CAMP WELFARE COMMITTEE
storage battery, generator, interior electric lights, and had a 14-foot cabin with a full equipment of life preservers, a painter, anchor, flag, boat-hook, etc.
Welfare I and Welfare II, subsequently purchased, were used for exactly the same purpose as automobiles in the camps. Of Welfare I the Worker writes:
“Daily she carried me out to the ships and around them. I always had some of the Comforts articles aboard and gave away from her decks altogether over 1100 articles, including 135 bedquilts, 420 pairs of socks and 350 sweaters. During the last month I operated her, she visited 226 ships, and I gave away personally on those ships nearly 10,000 copies of the Monitor, not including subscriptions.
“Welfare I visited the Hospital ship Solace every day and I had permission to go through all the wards and did so, giving away many Monitors. I always visited the neighboring lighthouses supplying them with literature. Three times a week we ran to the submarine nets at the mouth of the York River and furnished the fleet of chasers with literature.
“You can imagine it was strenuous work to take 100 to 150 Monitors under your arm, and, standing on the front deck, with spray and water breaking around your knees, run up to a gangway in a heavy sea, and just step aboard at the right instant, but I did it without mishap hundreds of times.”
The secondary base was maintained at Hampton Roads, where, in addition to auxiliary vessels, convoys and transports, foreign ships and many merchantmen anchored, and major ships from Yorktown came more or less regularly for brief stays. A submarine base up the Chesapeake and an outlying army post on Fisherman's Island, near Cape Charles, needed care from this base. The second Worker was now appointed, and another and larger boat known as “Welfare Second” was provided for service.
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