Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-11-06

united in Reading to beat the Pro-
Germans. In Harrisburg a Pro-Ger-
man couldn't get on any ticket.
GREAT DRIVE; GREAT OBJECT
.DRELIMINARIES have been COM
i pleted for the joining or the
forces of the great organiza-
tions devoted to the welfare of the
young men and the young women
the Y. NJ. C. A. and the Y. w. c. A
to sweep Pennsylvania for funds to
enable them to provide such forms
of entertainment as will keep the SOL
diers fit to fight and at the same
time to afford rest places at the
camps for the members of the fami-
lies of the soldiers who will go to
visit them and who in the stern
necessities of military life can not
be taken even ordinary care of. This
State with its big industrial COM
munities, its rapidly growing cities
and towns and its heterogeneous
population owes much to these two
agencies and it should be devoutly
thankful that the self-sacrificing men
and women who have been directing
them should be offering to bend their
energies to the work of furnishing at
the camps certain features which the
government can not.
Our grandfathers have told us of
the splendid results of the labors of
the Christian Sanitary Commission,
composed of noble spirited men and
women in Civil War days, and our
own city was one of the places
gratefully remembered by soldiers
who partook of it's hospitality and
entertainment on the way to the
front. Now, when we are in the midst
of war on a far vaster scale than
ever known before and when mil
lions are being summoned to colors
in enormous camps, there is a need
for just such help as the Y. NJ. c. A.
can give. What it has done for the
troops abroad is one of the brightest
pages of the work auxiliary to the
army. What it can do at the three
dozen cantonments and camps we all
know. Bluntly speaking, the young
men must be kept out of mischief
They must have entertainment at
their camps. They must be raised
above the depression of hard work,
rigorous training and absence from
home, which. in spite of all, grips a
man at a camp, and when the men
are "over there" they must be
brought up from the depths into
which men sink when the battle
joins.
The part of the Y. w. C. A. will be
to raise funds to care at the camps
for those who are giving fathers.
husbands, sons, brothers, sweet
hearts and friends. There is nothing
more pathetic than a woman wan
dering about a camp when the one in
whom she is interested is out on a
hike or drilling or maybe in a guard
tent. Few of the wives and sisters
who go to camps realize that it is
best for them to visit but few
hours. 1t is most affecting to see a
mother sitting about with no shelter
against the weather, enduring hard
ships just to be near her son. Those
who have been at war or mobiliza-
ton camps and have helped tired
mothers and their children over
weary miles to station know what
a rest place would mean.
There is a place for the Y. M.
c. A. "hut" and there is room close
to every camp for the rest" of the
z. w. C. A. Both have more than
sustaining influences. Both deserve
the fullest measure of support. The
forces have Joined for sound busi-
ness reasons. There should be no
division in giving. The cause is most
appealing.