Putnam patriot., 1914-12-18
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Iile Telephone Girl

bisasters oy Hood, by earthQ uake. bx bfe, by war, conyulsions of nature and i lefoeities of man, overturn sudden,v ihe accustomed order, and each indi. fiahai acts according to what is in him. 1t is hard to keep your head aoont you when the foundations are | upfooted. Some men become towards. soihe heroes, some momentarily in- sane. But whenever such disaster is recorded Tn the newspapers there is al ways one figure that remains fixed: the same story is always told about ohe of the characters in il, and it is al. ways story of coolness in the midst ot frenzy, devotion to duty when duties are forgotten with everything elsei invariable courage where the courage of other hum an beings varies very much. 4 humble figure, not in- cited by high pecuniary reward or the hope Of flame; the figure of the tele phone girl.
 The dam breaks at Austin and the water sweeps down the valley, wiping out houses and leaving bare space where they had been. A telephone girl sees it coming, stays at her post, ana rapidly gives warning to as m any ss she can. The great flood of 1913 wrecks Dayton, Columbus, and the other Ohio cities; but the telephone pirl with her x,,ho ofa ooo,,eto,,,o.t ,,.o a rushing down around her, stays in the heart Of the flood, working night and day, cool-headed, intrepid, not in the least appalled,, giving warning that others may flee, and when warning is no longer needed still staying there to report the progress of the waters and give information where help is to be sent. In every disaster the story is al- ways the same.
 It Is the uniformity, the entire lack of any exception to the rule, that makes the story of the telephone girl in times of stress so noteworthy. And with this long record back of her there is nothing surprising in the story that came from Belgium at the beginning Of the war of the telephone girl at Dahlen, or the one printed apout the Russian girl at Novorossysk. The Belgian girl observed the battle going on around her, undisturbed by the dan- ger she was in, and telephoned the of- ficers at the forts "that they were not properly placing their shells" Guided by the instructions over the telephone, they changed the direction of the fire and regulated it effectively She continued to direct the Belgian ire un- til German shell destroyed the office in which she WAS and killed her.
 The Russian girl whose story was published the other day stayed at her post when everybody else had fled and did her work with shells falling all around her. The decoration 'for valor under fire" which Gen. Babitsch in tends to get for her, was never more worthily granted 10 any soldier. The telephone girl at Novorossysk and the telephone girl at Dahlen kept the tra- dilions established at many fire and | flood. How shall we account for this record without an exception? There is nothing in the telephone girls train- { ing 10 explain the way in which, at every lime of peril, this cool, dauntless little figure appears on the scene, solid as rock in the midst of chaos. Not l paid for risking her lite, none too well | paid anyhow, she confounds those who measure everything by money; she ex-
 peets and gets no fame, and her cour-
 age and efficiency are instinctive. Let
 us not try 10 account for her, but sim ply take our hats ofi to her.-New 1 York Times.