The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-04-22
Ration Saving" Method Is Most Popular Among
 Officers and Men
UNCLE SAM'S MEN
 MUST BE WELL FED
Abundance of Good and Wholesome Food Is Assured, No Matter What the Cost to the
 Government
By NJ. HARy1E

Perhaps the most difficult task our military leaders will have to face will be the feeding of the great army that is soon to be raised. In thinking of the war no one seems to give any heed to the essential fact that the army must be led before it can fight It is one of the pest known of all military facts that a well fed soldier is usually a good soldier and a contented one whereas soldier who is poorly fed is lacking in strength and resistance and is unhappy, discon- tented and hard to handle
 Uncle Sam makes it an iron ciad ru.e 10 feed his soldiers well. It is doubtful II there is better fed army anywhere ln the world than ours. If there is an organisation that is not properly fed, it is the fault of it's company officers and not that of the war department
 The feeding of the army is a mighty task for the quartermaster corps The gathering and the dispensing of the noun tains of food for each regiment calls for men trained to the minutest detail Years or experience has built up a system that could not be improved upon. To the civilian 1t seems a most complicated tangle of red tape, but once the workings Of the system are understood, with it's various notifications, it proves to be one of the simplest
 The whole system is built on the fact that each soldier requires certain amount of food of various kinds each day, and it is the business of the quar- termaster corps to see that he gets 1t. Ihe army ration represents the amount or food, and it's value, that each soldier IS supposed to have, and is the days allowance of food for one man. It is not merely three Square meals" how ever. It represents tho money value of those three meals. In other words ra- tion Is not merely the actual amount of meat and bread allowed the soldier, it IS the actual cost of that food.
 The value of the ration varies with the tune and locality, and rises and falls with the cost of food. At the present, With the Alabama troops, the value of the days ration is 40 cents per man. Next month it may be either higher or lower, depending the rise or fall of the cost of living.
 It will be noted that the high cost of living concerns the soldier as well as the Civilian, but in a different way. To the civilian the H. c. of L. may mean a dimnution in hte quantity or quality of his daily bread. But with the soldier it merely means that the United States will have to pay more for the privilege of
 
 ration, not the amount of it. Nothing is allowed to cut down the soldiers bill of fare, no matter what the cost
 MUST BE PROPERLY FED
 To every organization, regardless of the branch of the service, the most vital part of it's interior economy is the ra- tion. No matter how well trained, or what good soldiers the men may be- unless they are properly and abundantly fed they are of little va.ue.
 There are two ways of giving out ra- tions to the companies. One is the simple one of issuing the rations fin kind"-that is, each company receives from the regi- mental quartermaster a certain quantity each day, depending on the number of men. The other is the ''ration saving method, and is by far the most popular. By this method each company at the beginning of each month turns in a ra- ton based on the number of men on