Newspaper Page Text
Dec. 12, 1917.
CAMP HANCOCK
As Seen By Joseph H. Odell, Special Cor
respondent of The Outlook,
Printed by Permission of The Outlook.
This is the concluding portion
■ of an interesting article on condi
tions at Camp Hancock, the first
ish part of which appeared in last
week’s Trench and Camp. Mr.
Odell is a noted writer and his
conclusions regarding the moral
' conditions in and about the camp
are worth noting.—Editor;
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i' Imagine two square miles of teem-
■ Ing manhood, firmly organized and yet
I bearing every evidence of care-free
g liberty. Nothing in the camp is left
i chance, and yet nowhere and at no
time do you feel the taint of militar
g; ism. Here is a platoon—as large as a.
H pre-war company—just finishing an
■ extended-order drill. It has been hard,
i grinding work under a peremptory -
voiced platoon commander. Suddenly
■ the men come to attention in close
formation. An athletic director ap-
■ pears, takes charge from a platform,
and gives them fifteen minutes of cal-
■ isthenics. Then—and you can hardly
believe your eyes—-the platoon begins
■ to play leapfrog. This goes on for a
H few moments, and a couple of medi-
■ cine balls appear and for ten minutes
more these are hurled from man to
JS man with lightning rapidity. Imme
diately following there is a game very
!;| ♦ much like drop-the-handkerchief, in
| which the participants chase about to
■ find the vacant pitfee. The air is full
■ of laughter, the soldiers are romping
children, the drill monotony is forgot-
J ten, and when it is over the men rush
to their shower-baths and then sit
■ down to mess with the appetites of
g tigers. Play is organized in all the
■ military- establishments. More than
: thirty games have been invented, suit-
able for company, platoon, or squad
participation. In Camp Hancock Wal-
I ter Camp, Jr., of Yale is the divisional
director, and his quarters are with the
commanding general’s staff. I talked
with him about his work. lie has or
ganized the division with brigade, bat-
I talion, regimental, and company direc
a tors. Mr. Camp's enthusiasm is sub-
■ lime. “These recreational interludes,”
I he said, “are getting the men into a
volitional condition in which they will
respond quickly to almost any moral
ideal. We are working in closest har
mony with the officers, on the one
' hand, and the Yt M. C. A. physical di
rectors, on the other. We are human
izing soldiering. One regimental com
mander said-to me yesterday, after a
series rd company games: ‘That’s the
greatest thing I ever saw in the army.
No man can have a grouch after going
through those games.’ We are laying
great stress also upon competitive ath
leticsbaseball, football, basketball, and
boxing, by companies, regiments, and
battalions.”
I happened to be having luncheon
with Commanding General Price v and
his staff when divisional adjutant gave
out a notice: “The general expects ev
ery member of his staff to report at
5 p. m. for calisthenics.” Such a sight
was something not to be missed, and I
reported also. About 30 men lined up
under command of Walter Camp. Now
men who are as near the top of the ser
vice as the divisional staff are not
youngsters, and many of them are by
no means slim. For nearly half an
hour they were put through their paces
—arm and leg and neck exercises, ab
dominal and back exercises, lung and
liver exercises; they puffed and panted
and grunted and groaned, but they
went on to the end, even the baldest
and thA fattest of them. Then they
chose sides and played the most riot
ous game of baseball I have ever seen;
and, as I had been chosen umpire,
there as nothing that escaped me.
Military titles were dropped entirely,
one of the higher kind even calling a
ranking officer a “lobster;” they united
vociferously in a demand to kill the
umpire, and far be it from me to tell
either the score or the number of er
rors! They were just boys again, with
every bit of their healthy human na
ture unleashed. Those are the men
who are making our armies, who will
lead them onto the battlefields of Eu
rope, who will watch and ward them
day and night until they return the
men to their communities and fami
lies. It is all so American, so human —
so utterly different from the horrible
Frankenstein monster which the paci
fists describe as “the devilish, dehu
manizing military machine which
crushes individuality and kills all nat
ural instincts.”
One evening I was sitting under the
fly of Brigadier-General Stillwell’s tent
talking about the old and the new days
of the army. I had told him of all the
plans unfolded to me in the War De
partment by Mr. Raymond D. Fosdick
for training-camp activities. The gen
eral is a man of few words but of much
thought, an officer always loved by the
men who have served with and under
him. Suddenly he turned, and, using
the title that I bore for ten years on
his staff, said: “Captain, Uncle Sam
seems to be making a National univer
sity as well as a National Army.” That
is almost literally true. There are aca
demic subjects taught in the class
„ rooms of our universities which will
not be provided for the soldiers, but if
education means “to educe” —to draw
out qualities of the mind, heart and
body by legitimate exercise—then the
hundreds of thousands of men in our
TRENCH AND CAMP
National Armies will receive an edu
cation such as not one in a hundred
would have obtained in civil life.
Apparently ti»e Commission Upon
Training Camp Activities has thought
of everything and planned for every
thing. Some of the features are not
yet in effect, but enough is in opera
tion to prove that every man in camp
ad cantonment will be reached ulti
mately by many influences which make
for the type of manhood a democracy
demands. There are lectures, plays,
movies, and entertainments every sin
gle night in Camp ancock. Over a
thousand men are studying French un
der teachers who are ’nstructed by a
professor of modern languages from
the Pennsylvania State University.
Classes in higher mathen.atics are be
ing held for the engineers. At pres
ent the Young Men’s Christian Asso
ciation is doing a number of things
which will be taken over by special
units of the Fosdick Commission at a
later date. Four thousand books per
week are being circulated from the
five Young Men’s Christian Associa
tion centers. Gilbert and guilivan’s
opera “The Mikado,” given by a full
professional cast, made a week’s stand
in the camp, and “The Old Homestead”
was billed for the imm diate future. A
thrift campaign resulted ’n $35,000 be
ing sent home in one week by the men
through the Young Men’s Christian
Association, which sells express com
pany checks in each o" its buildings.
Singing by companies is being taught
by Professor Tebbs, the leader of mu
sic in the public schools of Dayton,
Ohio. “Trench and Camp” is the name
of an eight-page weekly magazine
published by the Young Men’s Chris
tian Association and distributed gratis.
It contains a record of all the ath
letic events, the educational activities,
and the amusement features of the
camp, together with inspirational ar
ticles and news items of National and
international significance. If a man
goes to the dogs intellectually or to the
devil morally in Camp Hancock, he will
have to do so deliberately by break
ing violently out of the. environment
which has been planned and developed
for his well-being.
Religious work must be left for a fu
ture article. As I have confined my
attention almost exclusively this week
to Camp Hancock, it will be sufficient
to say that the chaplains and the
Young Men’s Christian Association are
working together in the closest har
mony. Pending the completion of the
Knights of Columbus building, the fa
cilities of the Young Men’s Christian
Association were placed freely at the
disposal of the Catliolic workers. Bible
classes have been started in many
companies, and a regular Sunday
school, studying the International Les
sons, is held Sunday afternoon in the
Young Men’s Christian Association
buildings or tents. That religion is
neither repressed nor crowded out is
shown by the fact that a chaplain in
General Logan's brigade baptized seven
men from his canteen one morning as
they made public confession of faith
in Christ.
Y.M.CVOVILLERECT
TWO NEW BUILDINGS
Camp Secretary Tomlinson
Secures Endorsement of Sites
from Major General Clement.
Due to the success of the $35,000,000
campaign of the Army Y. M. C. A.,
Camp Hancock is to have two new Y.
M. C. A. buildings. This matter was
determined at a conference in Atlanta
recently, at which the administration
staff officers were in consultation with
the officials of the southeastern de
partment. S. A. Ackley, executive sec
retary of the southeastern department,
who has jurisdiction over the gssocia
tion activities at Camp Hancock, has
endorsed the project and the work of
construction will be rushed with all
possible speed.
Major General Clement has given
his approval to the erection of the two
buildings and has endorsed the sites
selected. Due to" the reorganization of
the division, one Y. M. C. A. building
is unable to accommodate the
men in a brigade. The original plan
of the Y. M. C. A. was to have each
building cater to the needs of the men
in a brigade of 5,000 men, but he new
order of things necessitates additional
facilities.
Building for 109th F. A.
For some time the 100th Field Artil
lery and Ammunition Train have been
supplied by Building No. 80, which is
in reality a tent. The present cold
spell hqs made tent work almost im
p«ssible, for stoves are unable to throw
si\icient heat to make the tent com
fortable—the stretch of canvass being
40x60 in size. Secreary Hausmann
and his assistants, who have done ex
cellent work in the tent, are overjoyed
at the decision to erect a building and
are anticipating it with great pleas
ure.
Building No. 81.
All Y. M. C. A. buildings are num-
GEMS FROM PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE
Spokesmen of the People.
We are the spokesmen of the Amer
ican people and they have a right to
know whether their purpose is ours.
They desire peace by the overcoming
of evil, by the defeat once for all of
the sinister forces that interrupt peace
and render it impossible and they wish
to know how closely our thought runs
with theirs and what action we pro
pose. They are impatient with those
who desire peace by any sort of com
promise—deeply and indignantly im
patient—but they would be equally im
patient with us if we do not. make it
plain to them what our objectives are
and what we are planning for in seek
ing to make conquest of peace by arms.
1 believe that I speak for them when
I say two things: First, that this in
tolerable thing of which the masters of
Germany have shown us the ugly face,
this menace of combined intrigue and
force which we now see so clearly as
the German power, a thing without
conscience or honor or capacity for
covenanted peace, must be crushed
and, if it be not utterly brought to an
end, at least shut out from the friendly
intercourse of the nations; and. sec
ond, that when this thing and' its pow
er are indeed defeated an dthe time
comes that we can discuss peace—
when the German people have spokes
men whose word we can believe and
when those spokesmen are ready in the
name of their people to accept the
common judgment of the nations as to
what shall henceforth be the bases ot
law and of covenant for the life of the
world —we shall be willing and glad to
pay the full price for peace, and pay
it ungrudgingly. We know what that
price will be. It will be full, impar
tial justice—justice done at every point
and to every nation that the final set
tlement must affect our enemies as
well as our friends.
Emancipation from Fear.
We intend no wrong against the
German empire, no , interference with
her interna] affairs. We should deem
either the one or the other absolutely
unjustifiable, absolutely contrary to the
principles we have professed to live b..
and to hold most sacred throughout
our life as a nation.
The people of Germany are being
told by the men whom they now per
mit to deceive them and to act as their
masters that they are fighting for th»>
very life and existence of their ev,-
pire, a war of desperate self-defense
against deliberate aggression. Noth
ing could be more grossly or wantonly
false, and we must seek by the utmost
openness and candor as to our real
aims to convince them of its falseness.
We are in fact fighting for their eman
cipation from fear, along with our own
—from the fear as well as from the
fact of unjust attack by neighbors or
rivals or schemers after word empire.
No one is threatening the existence or
the independence of the peaceful enter
prise of the German empire.
Our Task Is to Win the War.
Let there be no misunderstanding.
Our present and immediate task is to
bered consecutively and Building No.
81 will be the official designation of
the hut to be erected to serve the 111th
Infantry and the Machine Gun Battal
ions. The hut will be situated on the
east side of the road, leading from the
Wrightsboro road to Pennsylvania
Avenue, and will be between the two
units, near the officers’ quarters. The
56th Brigade is now served by Build
ing No. 76, but with the completion of
No. 81, the 112th Infantry will have a
building to itself, while the 111th and
the Machine Gun Battalions will share
the new building. The two buildings
will serve a total of about 10,000 men.
Work Will Be Rushed.
Although no definite time can be set
for the completion of the buildings, it
is the intention of Camp Secretary
Tomlinson to push the work with ail
speed. All the details cannot be an
nounced at this time, but a number of
innovations are being planned for the
new buildings which will add to the
comfort and convenience of the men.
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win the war and nothing shall turn
us aside from it until it is accomplish
ed. Every power and resource we pos
sess, whether of men, of money, or of
materials, is being devoted and will
continue to be devoted to that pur
pose until it is achieved. Those who
desire to bring about peace before that
purpose is achieved I counsel to carry
their advice elsewhere. “
Ask for War Against Austria-Hungary
One very embarrassing obstacle that
stands in our way is that we are at
war with Germany but not with her al
lies. I, therefore, very earnestly rec
ommend that the congress immediate
ly declare the United States in a state
of war with Austria-Hungary. Does
it seem strange to you that this should
be the conclusion of the argument I
have just addressed to you? It is not.
It is in fact the inevitable logic of
what I have said. Austria-Hungary
is for the time being not her own mis
tress but simply the vassal of the Ger
man government. We must face the
facts as they are and act upon them
without sentiment in this stern busi
ness. The government of Austria-
Hungary is not acting upon its own
initiative or in response to the wishes
and feelings of its own peoples, but as
the instrument of another nation. We
must meet its force with our own and
regard the central powers as but one.
The war can be successfully conducted
in no other way. The same logic would
lead also to a declaration of war
against Turkey and Bulgaria. They
also are the tools of Germany. Bui
they are mere tools and do not yet
stand in the direct path of our neces
sary action. We shall go wherever the
necessities of this war carry us, but it
seems to me that we should go only
where immediate and practical con
sideration lead us and not heed any
others.
Will Battle Until Last Gun Is Fired.
It Js because it. is for us a war of
high, disinterested purpose, in which
all Ihe free peoples of the world are
banded together for the vindicatioft of
right, a war for the preservation of our
nation and of all that it has held dear
of principle and of purpose, that we
feel ourselves doubly constrained to
propose for it soutcome only that
which is righteous and of irreproach
able intention, for our foes as well as
for our friends. The cause being just
and holy, the settlement must be of
like motive and quality. For this we
can fight, but for nothing less noble
or less worthy of our' traditions. For
this cause we entered the war and for
this cause we will battle until the last
gun is fired.
I have spoken plainly because this
seems to me the time when it is most
necessary to speak plainly, in order
that all the world may know that even
in the heat and ardor of the struggle
and when our whole thought is of car
rying the war through to its end we
have not forgotten any ideal or princi
ple for which the name of America has
been held in honor among tlje nations
and for which it has been our glory to
contend in the great generations that
went before Us.
A supreme moment of history has
come. The eyes of the people have
been opened and they see. The hand
of God is laid upon the nations. He
ill show them favor I devoutly be
lieve, only if they rise to the dear
heights of His own justice and mercy.
Voices of Humanity.
You catch, with me, the voices of
humanity that are in the air. They
grow daily more audible, more articu
late, more persuasive, and they come
from the hearts of men everywhere.
They insist that the war shall not end
in vindictive action of any kind; that
no nation or people shall be robbed or
punished because the irresponsible
rulers of a single country have them
selves done deep and abominable
wrong. It is this thought that has
been expressed in the formula, “No
annexations, no contributions, no puni
tive indemnities.” \
The exports of butter last year from
South Africa amounted to 779,492 pounds.
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