Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 114, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1916 — UNCLE SAM'S HOT SPRINGS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

UNCLE SAM'S HOT SPRINGS

CARLSBAD? Well, not this year, possibly; not next year either, as it looks now. No, nor Baden Baden nor any other of the famous European “spas.” But there is still the Arkansas Hot Springs —now owned by Uncle Sam — and because of the European situation It’s likely to have a big boom, a correspondent of the Philadelphia Record writes. The water Is there, a million gallons a day, so pure that chemical analysis shows but a faint trace of mineral, and the 42 springs are all hot. Not a drop of this water is sold. From the various springs one may drink it by the cup and carry it away by the gallon. In the bathhouses one may soak in it by the hour, at a cost within the reach of every purse. This statement is made because there are 24 private bathhouses, and the large government bathhouse for the indigent. In the private bathhouses, which cost from $20,000 to $200,000, the government regulates the price, making allowance for the sum Invested, the cost of maintenance, etc. The average price for a course of 21 baths is around eight dollars, and then there is the fee for attendants, also regulated by the government. Everything is under government control—the water, the bathhouses, the attendants and the physicians. Many of the bathhouses are on government property, that part of the reservation facing Central avenue, and known as "Bathhouse row.” The occupants of these plots have no leases and pay no ground rent. They are there because the government allows them there, and can be closed up in ten minutes if their behavior is not all it should be. The attendants are all negroes, and none of them can get a job in a bathhouse without his or her little certificate bearing the signature of Doctor Parks, representing the department of the interior. Physicians Must Qualify. The physicians, as the result of some high-handed robbery by quacks in the old “wide-open” days when Hot Springs was about as wicked a spot as could be found on the map, have to qualify before a federal medical board before they are allowed to prescribe tlje waters and baths. Any patient being treated by a physician who has not so qualified will not be received at any of the bathhouses, for the bathhouse so offending could no longer "rent” water from Uncle Sam. This term, may seem a trifle odd to one not knowing the conditions at Hot Springs, but it exactly describes the situation. The bathhouse owner rents the water, paying S6O per annum for the water for each tub in his bathhouse. This water belongs to thegovernment, and is under government supervision in the pipes, in the tubs and until it passes out through the sewer connections. A larger sum, to be estimated only through the imagination, in fact, could be realized if the government would allow the waters to be exploited commercially. Vast sums have been offered for the bottling and shipping privileges, and while the water doubtless could be ..sent to the ends of the earth in perfect condition, Uncle Sam will not allow any such experiments. There are in the valley half a dozen springs, privately owned, whose waters are known throughout the country. One of these has a great reputation as a cure for Bright’s disease. Yet Uncle Sam will not allow them even to use labels which might mislead people into believing that they were a part of the group of wonderworking springs that the government guarantees as being par excellence. They are the flow of outlying springs not considered of value at the time “the main group was taken over, and probably are worth no more today, from a medical viewpoint, than they were at that time. ■/ ' , . ; Baths for the Indigent. If seekers after health who journey to the springs have not the where-

withal to pay the modest fees in effect at the private bathing places, Uncle Sam bids them welcome at his bathing house on the hill. After the formality of certifying that they own no property, and are possessed of less than twenty-five dollars in cash, the government bathhouse is ‘open to them. Here 8,690 persons were cared for last year, taking a total of 125,988 baths at Uncle Sam’s expense. The majority of these persons had no medical attention whatever, except the ordinary advice given by the government employes. Yet Doctor Parks states that 90 per cent of these people left Hot Springs cured of their afflictions, which in the majority of cases were rheumatism in its various forms. It naturally is to bersupposed that out of this large number of people there were a few who were not entitled to partake of Uncle Sam’s bounty. It should be expected that among the 100,000 annual visitors to the resort there would be many with the saving instinct. The employees of the bathhouse, for instance, say they never could have believed there were so many people in the world with only $24 if they had not heard the statements made under oath. Uncle Sam, however, is jealous of this water, and while he gives it freely, he hates to have it taken away from him under false pretenses. If at any time a case looks suspicious, he thinks nothing of shipping an inspector half way across the continent to secure the facts. Only last winter the conversation of a man at his modest boarding house did not chime harmoniously with his appearance in the “water’line” at the government bathhouse. An inspector was sent up into Michigan, and visited the little town from which the man had registered. When he returned he announced that the "Indigent” owned four farms in his home county, and had mortgages on most of the others. It cost that man nearly one thousand dollars for the baths he had taken, and only his old soldier record saved him from having a trip to a federal penitentiary in addition. The record of Hot Springs as a fountain of youth is a long and honorable one, yet the strange part of it all is that no one has ever been able to discover what is the property of the waters that effects the cures. Old Traditions of the Springs. Away back in the early days, according to traditions, which are connected with all places of this kind, the Indians ascribed the power to Manitou, the Great Father. They said that when the war chief of a great tribe lay wounded in the shadow of the Ozark hills, the Great Father took pity on him, opened up the mountain and poured the healing waters on his wounds. Since that time the waters have worked similar wonders for all. A somewhat similar story is told of Hot Springs, Va., though that is one of discovery and not of miracle working. According to this yarn an Indian pursued by his foemen fell ex-* hausted into the springs. He lay there for a while, and the waters sq revived him that he scrambled nimblj up the side of a perpendicular cliff and thus eluded his foes. Both o these are pretty tales, yet probabl carry a lower percentage of truth tha the story of "horse sense” attribute to Mount Clemens, Mich. —that i broken-down, swollen-kneed, rheumt* ic old plug was turned out in a P»ture to find for himself, immersed himself to his withers?! a warm bog and in a week grew f|i* new legs. Now there is a plan, backed by eitern capital, to erect at Hot Sprfcs the largest sanitarium in the wod. Already options have been secure4>n ten acres of property lying in the hlrt of the city nearly opposite the ry vatlon. The option price is s2jo,000 and the project is said to Ive $8,000,000 of capital behind It.