to the average European army camp, and it meant in each case a system of centrifugal pumps and gravity tanks with a capacity of 2,250,000 gallons daily.
The local water supply was secured either from running streams or from dug wells. If the purity of the water was in doubt it was sterilized by the chlorine process and sometimes filtered in addition. The purity of the water and the care exercised in screening kitchens, mess halls, and later the dormitories themselves, from flies is seen in the hospital record for the first year of the war. Of all the soldiers who sought hospital treatment for sickness during that first year, only one patient in 5,000 was suffering from a water-borne disease.
In each cantonment there were about 1,500 wooden buildings, presenting a constant fire menace. As a protection from such disasters each cantonment organized its own fire department with modern motor equipment stationed in three or more fire houses. The men of the fire companies were usually those who had had previous training as members of city fire departments. There was not a single serious fire at the cantonments during the war period.
Besides keeping soldiers well and clean, the camp facilities provided them with opportunity for moral and healthy amusement. Various organizations combined to supply the camps with amusement facilities. There were the library buildings, the Red Cross buildings and halls, the Y. M. C. A. buildings, the Knights of Columbus buildings, the Salvation Army buildings, Y. W. C. A. buildings, and the Jewish Welfare Board buildings.
Although the American soldier bought liberally of Liberty bonds, took out War Risk insurance, and sent to his family the greater portion of his monthly pay, still he had a small amount of money to spend for little luxuries or necessities. These included small supplies such as candy and fruits, and they were on sale at the usual post exchange or company store. This was a small building, usually with a broad covered porch or shelter around three sides, so that the men in bad weather could be dry as they waited in line for their turn at the windows. The Y. M. C. A., K. of C., Red Cross, Y. W. C. A., Jewish Welfare Board, and Salvation Army buildings offered reading and writing rooms and general gathering places; yet these were insufficient for a total camp population averaging 40,000. Hence the Commission on Training Camp Activities built through the agency of the Construction Division a Liberty Theater at each camp.