When the project for the expeditionary supply base at Port Newark was taken up—in the late fall of 1917—the Construction Division set about it to get 63,377 piles for the foundations of this construction. There were 64 pile drivers on the job, driving in a total of 1,566 piles in a day; and to supply these the woodsmen of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, and New Jersey were called upon for their best efforts. Due to the unforeseen severity of the winter, the rivers were frozen and the railroads choked with freight. Near by was the Hog Island shipbuilding project at Philadelphia, needing more piles than the railroads could deliver. The trees in the woods were frozen and often broke to pieces when they fell. In the southern logging districts the negro woodsmen refused to stay on the job because of the cold. The Construction Division then took hold, sent soldiers into the woods, felled the trees, and then put guards on the cars of piling, to see that they were not lost in transit. As a result, the piles for the Port Newark job were delivered on time.
In addition to procuring materials for its own contractors, the Construction Division also procured building materials for the Shipping Board and for the Bureau of Industrial Housing. The peak load of labor on the Army construction jobs came in the summer of 1918, when 230,000 men were on the pay roll, drawing $7,626,800 a week in pay, and still the jobs were short 150,000 unskilled men. In general, the union scale of wages and hours of labor were adopted, but the open shop was maintained. Labor troubles were infrequent and not serious. To prevent strikes the Government formed the Cantonment Adjustment Commission, consisting of three members, the Army representative being Col. J. H. Alexander, of the Construction Division. Of all the strikes that hampered our war activities, less than 1 per cent were strikes of the building trades.
When the labor shortage of 1918 was most acute the Construction Division turned to Porto Rico and the Bahamas for unskilled labor, importing 2,600 Bahamans and 13,000 Porto Ricans. This imported labor was exclusively used on southern building projects and was sent back home when the armistice was signed.
The Construction Division had charge of the operation and maintenance of the utilities of the various training camps, a work requiring a force of 452 officers and 16,559 men. In all there were 54,808 buildings at these camps to be kept in repair. This was done at the cost of $8.10 a year for each man housed. The Government supplied electricity to the camps at an average cost of $0.02½ per kilowatt hour. In a single year of operation, the 32 camps burned about 2,000,000 tons of coal for heating. This was at a cost of approximately $10 per man.
The utilities of the camps were under the management of men who could qualify to be city managers. They had the operation of water systems, fire departments, and other common conveniences of cities. Water was supplied at the rate of 55 gallons daily per man. The purity of the water and the adequacy of the sanitation may be gauged from the fact that in July and August, 1918, the annual death rate at the camps was 2.8 per thousand. In our Mexican War the annual death rate of American troops from disease was 110 per thousand; in the Civil War it was 65 per thousand; in the Spanish War 26 per thousand; and among Japanese troops in the Russo-Japanese War it was 25 per thousand. The death rate in civil life for men of the draft age is 6.7 per thousand.
Each camp and cantonment was adequately protected by fire companies equipped with the most modern apparatus, nearly all of it motorized. Each camp fire company had 60 men. A low annual fire loss in civil life is $2 per capita. In 1917, 20 American cities of about 31,000 population each showed an annual fire loss of $2.15 per capita. The average for the United States is $2.42 per capita. At the training camps, in spite of their inflammable construction, the average annual loss from fire per capita was only 46 cents.
| Project. | Square feet of floor area. | Approximate cost. | General contractor. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Port Newark terminal | 1,662,400 | $10,260,000 | Mason & Hanger-McArthur Bros. |
| [38]357,000 | |||
| Norfolk Army supply base | 2,015,000 | 25,975,770 | Porter Bros. |
| [39]884,500 | |||
| Philadelphia Army supply base | 345,570 | 15,510,112 | Snare & Triest Co. |
| Charleston quartermaster terminal | 1,152,000 | 12,675,000 | Mason & Hanger. |
| [38]379,200 | |||
| [39]269,000 | |||
| Boston Army supply base | 1,651,104 | 28,040,000 | W. F. Kearns Co. |
| 882,000 | |||
| Brooklyn Army supply base | 3,936,000 | 32,500,000 | Turner Construction Co. |
| [39]1,143,000 | |||
| New Orleans Army supply base | 1,792,000 | 11,660,875 | George W. Fuller Co. |
| 280,000 | |||
| Interior storage depots | |||
| Baltimore Interior depot | 663,800 | 2,143,676 | Sanford & Brooks. |
| Boston temporary warehouses | 327,600 | 1,265,079 | W. F. Kearns Co. |
| Chicago interior depot | 580,400 | 809,300 | Central Manufacturing District. |
| Chicago permanent warehouse | 1,230,400 | 3,691,800 | Do. |
| Columbus interior storage depot | 2,657,600 | 6,128,022 | Hunkin-Conkey Co. |
| [38]246,400 | |||
| Jeffersonville quartermaster interior depot | 320,000 | 1,282,563 | Caldwell & Marshall Co. |
| Hoboken quartermaster expeditionary depot | 162,540 | 201,000 | Barney-Hooks-Ahlers. |
| New Cumberland interior storage depot | 1,568,000 | 4,700,270 | Bates-Rogers Construction Co. |
| [38]400,000 | |||
| Philadelphia interior storage | 917,800 | 3,470,940 | William Steele & Sons. |
| Philadelphia quartermaster expeditionary depot | 208,900 | 1,091,050 | Do. |
| [38]51,400 | |||
| Pittsburgh interior storage depot | 178,600 | 630,900 | The Austin Co. |
| Schenectady interior storage depot | 2,080,800 | 6,051,550 | Feeney & Sheehan. |
| [38]537,600 | |||
| St. Louis interior depot | 384,300 | 1,368,540 | Westly Construction Co. |
[38] Sheds.
[39] Pier sheds.