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Saturday, May 6, 2017

ALCOHOL & EVIL WOMEN BARRED FROM MILITARY POSTS

JFK+50:  Volume 7, No. 2301

ALCOHOL & EVIL WOMEN BARRED FROM ARMY POSTS & NAVAL STATIONS

Washington, D.C.  (JFK+50) One hundred years ago today, May 6, 1917, an official announcement was made by Dr. Franklin H. Martin*, a member of the general board of the Council of Defense, stating that "alcohol and evil women" would be barred from every army post and naval station in the United States.

Prescribed zones were to be fixed around every post & station where alcohol and venereal disease would be "scourged out."  The announcement followed an "exhaustive study" of the armies of Europe.

The general board included both the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army, General William C. Gorgas, and the Surgeon General of the U.S. Navy, William C. Braisted.

Dr. Martin said...

"To face the ugly facts in an unflinching and no half hearted fashion makes for the fighting power of the nation."

The Chicago Daily Tribune reported that...."the effect of this new order is to place the men under military control...while off duty as well as on."

*Dr. Franklin H. Martin (1857-1935) retired after 40 years in the practice of gynecology & surgery.  FHM was founder & editor of the medical journal "Surgery, Gynecology & Obstetrics."

SOURCES

"Alcohol, Women Shut From All Military Posts," The Chicago Daily Tribune, May 7, 1917, www.archives.chicagotribune.com/