The work to be undertaken will naturally fall into eight main departments.
I. Management and Sanitation of Camps. The camps are of four classes:
1. Military Camps on military reservations. These will continue under the supervision of the military authorities and our only relation to them will be to furnish any necessary food, clothing or other relief, and to arrange for the eventual removal of any who are not able to make their own arrangements.
2. Military camps in public parks and squares. The problem in these camps is to provide superintendence, sanitation, policing and labor, which are now supplied by the Army. The present organization should be continued, the pay-roll being transferred but the personnel so far as possible being retained from the commanding officer of camps down. Estimates for the expense of conducting these camps for the month of July have been supplied to the Finance Committee by General Greely and appropriations in accordance therewith are recommended.
3. Camps in public squares or on other city property not under military control. These camps should be immediately incorporated into the system which now prevails in the military camps. The co-operation of the Park Department, the Health Department, and the Police Department will be essential, but we are informed by the Mayor that the expense of sanitation and policing which has heretofore been borne by the Army will have to be met from the Relief Fund and probably the same is true of the non-military camps which will become a part of the same system.
4. Camps and straggling shacks and tents on private property. The Commission will have no authority to interfere with persons living either in tents or in temporary dwellings on private ground, but the giving of any relief to such persons may be made subject to any conditions which are considered necessary, and the intervention of the Health Board may be asked whenever there are insanitary conditions.
II. Warehouses. After July 1st, there will be only two warehouses, one in the Moulder School, for provisions and the other, now in the Crocker School, and about to be removed to the new warehouse, Geary and Gough Sts., construction of which has been authorized by the Finance Committee, for clothing and other relief supplies. It is expected that the present management of these two warehouses can be continued, the military officers now in charge being given leave for this purpose and engaged by the Commission. In this event the officers, as superintendents of the warehouses, will probably be made purchasing agents of the Commission for the kind of goods of which they respectively have charge.
III. Hot Meal Restaurants. There are now some 27 hot meal restaurants, on which 10 cent and 15 cent tickets are issued by the Red Cross in the several sections, to be redeemed by the Finance Committee. As these restaurants are located in camps any necessary supervision of their management and sanitation so long as they are continued may safely be entrusted to the superintendent of camps and to those who are in charge of the several camps under his direction. The Commission should assume responsibility for the issuing of tickets and certifying the bills of the contractors to the Finance Committee.
IV. Section Organization. The civilian chairmen of the seven sections, in addition to their duties in the distribution of food and clothing in the relief stations have succeeded to the duties of the military chiefs of sections, and they should be responsible to the Commission until relieved, which cannot probably be earlier than the end of July. These chairmen have given their entire time to this work since May 1st and they should be paid for their services. They should be held responsible in the immediate future for the distribution of clothing, meal tickets and other relief and for the second registration which is now in progress and which will bring to the Commission a large number of cases in which gifts of money or its equivalent are required.
V. Hospitals. The care of the indigent sick has thus far been in part in emergency hospitals maintained as a part of the camp system, and in part in private hospitals on a per capita basis—payment being made to the hospitals for each patient who is accepted as a proper charge on the relief fund. It is desirable that the present plan be continued, under the supervision of the Commission, the medical executor who has been engaged by the Hospital Committee remaining in charge and supervising the emergency hospitals in camps as well as the care in private hospitals, of which the expense is met from the Relief Fund.