Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir.

Mr. SISSON. In buying this food do you buy such food as you can in quantities?

Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir; we buy all of the food supplies.

Mr. SISSON. In quantities?

Col. WADSWORTH. In large quantities.

Mr. SISSON. During the first half of the year I understand you had spent $111,000 of the $210,000?

Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir.

Mr. SISSON. What was the encumbrance on the six months not paid for?

Col. WADSWORTH. About $127,000; that would be the net encumbrance.

Mr. SISSON. In expending the $127,000, of course you had more than a six months' food supply on hand?

Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir.

Mr. SISSON. Did you have any food supplies on hand at the beginning of the year?

Col. WADSWORTH. Always. We are working on this basis as a continuous proposition. We were over at the end of one period.

Mr. Sisson. Of course this does not show the food supply on hand at the beginning of the year?

Col. WADSWORTH. No, sir.

Mr. SISSON. Your inventories are not such as to show that?

Col. WADSWORTH. I have not that here.

Mr. SISSON. You have an inventory?

Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir; I have an absolute return on every single item. They are all dealt with as articles, and I have that showing just what we had from the beginning of the year.

Mr. SISSON. After six months have elapsed you have on hand certain food supplies?

Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir.

Mr. SISSON. Did you take them into consideration in making this estimate?

Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir. In making the estimate now on milk we make not only an estimate but make a supply contract for that for the year.

Mr. SISSON. I understand.

Col. WADSWORTH. Food supplies like flour and meat and vegetables we buy quarterly, and always in making up the estimate for the next quarter we take into account what we have on hand, and in the estimates which we have submitted to us, before we authorize the buying, they show in detail exactly how many barrels of flour they have used during a given period, how many they have now, and what they want to buy.

Mr. SISSON. And how much it has been costing you per patient per day?

Col. WADSWORTH. Down there?

Mr. SISSON. Yes, sir.

Gen. Wood. The average.

Col. WADSWORTH. It is about 42 or 43 cents; they merge them.
Mr. ANTHONY. That is the hospital ration?

Col. WADSWORTH. That is all. The hospital would be slightly more than the other.

Mr. SISSON. Forty-three cents a day, and what has been the average number of patients?

Col. WADSWORTH. The people we have there, according to this return, are 1,600 and something-and we have now, I take it

Mr. SISSON (interposing). That is an estimate and you use the same method in figuring out the amount necessary?

Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir.

Mr. SISSON. You take the average cost of the ration and multiply it by the number of men?

Col. WADSWORTH. That brings us out at just about what we are doing.

Mr. SISSON. Is that kept separate in arriving at the cost?

Col. WADSWORTH. The method pursued was to take the actual expenditures that we had made up to the present moment and to make up the estimate on the previous year's needs and take that, together with the service, as being the necessary expenditure.

Mr. SISSON. You have something charged up in this ration besides the actual food cost?

Col. WADSWORTH. This covers the service of the ration as well; the kitchen equipment, which is not a very expensive item. The CHAIRMAN. And the repairs?

Col. WADSWORTH. All the repairs to the kitchen equipment.

Gen. Wood. If you will look at page 95 you will see what is covered by that item, quite a large number of items, the pay of everybody connected with the commissary department, the food supply, and other equipment, quite a large and comprehensive item.

Col. WADSWORTH. It means everything that has to do with the feeding of the men, the officer in charge of the department, all the cooks, all the waiters, and everybody that has any connection with that, all of the kitchen and dining-room supplies, all the tables, all of the tableware and silverware, everything that has to do with that, even to the manufacture of the ice that we supply there. It means everything that we furnish.

Mr. ANTHONY. Is the increased cost for the subsistence department due to the increased cost of the subsistence or an increase in the population?

Col. WADSWORTH. The increase in population will cover a part of it. Our population during January, February, and March always brings in the people who are out on furlough and will increase from 10 to 20 per cent during the winter months. Then they go out again in the spring. We have many men who are absent on furlough just now, 457

Mr. SISSON (interposing). You should get some credit during their absence?

Col. WADSWORTH. No.

The CHAIRMAN. You take the average in making up the estimate? Gen. Woop. The average present for the year.

Col. WADSWORTH. I might say in that connection that quite à number of members move down to other branches, to the Southern Branch, which is right on Hampton Roads, for winter quarters; that is quite a winter resort.

The CHAIRMAN. It is popular?
Gen. WOOD. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Please take up the next item. Col. WADSWORTH. There is a computation made at the end of the period that shows the actual consumption.

Mr. SISSON. You follow the doctors' prescriptions in feeding the tuberculosis cases?

Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir.
Mr. SISSON. You have to?
Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir.

Mr. ANTHONY. You feed a tubercular patient four times a day? Col. WADSWORTH. Some of them more than that; as often as they want food. Sometimes they get milk and sometimes eggs. The doctor fixes that. But the home has always operated a little differently, it makes up the computation afterwards to show what we have used.

The CHAIRMAN. When you were before the committee, I think, you said that you had 1,790 patients that day, and that you would have up to your full capacity in 30 days, and in answer to a question by the chairman you stated that the full capacity would be 2,100 or 2,200. I think you said that you had 1,600.

Col. WADSWORTH. At the present time.

The CHAIRMAN. When you made the estimate for the full capacity of 2,100 or 2,200 it did not include the figures which you propose now. If you have only 1,600 and contemplate being able to run the home for $253,000, you are asking for what you did ask for then if you had the total number of 2,100 or 2,200.

Col. WADSWORTH. Our present figures indicate that we will perhaps have under that, but a number of things have transpired that we did not know at that time. The things that have added very much are water, gas, and coal.

The CHAIRMAN. They are higher than you contemplated?

Col. WADSWORTH. Very much more; nearly double; water is double.

The CHAIRMAN. If you had the 2,100 or the 2.200 as you anticipated, the estimate that you made would be short?

Col. WADSWORTH. I suspect that it would not be sufficient for the same item.

Gen. Wood. Those hearings were in December, and the figures we' are giving you to-day are in October, which is before our winter trade starts in.

The CHAIRMAN. You are anticipating?

Gen. Wood. Yes, sir. We get up to 1,800 or 1,900 during the winter months. Then we go down in the summer and then go up again.

HOUSEHOLD.

The CHAIRMAN. For furniture for officers' quarters, beds, bedding, bedding material, etc.. you are asking a deficiency appropriation of $30,000. You expended for this purpose in 1921 $189,097.37; you estimated $151,000, and were given $115,000, and now you come back for $30,000.

Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. That would appear to be $6,000 less than you estimated?

Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Why do you need this additional money? Is there any new furniture to be supplied?

Col. WADSWORTH. That reading of the first items is very misleading. You start out by reading certain items, but those are not the items in which the expense occurs. You want to go down through the enumeration of articles until you reach fuel, heat and light, engineers and firemen, etc. We probably will not pay for furniture over $1,000. We are not buying much of that, but our big item there, of course, is coal.

COST OF COAL.

The CHAIRMAN. What does coal cost you?

Col. WADSWORTH. Our coal down there will cost us $6, or an average of about $6 this year, and we burn about 12,000 tons per year. The CHAIRMAN. What kind of coal is it?

Col. WADSWORTH. West Virginia coal.

The CHAIRMAN. Pocahontas coal?

Col. WADSWORTH. No, sir; we get coal from Logan County, W. Va. The CHAIRMAN. Do you buy it by contract?

Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir; if possible. During the last few years we have not been successful in making contracts.

The CHAIRMAN. How does your price this year compare with the price paid in the last year or two?

Col. WADSWORTH. The price last year from July to December was clear out of all reason. We paid as high as $14 per ton up until December, when it took a tumble that brought it down to about the present price for the remainder of the year.

The CHAIRMAN, How do your prices compare with the prices paid for the Army and Navy in the same locality and the prices paid by other branches of the Government?

Col. WADSWORTH. We have not had any recent checks on that. For a long period of time they were buying just as we were. I do not know whether they are buying under a contract or not.

The CHAIRMAN. Does this price include delivery at the plant?
Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Delivered by teams?

Col. WADSWORTH. Delivered by boat.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you put it on the boat at the dock?

Col. WADSWORTH. We had difficulty with it during the time of the Fuel Administration, and they quit delivering it. Last year the Army turned over to us two barges, and we now have a working agreement with the street railway company down there by which they do our barging for us. They bring it over to us, so that we are getting it somewhat cheaper than we otherwise would but for the loan of the barges.

Mr. SISSON. Did they loan you the barges?

Col. WADSWORTH. I think so. It is quite clear that they were not given to us.

Mr. SISSON. We have tried to find out where this Army property is being used, if at all, and occasionally some of it bobs up like this. Col. WADSWORTH. This is the only particle of it we have.

Mr. SISSON. I am not criticizing that at all.

Mr. WADSWORTH. We have been engaged somewhat in the same pursuit. We have been trying to get at it, but this is the only thing we have, and this came about not through any direct efforts of ours, but through efforts started by somebody else."

Mr. SISSON. You do not know what your title is?

Gen. WOOD. I made the deal with the Quartermaster General of the Army. They were barges used in the Chickahominy, and they had been stored up there for some time after the war. The railroads went out of the barge business and left us high and dry. I heard about these barges, and I came to Washington last winter and made a deal with the Quartermaster General of the Army by which he turned over those two barges. We had to put them in order and keep them in order.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you have to tow the barges?

Gen. WOOD. No, sir; we made a contract with the street railway company by which they are allowed to use those barges in hauling their coal, and they also haul our coal. They furnish the motive power for the barges and haul our coal and their own.

Col. WADSWORTH. And they keep them in order.

Mr. SISSON. I want to congratulate you on that, and I hope you will get hold of other property of the Army that is lying around and will put it to some good use.

Gen. WOOD. You have given us a man-size job on that.

The CHAIRMAN. When you were here before you said that you were paying $9 per ton for coal, and now you say you are paying $6 per ton. If your estimate is based on $9 per ton and you use 12,000 tons, the difference between $9 and $6 will represent $36,000, and that would seem to obviate the necessity for this deficiency. Gen. WOOD. I will say in that connection-

The CHAIRMAN (interposing). What did you base your estimate on?

Col. WADSWORTH. We burn 12,000 tons of coal down there and we have a water charge down there of $17,000.

The CHAIRMAN. What rate do you pay for water?

Col. WADSWORTH. That is what we pay for water down there.

Mr. ANTHONY. That is an outrageous charge.

Col. WADSWORTH. That is the rate fixed by the Public Utilities Commission of Virginia, and we have a gas rate there which brings the charge over $6,000.

The CHAIRMAN. What do you pay for gas?

Col. WADSWORTH. We pay one dollar and something now. We have curbed the use of gas in every way we can and have put limitations upon the officers and others using it.

The CHAIRMAN. Do you purchase water by meter?

Col. WADSWORTH. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. What do you pay per thousand gallons of water? Col. WADSWORTH. We buy our water by the cubic foot, and we are paying at the rate of about 17 cents per thousand gallons. The CHAIRMAN. Four cents ought to be a good price.

Col. WADSWORTH. We are paying double what we paid five years

ago.

The CHAIRMAN. Was this rate made as a war rate?