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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; h|| 6;.- 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. COUPON~ |f Soldiers - Sailors 11 a DI ARY and ENGLISH-FRENCH h DICTIONARY || Distributed by the k 4 Augusta Herald || COUPON SECURES VlllS AND /OC the book eSaM nnrrr»lT Tine together with Mill °dd f° r postage and ga da ■ ■ rKr.bfc.flli ItllOpurchase MAIL handling within 300 ■ £ nnimAM price and the nDhrilC m i |f sfivecents,greater UVUIUPI bookisyours. UKUtKd distances ten cents. Send One to the Boy—Keep One at Home! < h J KJI THE DIARY for recording indivi- THE DICTIONARY Self pronounc- dual war experiences is the most ing by Sound-spelling Method which serviceable book in existence and exhaustive tests prove so simple always will be a most cherished that even a child readily acquires VI possession. French with correct accent. Ww k Bound in Textile Leather, Gold Edges, Gold Stamped, Pocket Size J Ltebu 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. Page 9 I J.- I | |h_u V I ’ AI il H iI 8 7 v \ I Atl’f I I