Mess at the Pelham Bay Naval Station.

"We lined up before the affable cooks and received a tin plate with a plentiful helping at the long tables in the mess-hall.'

the clothes allotted to them by Uncle Sam. We emerged into the detention-camp. Here the rookies stay three weeks in quarantine, carefully wired off from the rest of the camp. For the better control of any contagion their barracks are divided so that only a small squad is housed in one room. We passed back to the main camp. Here each barrack is occupied by one company. The buildings are light, airy, and scrupulously clean. In them the new sailors get their first taste of sea ways, for they sleep in hammocks. In daytime the hammocks are neatly rolled against the wall beside the canvas bag that contains the owner's equipment; at night they stretched between iron-pipe jack-stays, and if the men feel none of the motion of a ship they have at least a touch of the fo'c'sle.

That afternoon the bay was alive with boats, the crews pulling at their oars under the commands of vociferous petty officers. In the school barracks scores of young aspirants for commissions were poring over text-books and listening to lectures on the technic of the sailor's profession. On the parade-ground,

under the eyes of the commandant, six companies from the detention-camp were drilling earnestly in a competition which promised a day's leave from camp for the winning company. On the water, in the schools, on the drill-grounds thousands of white-clad young men were working hard to fit themselves for their country's service. They were men from the colleges and schools, from the factories, shops, and farms. Many of them, perhaps, had little knowledge of the underlying causes of the war. To all of them the vital thing was that their country was in arms against a race of outlaws and willingly and cheerfully they were hardening themselves to do their bit in the whipping of the Hun.

CHAPTER IX

THE FOOD CAMPAIGN

HE fourth great problem which the gov

THE

ernment has had to solve in its conduct of the war has been that of food. It is an exaggeration to say that food will win the war. Food is but one of the weapons with which the victory will be won. The battle to produce and conserve food is one in which the humblest of us has been able to have a part. It was the campaign for increased production and conservation that first brought to the mass of the people a realization that we were in a war the winning of which demanded personal sacrifice of every American. Before an American soldier had set foot in France we were ploughing new fields and taking stock of our larder.

To reach an understanding of the pressing food problem of to-day one has to consider the situation of the world as to food-supplies before 1914. In the decade before that Europe had