Assistant To Camp Cody Quarter Master Is Injured in Wreck

Captain Kimball Hit by S. P. Freight While Driving Auto; Is in Base Hospital.

Captain Howard B. Kimball, military assistant to Major Charles N. Miller, constructing quartermaster of Camp Cody, was dangerously injured shortly after noon today when the automobile which he as driving was struck by a Southern Pacific freight train at the railroad crossing at the mail entrance to the camp. The automobile was demolished and it was miraculous that Captain Kimball escaped instant death. He was removed to the old base hospital near the scene of the accident and it is said by the surgeons in charge that the extent of his injuries cannot yet be determined. Captain Kimball was promoted recently from sergeant and is well know in El Paso, where he spent many years in the quartermaster depot. – El Paso Herald Newspaper – Thursday, November 8, 1917

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Applications For Officers’ School Being Passed On at Camp Cody

Enlisted Men at Camp Cody Have Until December 1 to Qualify.

Soldiers of the 34th division, who desire to enter the officers’ training school which will be opened here January 5 and will continue to April 5, 1918, must submit their applications to their immediate commanding officers before December 1. The men will be impartially and intelligently chosen, and uniform method has been adopted and prescribed by the war department.

Not later than next Saturday each platoon commander will select a group for the officers’ training school. It is estimated that about one-fifth of the men will fall into this group. Commanding presence, strong voice, loyalty, capacity for leadership, high intelligence, and other general military qualifications necessary for an officer, will be considered in making the selections. Special records are then made of men in this selected group by means of pocket rating cards.

The final selection is made not later than December 22, when the company or battery commanders, using as a basis the reports of their platoon commanders, their knowledge of the men and their occupational and educational history, as indicated on the card memorandum, will select to be recommended not to exceed 10 per cent of the men in their units. The recommendations are then listed according to merit and forwarded through regimental and brigade channels to division headquarters. The division commander, Brigadier General Frank G. Mauldin, will call a board of three officers to consider the applications, and select and designate to attend not to exceed 1.7 per cent of the enlisted men in Camp Cody. Any application which is disapproved by any intermediate authority before it reaches the division commander will not be considered by the board. Military authorities have agreed that a candidate’s most important military qualifications can be summarized under physical qualities, intelligence, military leadership, character and general value to the service, and these main characteristics will be considered in all their ramifications with reference to the applicants. – El Paso Herald Newspaper – November 23, 1917

Major Wm. Elliot, Camp Cody Depot Q. M., Finds Time To Test All Food – Part 2 of 2

Testing Laboratory Interesting

The Major’s laboratory is an interesting room. It looks as if the whole family was preparing to go to camp for the summer to a place where they had to canned foods. Boxes of baking powers, bottles of vanilla cans of fruits and vegetables, glass jars of green and tempting pickles, all sit side by side waiting for the test, for the selection of some and the casting aside of others. Every kind of fruit, canned vegetables, flour and other food is as carefully tested as if a real chemist were in charge of the job. It is no simple affair, either, this selection of foodstuffs.

How He Test Coffee

To select a coffee, for instance, the persevering and thorough major tested seventeen kinds of coffee, first looking at the samples of the green beans to see how they graded them at the roasted whole beans, then making coffee from the samples, testing by aroma and by taste. When the coffee comes from the roaster in bulk, Major Elliott test the ground coffee with the sample of the ground coffee which was submitted, and if they do not compare well the shipment is rejected.  No compounds of coffee are used. The major selects one kind and has that without any blending. The kind which he selected the day the interviewer saw him cost the United States 77 cents for two pounds at wholesale. Few privates would have coffee of equal cost in their own homes.

Willing to Employ Women

Major Elliott is a man who understands men and who has hitherto had all men in his offices. Recently, however, he has been employing a few women. The standard of service is very high. The major is willing to have women work in his department if they are competent to handle the job as well as the men. – El Paso Herald Newspaper – Friday, August 17, 1917

Major Wm. Elliot, Camp Cody Depot Q. M., Finds Time To Test All Food – Part 1

Testing the food which Uncle Sam provides for the boys in his army is one of the duties of Major William W. Elliott, depot quartermaster in El Paso. This remarkable man has charge of feeding all the soldiers on the border from Sanderson, Texas, to Yuma, Arizona, and will soon have charge of provisioning the men at Camp Cody, Deming, New Mexico. He also supervises all the sub-depots and the men who care for the many needs of the soldier.

Major Elliot is not only a wonderful organizer, a man with a genus for understanding character and fitting the right man into the right place, but he is also a food expert of an unusual kind. He knows what his men do, he knows what is going on in all nine great building under his care in El Paso.

Is a Careful Food Tester.

It has been said, in previous years that the men of the army were not well fed. A glance at the national guardsmen after they returned home from their duty on the border last winter was sufficient to disprove that statement but any one desiring conclusive evidence needs only to take a glance into the laboratory where the careful major tests food. A pretty label, a good name, or a large price, does not constitute in the eyes of this man a reason why he should buy any particular kind of food. Quality is the thing that counts with him.

Soldiers are Fed Well.

“The soldier is far better fed in the army.” said Major Elliott, “than he is at home. For one thing, the man who is married is often wedded to a woman who does not know food values, how to cook really well, or how to select the very best kinds of food values, how to cook really well, or how to select the best kinds of food, consequently, although he may have a large amount of food he is not will nourished. My men have expert cooks, they have rations which are balanced, they have the best of food. No impurities are allowed, no “benzoate of soda” is in the goods I buy. In many of the old companies the money which is saved by the camp chef is sufficient to buy luxuries and anything which the men may desire to eat.” – El Paso Herald Newspaper – Friday, August 17, 1917