In a military school--how it made me squirm!
I wore a shako, and a lot of braid.
And I startled fire horses when on dress parade;
But they took all glory away from me
As a second lieut. a-wearing of my plain O. D.
When I went to college, I was gayly clad
In a sporty costume made of shepherd's plaid;
I tried pink neckties and vermillion socks,
And when I went out walking, I set back the clocks.
But when I took Uncle Sam's degree
I was nothing but a second lieut. in plain O. D.
In business, too, I made quite a splurge
In a nobby garment made of ultra-serge;
With rings and watchfob and a stickpin, too,
I could show all the dandies of the town a few--
So think what a comedown 'twas for me
As a second lieut. a-wearing of my plain O. D.
But now, however, they have gone so far
As to place on my shoulderstrap a neat gold bar,
And they've sewn a dido on my overcoat,
Which, while it lends distinction, nearly gets my goat;
So now, at last, you can plainly see
I'm a second lieut. no longer clad in plain O. D.!
I'm proud, believe me, of those new gold bars--
I wouldn't swap 'em for the General's stars;
And the little stripe upon my blouse's sleeve
Means that nevermore for splendor shall my young soul grieve,--
For bars and braid, you can plainly see,
Make an awful lot of difference on plain O. D.!
----
THE PASSING OF THE CAMPAIGN HAT.
----
"The campaign hat is going; 'twill soon be _tres passe_--
The winds of war got under it and blew it far away;
The General (he who owned it) cussed, as Generals sometimes do:
"Get us," he cried, "a hat to stick; with this blank kind I'm through!"
His orderly picked up the hat, all battered, torn and frayed,
"Quite right," he ruminated, "you won't do for parade;
Yet, good old lid, you've got your place--perhaps not over here,
But there are regions in the States that hold your memory dear."
"The shadow of your ugly shape has blacked the Western plains;
It brought relief to border towns all soaked with tropic rains;
The sight of you, at column's head, made redskins turn and flee,--
O'er barren land you've led the van that fights for Liberty.
The Filipino knows you; his protection you have meant,
And the wily Pancho Villa never dared to try and dent
The contour of your homely crown or chip your wobbly brim,--
You, old chapeau, spelt business; and that left no room for him!
"From far Alaska's ice-bound coast to Porto Rico's strand,
You've kept the sun and rain and sleet from Uncle Sam'yal's band;
You've stood for no blame nonsense, and you've brooked no talking back,
And cleaner towns and cities fair have sprung up in your track.
You--what's the use?--you've been there since the days of
'Ninety-Eight--
You've weathered twenty years of squalls--and now you get the gate!
But you're too good a soldier, old dip, to cuss or cry;
So--(there he heaved it into space)--goodby, old hat; goodby!"
----
OVER THE TOP THREE WAYS.
----
Feet, Tank and Plane Tried by this
U. S. Officer--Ready for Next.
----
If they ever invent a new way of going over the top, there's one
American officer who will probably be on hand to try the new wrinkle.
The French Government has decorated him with the Croix de Guerre for
going over the sacks in every way known to date.
First, he went over with the French infantry in an attack last spring.
Though detailed as an observer, and not required to take too many
chances, the officer was one of the first wave to cross No Man's Land.
He stayed with his unit until the objective was gained, and when it had
to fall back before a heavy counter-attack he fell back fighting with
it.
Some weeks later he went over the top in a tank. He followed that trip a
few days later by an aeroplane observation flight. For the greater part
of an afternoon the plane cruised up and down a German sector watching
the effect of big French shells on concrete defences.
The Boche anti-aircraft guns made it warm for the American flier, but he
was still an enthusiastic aviator when the plane came to a successful
landing on its own field at dusk.
----
WHERE HE GETS OFF.
----
(A sample letter).
France, January, 1918.
I. Rookum, Gents' Tailor, U. S. A.
"Dear Sir:--
"Your interesting advertisement of
spring styles for young men, knobby
clothes for business wear, and so forth,
just received.
"While I appreciate your thinking of
me, I am glad to say I have changed
my tailor, and will not require your
services until peace is declared.
"U. S. & Co. are now supplying me
with some very nifty suitings of khaki,
which I find best adapted to my present
line of business. They don't get shiny in
the seat of the trousers--for the simple
reason that I never have time to sit
down.
"They are also supplying me with
headwear, their latest in that line being
a derby-like affair with a stiff steel
crown, which affords me better protection
against the elements and the shrapnel
than anything any civilian hatter
has furnished me.
"Thanking you for past favors, and
hoping to see you on the dock when the
transport pulls in a couple of years from
now, I remain,
"Yours truly,
"I. Don't Needum, Pvt., A. E. F."
----
TWO SAMARITANS IN SKIRTS.
----
In the Modern Parable, They Aid
a Poilu Chauffeur.
----
The woman motorcar driver has made her appearance in the zone of the
army. A few of them are driving big motor trucks for the Y.M.C.A. and
are making good at the job.
During a recent heavy snowstorm, two trucks driven by young women were
sliding along a winding road carrying supplies to a hut from a depot
when they came upon a big French lorry stalled in a ditch. The French
soldier in charge was tinkering with the engine, having stalled it while
trying to pull into the road again. He wasn't having much success.
Both the women, garbed in short skirts, high and heavy leather boots,
and woolen caps that pulled down well over their ears, climbed down from
their seats and between them first managed to get the engine in the
stalled lorry started, and then one of them took her place behind the
wheel and by skilful manoeuvring brought all four wheels to the road.
The Frenchman stood to one side during the whole of the operation and
watched the women with astonishment.
WELLS FARGO & CO.
4 RUE SCRIBE, PARIS
Head Office: 51 Broadway, NEW YORK
Take pleasure in announcing to the
AMERICAN AND BRITISH EXPEDITIONARY FORCES
that the great French Bank, the
SOCIETE GENERALE
has very kindly agreed to act as
WELLS FARGO'S CORRESPONDENT THROUGHOUT FRANCE
Cable and mail transfers of money to all parts
of America may be made through Wells Fargo by calling at
the Societe Generale.
Deposit accounts with Wells Fargo, Paris, may be
opened at the Societe Generale.
SOCIETE GENERALE has Branches at:--
AMIENS CHALONS-SUR-MARNE LA ROCHELLE SAINT NAZAIRE
ANGERS CHATEAUROUX LIMOGES SAUMUR
ARCACHON CHAUMONT MIRECOURT TOUL
AUXONNE DIJON NANTES TOURS
BAR-LE-DUC EPINAL NEUFCHATEAU TROYES
BESANCON FONTAINEBLEAU NEVERS VALREAS
BORDEAUX IS-SUR-TILLE RENNES VIERZON
BOURGES ISSOUDUN ROMORANTIN and many others.
BREST LANGRES ROUEN
Circulars giving full explanation of WELLS FARGO'S Banking
Facilities in France may be obtained at the Branches of the
Societe Generale.
----
TO FLASH THE HOUR
BY ARMY WIRES.
----
New A. E. F. Lines Will
Insure U. S. Well-Set
Time Pieces.
----
Correct time is now being transmitted to the A. E. F. over its own
system of telegraph lines. Formerly field wireless stations each day at
a certain hour picked from the air figures flashed from Paris by which
the clocks of the array were synchronized. This method did not insure
absolute accuracy.
Each day at eleven o'clock a simultaneous signal is sent to every
station so that through the existing zone, and at the front as well,
clocks and watches show the same time. This synchronization is desirable
under present conditions and it is an absolute necessity with troops at
the front when, for instance, orders may specify that some operation is
to be carried out at one point at a certain time and another operation
at another point at another time. The success of both operations may
depend upon whether they are launched on the second.
Miles upon miles of telegraph wires strung on poles labeled "U. S. A."
now stretch through France. They may be found running to base ports,
zigzagging through the instruction zone over hills, through a valley,
along a roadside. On some of the poles there are double cross-beams
supporting in many cases as many as ten wires. There is a complete
system of operators and central exchanges as well as a considerable
force of linemen and repairmen, quite a number of whom worked for
telephone and telegraph companies in the United States before the war
began. The "service" leaves little, if anything, to be desired.
----
HOW THEY SPOT US.
----
"Madame, where in this town can one get a drink, _s'il vous plait_?"
"Ah! I can see that M. l'Americain comes from the State of Maine!"
----
TRY POTATO BUGS IN BOMBS.
----
An Ohio Man's Suggestion on How
to Win the War.
----
The war will soon be over. An Ohio man will end it. He has suggested to
U.S. Marine Corps officials in Washington that they direct their
aviators to drop potato bugs over Germany. He declares there are no
potato bugs in the Kaiser's realm, and since the "spud" is absolutely
essential to Germany's economic welfare, the dropping of "Murphy
destroyers" over the Rhine country would quickly terminate hostilities.
Simple, isn't it? Marine Corps officials think so.
A BRITISH BANK CONDUCTED ON BRITISH LINES.
LLOYDS BANK (FRANCE) &
NATIONAL PROVINCIAL BANK (FRANCE)
LIMITED.
3, PLACE DE L'OPERA, PARIS.
General Banking Business.
Foreign Exchange and Transfers.
{BIARRITZ: 10, Place de la Liberte.
Branches {BORDEAUX: 23, Allees de Chartres.
{HAVRE: 1, Rue de la Bourse.
{NICE: 6, Jardin du Roi Albert Premier.
LONDON OFFICE: 60, LOMBARD STREET, E.C.3.
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY UNION IN EUROPE
8, RUE DE RICHELIEU, PARIS
(Royal Palace Hotel)
OBJECTS--The general object of the Union is to meet the needs of
American university and college men and their friends
who are in Europe for military or other service in the
cause of the Allies.
It provides at moderate cost a home with the privileges
of a simple club for these men when passing through
Paris on a furlough.
It aids institutions, parents or friends to secure
information about college men, reporting on casualties,
visiting the sick and wounded, giving advice, and in
general serving as means of communication between those
at home and their relatives in service.
MEMBERSHIP--The Union is supported by annual fees paid by the
colleges and universities of America, all the
students and alumni of which, whether graduates or
not, are thereby entitled, WITHOUT PAYMENT OF ANY
DUES, to the general privileges of the Union, and
may call upon the Union in person or by mail to
render them any reasonable service.
HEADQUARTERS--On October 20, 1917, the Union took over as its
Paris headquarters the Royal Palace Hotel, of
which it has the exclusive use. This centrally
located hotel is one block from the Louvre and
the Palais Royal station of the Metro., from
which all parts of the city may be reached
quickly and cheaply.
PRIVILEGES--The Union offers at reasonable rates both single
and double bed-rooms, with or without bath. There
is hot and cold running water in all rooms, which
are well heated. Room reservations should be made
in advance whenever possible, as only 100 men can
be accommodated. The restaurant serves excellent
meals both to roomers and to transients.
The Lounge Room is supplied with all the leading
American newspapers, magazines and college
publications. The rapidly growing Library on the
first floor provides fiction and serious reading,
both French and English, as well as a large number
of valuable reference books on the war and other
subjects.
Stationery is provided in the Writing Room on the
ground floor. A Canteen in the Lobby carries
cigarettes and tobacco, toilet articles, candies,
and a variety of other useful things. An
Information Bureau is maintained in the Union
Offices on the Entresol.
Frequent entertainments and concerts are given.
Afternoon tea is served every Saturday, at which
some American lady acts as hostess.
REGISTRATION--The Union keeps an accurate index of all men who
register at its Paris headquarters or at its
London Branch, 16, Pall Mall East, S.W.1. It is
anxious to get in touch with all college and
university men in Europe, who are therefore urged
to register by MAIL, giving name, college, class,
European address and name and address of nearest
relative at home.
----
AMERICA'S BEST MEDICOS
AT WORK FOR THE A. E. F.
----
Incomes of Specialists in the Overseas Command
Would Total Enough to Pay off the
National Debt.
----
If the incomes of all the well-known American specialists who have come
to France to look after the health of the A.E.F. troops were lumped
together they would be enough to pay off the national debt of the
country and then leave sufficient to satisfy a camp store-keeper.
This is no pipe dream or a simple newspaper yarn, but the plain truth.
Some of the medicos from the United States have given up earnings of
such big figures they should only be mentioned kneeling. Where they
gathered in half a million at home yearly, they are accepting a major's
three thousand and service allowance, in order to see that Bill Jones
from Kankakee or Sam Smith from Pleasantville has the proper treatment
for warts in his stomach or barnacles on his thinking apparatus.
[Illustration: Ward in an A.E.F. Hospital, Showing Some of the First
to Pay a Visit to "Blighty."]
In addition to separating themselves from large wads of coin and all the
comforts of home, they have brought over the staffs of their various
hospitals, who know all their funny ways of operating, from how best to
cut a man loose from his appendix to painless extraction of the
bankroll. They have also brought along all their collections of patent
knives and scissors, the only thing they left behind being the doctors'
bills that would take a year's service as a doughboy to meet the first
instalment.
A Fear to Forget.
Nearly everyone has an ingrowing objection to going to a hospital, or
acknowledging he must take the count for an illness, because of fear as
to what treatment he may draw.
Forget it!
The Amexforce hospitals are not built along those lines, nor are the
nurses sweet young things of fifty odd summers who hand out tracts with
the morning's milk or make kittenish love to a lad who may be tied down
to a bed or too weak to run away. And the doctors are not owlish-looking
creatures with whiskers that would make a goat die of envy and sick-room
manners that would scare a Mental Scientist into catalepsy. They are
real human beings who understand the troubles of mankind from nostalgia
(professional name for homesickness) down to enlargement of the coco
(unprofessional name for the swelled head) and are doing everything in
their power to make a little easier the big game we are playing to a
showdown with the Kaiser.
It's human nature to hate to go to the doctor. But if the boys would
only realize that if they would take their smaller troubles to the
"docs" they could easily prevent them from becoming more serious ones,
it would save a lot of useless suffering. Of course, that doesn't apply
to treatment for the wounded, but the Army Chief Surgeon is trying his
darndest to make that as perfect as possible.
A Hospital of 20,000 Beds.
In the first place, adequate hospital facilities have been arranged for.
One hospital alone has a capacity for 20,000 beds. At an emergency call,
the hospitals can handle twenty per cent. of the whole Amexforce. To
begin with the trenches, the Medical Department has introduced a sort of
folding litter that can go around corners without having to make a man
who's hit get out and walk around the bends. When he gets to the
dressing station or collecting hospital, motor ambulances are ready to
take him back to the evacuating hospital, where the women nurses take
their chances with the men, eight to ten miles behind the line.
Once his case is looked into there, he continues under the charge of
that hospital chief until he gets well or is sent home. If he's moved to
another hospital his record and register go with him, so that the new
hospital knows immediately he was invalided for a piece of shell in his
leg, and no flurried or overworked surgeon tries to operate on him for
inflammation of the intestines.
From beginning to end, the best specialists in the whole of the Union
are at the disposal of any one who's unfortunate enough to get hurt. If
it's eyes, ears, throat, abdomen, shell shock, mental derangement, or no
matter what, one of the biggest men from home is on the job. They are
not correspondence school surgeons, either.
Some of the Experts.
Maybe one of these is from your own home town and you know him by name
or reputation: George E. Brewer, New York; George W. Crile, Cleveland;
Henry Cushing, Boston, the brain specialist, who knows every cell in the
think tank and just how it works and operates; F. A. Washburn, Boston;
Samuel Lloyd, New York; C. L. Gibson, New York; R. H. Harte,
Philadelphia; F. A. Besley, Chicago; Angus McLean, Detroit; Charles H.
Peck, New York; John M. T. Finney, of Johns Hopkins, Baltimore; F. T.
Murphy, St. Louis; M. Clinton, Buffalo; R. T. Miller, Pittsburgh; C. R.
Clark, Youngstown, O.; E. D. Clark, Indianapolis; B. R. Shurley,
Detroit; Joseph E. Flynn, Yale Medical.
If that isn't enough, associated with each of these men are other
doctors whose ability is pretty well known all over the States. For
instance, Dr. Lloyd, of New York, has with him Dr. McKernon, also of the
big town, one of the best ear specialists in the country. If a shell
goes off too near you and the eardrum suffers, Dr. McKernon will be on
the job to find out if he can't make a new one.
A man who has just come over from Baltimore said the Army had
practically cleaned out Johns Hopkins University there, which produces
more good doctors to the square inch than France does fleas. So when it
comes to sorting out the cases, the men with the bad listeners won't be
sent to the throat specialist, nor the chap with a wounded eye made a
candidate for the brainstorm man.
The Army's Big Eye Man.
Cases of eye wounds or troubles are handled by a doctor who probably
knows more about the eye than any one man in America, Dr. George de
Schweinitz, of Philadelphia, who has transplanted his whole sanitarium
to France in order that no man of the Amexforce may be deprived of his
sight where there is one chance in a million of saving it. With that in
view, the chances of coming out of this mess with both eyes are
exceptionally good. Statistics from both French and British armies show
that of all the wounded they have had, only one man in 1,200 is blinded.
If they had had the organization of the American medical force, the
chance would probably have been reduced to one man in 2,500.
No one pretends to say that our hospitals make sickness or wounds a
pleasure, but be assured of one thing. If anything happens to you,
you'll be well looked after in them by the world's leading medical and
surgical authorities.
----
A PLEA TO THE CENSOR.
----
"Say," said a short, bow-legged corporal the other day, "I wanta send
three pictures home to the folks, but I dunnoo how I can get it across.
These censorship rules say all you can send is pictures of yourself
without background that might indicate the whereabouts of the studio or
other strategic information. These ain't pictures of myself, nothing
like it. Wait till I tell you.
"I'm going to entitle this series 'Rapid Transit in France.' I took 'em
with a little pocket camera. There's one I took up at the port where we
landed--first picture I took in France, it was. It shows one of these
two-wheeled carts, with three animals hitched to it. One is a horse, one
is a dog, and in the middle there's a great big old cow, and an old
French feller in a blue nightshirt sittin' in the road milkin' the cow.
"Then there's another I took over at ---- (the town where general
headquarters are situated) of the 'bus that goes down to the station to
meet trains. You won't believe this unless you've seen it, but that 'bus
is hitched up to a horse an' a camel, a regular camel like you see in a
circus--come from Morocco, they tell me, and looks as if he had gone as
long as it is camels can go without a drink, or chow, either.
"The last one's a prize. I took it in one of those villages up the line.
It's a young kid in a soldier's coat down to his knees walking down the
main street with a stick in his hand driving a sled, and what do you
guess is hitched to the sled? By gosh, a big fat goose, and nothing
else. The kid's steerin' the goose with the stick, and the goose's
lookin' around with that fool goose look, just like the picture you see
of that Crown Prince.
"Say, what do you think those folks with their automobiles and subways
and everything would make of that? It sure would open their eyes.
Travel's a great thing for a man," said the corporal.
[Illustration: HOW THEY LOOK IN THE TRENCHES.
This New Official Photograph Shows Some of Our Over-seas Troops
in their Ringside Costume.]
----
WHAT SAILOR INGRAM DID.
----
Neither Casablanca nor Horatius at the bridge surpassed in heroism young
Osmond Kelly Ingram, who threw overboard the explosives on the American
destroyer Cassin in order that the German submarine's torpedo should not
detonate them and destroy his ship--and gave his life for his comrades
and his country in doing so. Ingram sought danger instead of fleeing it.
He might have saved his life without discredit. But he did not think of
his life--or if he thought of it, he knew that he was deliberately
sacrificing it. And he acted with instant resolution.
To his courage and his quickness is due the fact that Ingram's was the
only life lost in the German attack on the Cassin. That result he
foresaw and welcomed. He knew how to take death as his portion without
an instant's hesitation. He was of the breed of heroes, and his name
will be borne forever on the nation's roll of honor.--Boston
Transcript.
----
THE ROAD WAS OPEN.
----
France's wonderful highways which saved her in this war are as crooked
as a jig saw puzzle, but there are excellent maps which show every road
in the country. Up near the fighting front, however, the new military
roads are as broad and as good as some of the old highways which have
survived since the days of the Romans and more than a map is needed if
you want to remain in France.
A few days ago two American newspaper correspondents were travelling
from one French city to another, the shortest course, according to the
same excellent maps, taking them close back of the French lines. All day
there had been a blinding snow, it was deep and loose on the ground, and
the car was going as fast as possible for safety.
Temporary wooden signs at cross roads showed the direction of different
camps. The road plunged through a forest, occasionally they passed a
soldier plodding through the snow, then emerged along the base of a
ridge honeycombed with dug-outs and bombproofs on its sheltered side. It
was plain that they were close to the front. Soldiers peered from
doorways at the car skidding through the swirling snow; then the huts
ceased. For a mile the correspondents ran behind a flapping wall of
canvas camouflage, with barbwire entanglements on the other side of the
road. The map indicated they were on the right road.
Then they came to a barbwire affair like a turnstile lying on its side
in the middle of the road, and stopped. They could not see a hundred
feet through the fog and snow, but could hear the muffled boom of nearby
cannon. The map showed only three kilometers ahead the main highway to
the city they were headed for. They did not know that the German
trenches were only two kilometers ahead and that the snow was the only
reason the Boche had not seen them and favored them with a shot. Two
French officers came along and in his best French one of the
correspondents asked if they could get through on that road.
"Yes, if you speak German," was the answer with a laugh and in excellent
English.
----
THERE'S A REASON.
----
"For Pete's sake, Ed, quit tryin' to pick your teeth with your fork!
Mind your manners, man!"