obedient, and cheerful military units. Infractions of military or civil law have been less in quantity among the National Army men than infractions of civil law alone among an equal number of men in civil life. Major-General J. Franklin Bell has made a clear-cut statement about Camp Upton which is almost incredible, but which is indubitably true: "We have a democratic army. We have an army where no man shirks, but every one does his utmost to help. Do you 'know that we have had the troops at Camp Upton-there are thirty thousand of them-for two months, and we have not had a single court martial? We have had no court martial because nobody has done wrong. Let me modify that, nobody has done wrong intentionally. We are all learning, beginners as it were, but all of us are doing our best." Colonel M. B. Stewart, the Chief of Staff at Camp Devens, could not go as far as General Bell, but he was positively enthusiastic about conditions in his cantonment: The temper and spirit of the men could not be better; the situation here is excellent in every respect; there is not an officer who is not highly gratified by the results so far obtained," he told me. But I wanted the opinion of some one who was actually_commanding. I chose Colonel A. S. Conklin, of the 303d Field Artillery, a Regular Army man, who knows what an army means and what it means to make an army. He glowed with pleasure as he talked about his men. They are simply wonderful; fine, clean, sturdy fellows from Maine, New Hamp shire, Vermont, and other parts of New England. They understand why they are here and are putting the best of body, mind, and heart into their work. There is no surliness, no reluctance; indeed, the very opposite. When an officer has to correct them, they actually thank him and say, 'It won't occur again, sir." It is going to be comparatively easy to make first-class soldiers of men with such a spirit." But I think General Kennedy, commanding at Camp Dix, was the most enthusiastic officer I saw concerning the drafted men. He confessed that he could not get over his sense of amazement that his division was settling down to its work with such an irreproachable spirit. One could see satisfaction and pride in his face and feel it in the timber of his voice. And yet Camp Dix is probably the most difficult of all our units, with an unusual amount of unlikely and recalcitrant material drawn from the foreign sections of industrial communities. Officers of various grades and branches of the service in Camp Gordon, speaking of their cantonment, gave me exactly the same impression. 66 "Barbed wire twenty feet high and ten feet deep to keep the men from deserting!" Never was a prediction wider of the mark; never was a fear more completely wiped out. And yet not one of those hundreds of thousands of men went into a cantonment on his own initiative; Uncle Sam stretched out his hand, tore them up by the roots from their familiar and wellloved environment, dropped them into an ugly and comfortless place, abrogated the civil liberties which they had been brought up to look upon as their inalienable rights, put them to work at rough, unaccustomed, and monotonous tasks, and held before their eyes, as the culmination of it all, pain, gas suffocation, mutilation, and death in a foreign land at the hands of a brutalized foe. And yet-this is a miracle of democracy-the cantonments are probably the most contented and cheerful spots in America, where laughter, cheers, and songs rieple or ring through the air a hundred times a day. What wrought the miracle? Many things. First and foremost I put the solicitude of the authorities for the welfare of the men. Probably forty per cent of those drafted had not been the objects of care since infancy. But no sooner did they arrive in camp than all kinds of mysteriously inquisitive officers began to show a persistent interest in them. Were they clean? Some were not. Some had never been bathed in their lives, or at least since babyhood. A medical officer at Camp Dix told me of one recruit who was so absolutely filthy that no one would touch him; the hair on his body had grown back into his skin; he was alive with vermin. They had to put him on the ground and Scour him with brooms and soft soap. Following the cleanliness inquisitors came the uniformed dentists, who examined every tooth, extracting some, filling others, and issuing peremptory commands about tooth-brushes. Then another uniformed understudy of Providence insisted upon knowing the condition of the man's feet, showing an incomprehensible concern for ingrowing toe nails. Was not all this enough? No, it was only the beginning. The recruit could not drink water unless it had been ana lyzed, he could not eat meals which had not been tested first by scrupulous official palates, he could not sleep in his bunk unless it were certified to as being correctly made, he could not buy anything at the post exchange except what had been allowed cn sale as pure, he could not even march or drill with his mouth open for fear of germs. So the men began to realize their value; they were worth Uncle Sam's most constant scientific attention. Instead of irritating the men, it gave them a new sense of self-esteem. Possibly they wondered why they had not been worthy of as much solicitude while they were mere citizens, but, at any rate, they were now aware that they were valuable assets. The flattery pleased them even though they seemed to chafe under its application. Naturally and logically there followed the buoyancy of abounding health. The cleanliness, the simple but wholesome fare, the regularity of exercise, the open air, brought something absolutely new to a majority of the men-they felt the surge of a rich vitality in their veins. Thousands and thousands who had only subsisted hitherto began really to live. They had come from the gloomy canyons of our big cities, they had been torn from the cubby-holes of industrial offices, they had left forever the lung-clogging lint of the mill, they had jumped the counter and bade good-by to the effeminacy of the department store; yes, I feel certain that a majority of the men in the cantonments had been liberated from haunts or occupations which sapped their health, and within a month had felt themselves to be reborn. There will doubtless be many National Guard officers who will receive my next statement with incredulity. I believe the influence of the Reserve officers has been a most potent factor in the rapid molding of the drafted men. In the National Guard camps the Reserve officers did not take their places with ease. Plattsburg and Madison had not given them experience in handling men who had just come back from border service, and many of the non-coms. were more proficient than the wear ers of brand-new uniforms. But in the National Army cantonments the Reserve officers and the drafted men were beginning together, and each knew it. There was mutual tolerance; when the officer muddled his commands and tangled his men in a hopeless formation, it was received with humor rather than scorn; hauteur slipped out of the budding officer's bearing. The Regular Army officers in the cantonments spoke much more confidently of the Plattsburg probationer than did the National Guard officers in the camps. Such a psychological situation is possible only in a democracy. And the Reserve officers are deeply anxious to grow just a little faster than their men. They have a passion for leadership which springs from a genuinely sacrificial motive. They want their units to overtake the National Guard and stand abreast of the Regular Army as quickly as possible, that when they lead their men into action no one will be able to make any invidious distinctions between the types of troops which face the commcn foe. Still, not all of these military considerations combined could have achieved the happy results so noticeable in the National Army; something more, something different, was needed. Enforced cleanliness, an accession of health, abundance of wholesome food, and a consciousness of duty faithfully performed cannot assuage the pangs of homesickness or compensate for the involuntary break in lifelong habits. There was a chasm to be bridged. Fortunately democracy is the real Pontifex Maximus. The people of America said: "These boys are ours; we give them to the great crusade of our own free will; we must do everything conceivable and possible to make them feel that the uniform has not lifted them out of the normal life of the Nation." So the people immediately set about to normalize the environment of the soldiers and thus head off any drift toward militarism. They fraternized with the men wherever khaki was seen; they opened their homes on Sundays to total strangers as if the visitors were their own kith and kin; they hung out service flags and were as proud of the star which symbolized the drafted man as of the one which represented the Regular Army officer. This response of the people produced immediate results. Officers of the Federal service found State and city officials ready to co-operate in eliminating the grosser temptations from the communities adjacent to the camps. Haunts of vice which had flourished under local political protection for decades were effectually closed. Except through the efforts of some degenerate bootleggers and the mistaken generosity of occasional foolish friends, liquor was made inaccessible to the soldiers. Clubs, lodges, chapters of fraternal organizations, and a multitude of benevolent societies held open house for officers and enlisted men. Churches suspended their stereotyped activities and concentrated upon providing entertainment, comfort, and inspiration for the army. Everywhere I have found nothing but respect and affection; the camps are family affairs upon a National scale. If the Red Cross asked for one hundred million dollars, the people insisted upon making it about one hundred and twenty-five millions. If the Y. M. C. A. needed thirty-five million dollars, the people poured out more than fifty millions, and said, “Come again." Every fund projected for the benefit of the Army is oversubscribed. The reflex of this upon the men in the camps is incalculable. It is not a cold-storage Congress disgorging money reluctantly under executive pressure, but a Nation-wide offering of affection-it is largesse de luxe. The spirit of it thrills back through the cantonments, and the men say in their hearts," We will be worthy." That is what makes an army an instantaneous and an invincible army-in a land where all the traditions of thought and action have hitherto been set against militarism. While a vast amount of this National service for the National Army has been spontaneous and undirected, it is only natural that the larger part of it should be organized in order to function most effectively. Hence the War Department's Commission on Training Camp Activities, Mr. Raymond B. Fosdick, chairman. The work of the Commission is to co-ordinate every available force in American life for the physical, mental, and moral benefit of the soldier body. It aims to fill every spare minute of camp life with occupations which meet the appetites of men accustomed to free civil life; to eliminate or reduce to a minimum the evils which have always hovered like vampires around military establishments; and, finally, by a federated pressure of healthy influences, to strengthen and increase the moral health of the hundreds of thousands of men whom the Nation has called to specialized citizen service. Undoubtedly many parents, wives, sisters, and friends of the men have been seriously disturbed by the wild statements concerning immorality on the part of the soldiers. For six weeks I have made close investigation of such charges, and without the slightest hesitation I brand them as infernal lies. Here and there, now and then, a soldier transgresses; any one would be a fool and an ignoramus to believe otherwise. But let the reader think out the situation. A camp of forty thousand men between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-one implies the most virile section of a city of more than three hundred thousand inhabitants. But no camp produces in a month a fraction of the immorality practiced in such a city in a week. Facilities, opportunities, and temptations open to civilians all the while in a large civil population are not presented to the soldiers. Only the most hardened and desperately insistent can find the few and weli-hidden runways of vice. The bulk of the men's time is pre-empted by rigid military duties; the larger part of the balance of their time is filled by occupations of the most wholesome nature provided within the camp by the various organiza tions working together under Mr. Fosdick's Commission. Occasionally the men go to the near-by communities, and there the vigilance of the Government has practically driven away all commercialized vice, and has made it next to impossible for a soldier to obtain a drink of liquor. The communities near the camps are the most vice-free and orderly places I know in America or in any other land. To assert that our American moral sanctities are being violated wholesale by the soldiers is a vile insult to American womanhood and a form of treason toward the Government, and every such accuser should be tried instantly as a public enemy. I saw Mr. Fosdick on the subject in his Washington office. He is one of the calmest and keenest men I have ever met, yet he is vibrating with a splendid moral enthusiasm. Here is what The first line consists of the positive recreational activities, designed to take the place of the influences we are trying to eliminate. "I remember standing in the street of Columbus, New Mexico, shortly after Villa devastated the village. Five thousand troops were encamped near by. There was nothing whatever in town to interest the men in their hours of leisure no moving-picture shows, no reading-rooms, no places to read and smoke, no homes in which they would be welcome, not even a place to sit down. In fact, there was nothing at all in town except a few dirty saloons and a red light district. That these places were liber ally patronized was due to the fact that there was nothing to compete with them. "It is not going to do any good merely to set up verboten signs along the road. Military regulations against these evils can be made ad infinitum, but nothing will be accomplished unless we can positively create wholesome, red-blooded sources of recreation and entertainment for our troops during their leisure hours. Otherwise we are not even going to make a dent in the twin problem of alcohol and prostitution. "Obviously, therefore, the Commission on Training Camp Activities is more interested in its positive recreational programme, both within and without the camps, than it is in any thing else. This is our first line of defense. "Our second line of defense, in case our first fails, lies in the police measures which we are taking to surround the men with a healthy environment. The powers conferred upon the War Department by Sections 12 and 13 of the Military Draft Lav have been of great assistance in curbing the evils; and the machinery of the Department of Justice, of the Intelligence Depart ment of the Army, and of many private organizations, such as the American Social Hygiene Association, the Committee of Fourteen of New York, and the Committee of Fifteen of Chicago, have been enlisted in the fight. Through its own agents in the field 'the Commission is keeping in constant touch with the situation surrounding every military camp in the United States. "As concrete examples of what has been accomplished may be mentioned the closing of red light districts in the following cities: Deming, New Mexico; El Paso, Waco, San Antonio, Fort Worth, and Houston, Texas; Hattiesburg, Mississippi; Spartanburg, South Carolina; Norfolk and Petersburg, Vir ginia; Jacksonville, Florida; Alexandria, Louisiana; Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, Columbia, and Greenville, South Caro lina; Douglas, Arizona; Louisville, Kentucky; and Montgom ery, Alabama. New Orleans has passed an ordinance which will wipe out its red light district on or about November 15. Many cities in which no red light districts were formally tolerated have, at the instance of the Commission, abolished their open houses of prostitution. "The third line of defense, in case the first two fail, as far as disease is concerned, lies in the very excellent plans for prophylactic work laid out by the Surgeon-General's department. Not only have we an inescapable responsibility to the families in the communities from which our young men are selected in keeping their environment clean, but from the standpoint of our duty and determination to create an efficient Army we are bound as a military necessity to do everything in our power to promote the health and conserve the vitality of the men in the training camps. This war is going to be won on the basis of man power, and we cannot afford to lose a single soldier through any cause with which medical science can successfully grapple. "These, then, are the three lines of defense which the Gov ernment is setting up to protect the character and efficiency of its troops. In so far as it is humanly possible to accomplish it, we are determined that our young men shall come back from this war with no scars except those won in honorable conflict." As a result of visits to many camps, searching investigations in the near-by communities, conversations with scores of officers and hundreds of enlisted men, and a careful questioning of vari ous civilians who know the military situation intimately, I believe that Uncle Sam is going to send back to their families and communities hundreds of thousands and possibly millions morally for the duties of citizenship in a democracy than they of men infinitely better qualified physically, mentally, and were when called to the colors. (C) CLINEDINST THE BRITISH HIGH COMMISSIONER AND SPECIAL AMBASSADOR TO THE UNITED STATES, EARL READING, AND LADY READING In 1913 the Attorney-General of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Rt. Hon. Rufus Daniel Isaacs, was made Lord Chief Justice, the first Jew to hold that exalted judicial offics. In 1914 he was raised to the peerage as the first Baron Reading. Now, as Earl Reading, in his fifty-eighth year (he was born in London, October 10, 1860), he is sent to this country as British Ambassador. He married Alice Edith Cohen, of London, in 1887. They have one son. The official announcement of Earl Reading's appointment says: "Lord Reading as High Commissioner and Special Ambassador will have full authority over the members of all British missions sent to the United States in connection with the active prosecution of the war, and the labors of such missions will be completely under his direction and control" The size of the guns now employed in the war may be judged from this photograph, a British official one. This gun is being hauled along a road in Flanders to a more advanced position after a gain. Two trailer trucks carry this huge piece of artillery and a tractor furnishes the motive power. This gun is said to be even bigger than the German "Busy Bertha " type Moving-picture producers cannot always find actors who can "make up" so effectively as to rival real "types," they state. In the above picture, photographed for a scene in a new play, the producers, we are informed, found these old checker-players in a little Maine fishing village and induced them to have their photograph taken at a most interesting stage of their favorite game |