The daily banner. (Cambridge, Md.) 1897-2008, 1917-11-20
tied and hospitable home

! tied and hospitable home.
The forty thousand soldiers-eact
| a boy with a home somewhere, witt
! wife or girl somewhere with his
| own little pulling tangle of person
| al problems in the life he has got TO
! live (if he lives) are in the care o.
| a corps of officers. These in theii
| turn are mostly young men who have
been prepared, quickly, in a sense I'm
eXpectedIy. for the grim business OF
war. They are an earnest, devoted
| body of men. They are-all OF
| them-taXed to the limit of their ca
pacity to keep Up. in thought study,
day by day practice, with the work
that has got to be done They have
got to make officers out of themsel-
yes as we'll as make soldiers out OF
the forty thousand. They must,
whatever their personal sympathies,
maintain an authority, a reserve, to
ward their men. They must drill
them, squad by squad, company by
company, battalion by battalion, into
a smooth-running, impersonal fight
ing machine. The tactful thought
full officers can do a little more, here.
and there. But that is their job
making fighting machines.
But what of the human side. You
think of it as you drive about the
city or drive and walk about the
cantonment, watching the faces OF
these young fellows who last month
were just young fellows, but who
now are cogs in the fighting ma
chine? What of their minds and
spirits? What are they thinking, be-
hind the quiet, already bronZed ia
ces under the wide brims of the
campaign hats? What confusions
are there, what stirring restless de-
sires, what complex personal prob
lens, what desperate needs of mind
or spirit?
These and other disturbing ques-
lions rose among my own thoughts
as | watched those faces the other
day. Then, in the cantonment, as i
went from one to another of the low
spreading green "huts' of the Y: M.
c. A., all my breeding questions were
answered.
l want to tell you if l can, briefly,
of necessity, but as forcibly as posi-
BILE, how the Y. M. c. a. is doing, to-
day, in every training camp, in Eng
land, France, Egypt-whereyer our
boys in oliye-drab are being sent-a
work so necessary, so vital, so COM
prehensive that it reaches straight
back through every soldier boy to
cheer the home he came from, to
strengthen the faith of every watch
ing sister, mother or father in the
boy, in the army of which he is
unit, in the country for which he
fights.
In this cantonment there are ten
or eleven buildings, of which eight
or nine are the so-called "huts.'
- A hut" usually has a roomy en-
trance hall, with stove, desk, and
counter for the local secretary, for
the dispensing of writing paper and
envelopes, of postcards, stamps and
other little necessaries. There is a
big stove or two. There is a tele-
phone room with perhaps a dozen in
struments divided off by boards to
give at least little privacy. There
are long shelves of books-good,b but
never goody. books-and magazines.
There is always talking machine,
with plenty of records. There are
chairs and benches.
1t is as simple as possible, for the
expense lef all this construction and
\
is immense. But it is as comfortable
and CHEEKY as strong corps OF
trained experts in comfort and
cheer have been able to make it. On
the wall behind the counter, just
where your eye will rest On it when
you come up for letter paper and en-
velopes, there is likely to be let
tered placard reading: Have you
written homer" with the You" in
red ink.
Push through the swinging doors
and you find yourself in the auditor
ium, where perhaps six or eight
hundred can crowd in, sitting on the
wood benches, standing al, the back
, around the stove or on the endless
bench and plank writing table with
/ ink-wellsl that line the walls.
We will consider the uses of these
auditoriums in moment. First
please let me tell briefly what these
"huts' broadly mean. Here is the
soldiers club. Here he can come in
any free moment between reveille
and taps and find a welcome. Here
he always finds reminder of home
and of his home obligations. His
Continued on rage Two.)