Willmar tribune. [volume] (Willmar, Minn.) 1895-1931, 1917-11-07
news Notes FROM
CAMP DODGE
Interesting Information From the
Place Where Our Boys
Are Training.

Army, has requested the writer to
deny thru the columns of the Will
mar Tribune stories that seemed to
have gained general circulation in
some sections of the thirteenth dis
trict that soldiers at Camp Dodge are
"wallowing in vice."
II want the mothers of these boys
and their families and friends to
know that such stories are absolutely
without foundation" declared the gen.
eral. II want them to know further
that Camp Dodge is the cleanest camp
in the middle west-for I have it on
the authority of the governments own
investigator"
Since the day the last Of the $4,000
soldiers now at the canton lent reach.
ed their barracks, there have been
wild stories of vice.
| One story that caused a Juror was
that two women of police reputation
were found dead just outside the bor-
ders of the military reservation and
that on their persons were found large
rolls of money.
Another was that three girls were
found brutally assaulted near the can
Torment. A third said that scores of
women of the underworld had invaded
Des Moines because of the presence
Of the soldiers.
Numerous tales were told of girls
in and about the camp. Bootleggers
too, were said to be reaping a harvest
among the soldiers. In fact the whole
string of stories received such gen.
eral circulation that men otherwise
intelligent went out of Des Moines
and gave interviews telling one or
more of the tales as the truth.
Just how clean Camp Dodge and
Des Moines really are is told by Hen.
ry F.. Burt, special investigator of the
war department for training camp
activities, who has just completed a
quiet but extensive investigation.
He declared Camp Dodge and vicin-
> ity and Des Moines and vicinity the
: cleanest cantonment west of Chicago
and he has visited them all. He sent
his agents out in taxicabs to try to
find redlight houses and bootleggers,
agents who had great success in other
cantonment cities but they returned
empty handed. He found no houses
he could turn into the police as sus-
picious.
In fact your town is so Clean"
said Burt, "that I have told the war
department that I have nothing to re.
port on Camp Dodge, the first report
of that kind have sent in. The men
, do not seem to permit their minds to
dwell upon liquor and disorderly
places. If every military camp in the
: United States was as clean as this
one, there would be no social vice
problem.
The soldier boys are not suffering
for entertainment. Many companies
have Jazz" bands or orchestras or
quartets of their own to while awav
the evening hours. When they come
to town they have soldiers club
to go to play billiards, pool, other
games and read. Dances will be held
at the club frequently to which all
men In khaki are invited. Girls from
the regiment of Volunteer Aids will
be there to dance with them.
There are plenty of visitors to camp.
Only the other day crowd of women
banded themselves together to 20 to
Camp Dodge at intervals and do all
OF sammy's patching and darning and
mending.
In the daytime, Sammy works. He
IS working now six hours a dav at
hard drill. Six hours may seem like
short day. But that's the actual
drill he gets and doesn't count all the
other duties he has to perform. It
has been announced that the full
schedule of training as mapped out
by the war college at Washington will
not be started until the entire division
Is IN camp. That will be two or three
weeks yet. In addition to their six
mile hike daily, infantrymen are busy
learning the first steps" of bavonet
fighting.
American ingenuity is showing it.
self in the training of the artillery.
ment at Camp Dodge. The men who
. Will man the three-inch field guns. the
AZ inch barrage guns and the 6.inch
I howltzers haven't anything that looks
IKE the sign of gun. But they have
constructed according to their own
plans and specifications, some exce!l-
ent gun carriages and caissons, Thew
practice by hitching men up to them
: for horses. They pull up into posi-
ton. unlimber, go thru all the motions
OF sighting and firing, jump back on
gun and caisson and continue on their
way.
Fears that the soldiers at Dodge
would be sent south or to some other
cantonment, or perhaps to France be.
1ore spring, were set at rest by spec-
} lal dispatches from WASHINGTON this
week. A high war department off,
clal was quoted as saying that the six.
teen weeks intensive training will
not start until all men have reached
camp and that it will positively be
given In the cantonment in which they
are located unless some sudden de-.
velopment in Europe compels change
of plans. 1t is therefor considered Ger.
tain by Camp Dodge officers that the
troops will still be there in March.
About $500 negroes from sunny
Alabama, hundreds of whom have
= never seen fake of snow, are now at
Camp Dodge. They arrived during
the week in special trains. To them
1t Is a great experience; thousands of
ho1