The Washington herald., 1917-08-18
Army and Navy News
Best Service Column I'm City.

Secretary Daniels has announced
that the Navy Department ordered the
construction of an aircraft factory
at the Philadelphia Navy Yard. to
cost approximately s., 10000 and to be
completed in 100 days. The plant will
employ 1000 workers and will be cap
able OF producing 1000 small airplanes
annually.
"In view of the enormous expansion
of the airplane industry now being
undertaken in the United States" said
Secretary Daniels. in announcing this
plan, st was felt that 10 was neces-
sary to increase the Navy Depart
ment's facilities along these lines, not
only to enable it to supply a part at
least of its own needs. but in order
that the private plants might be re-
lieved of the experimental develop
ment which they have hitherto under
taken and turn their whole attention
to the maximum production of ap-
proved types. The Navy Department
has a small flying field at the League
Island Navy Yard, adjacent to the
factory, and excellent facilities for
hydroplanes. so that it will be able to
utilize this plant to keep the navy in
the forefront with the latest develop
ments in aircraft"
Every American soldier who fights
upon the fields of France will wear
shirt from the Quartermaster's De-
partment at Jeffersonville. The shirt
making for the entire American army
that is and the regiments and bTi-
gades and divisions that will come un-
til Uncle Sam has 100000 men beneath
the colors-alI is intrusted to one lit
tie giant OF a man. The man Is Col
Winthrop S. Wood, L. s. A, the quar-
termaster at Jacksonville. Last No
vember his boss your Uncle Sam,
sent him to Jacksonville to speed up
the work of making shirts and harness
and the many other things needed
for the troops. Col. Wood 'speeded
up,' but the gait he secured in No
yember and the one by which things
move at the depot now bear about
the same relation to each other as a
tortoise does to an airplane.
In the olden days widows and other
close relatives Of soldiers were award
ed government sewing. Today thous-
ands of women in a constant stream
file out of the depot with their bun
dies OF materials, and other thous-
ands cross them. filing in with shirts
all ready. Fifteen thousand shirts a
day, 5000 a week. are coming in, out
that is all too slow, says Col Mooo'
for he must deliver TO the army Z'5oO'-
O0O shirts before November !. II the
women OF the surrounding country VIII
come 70 his aid and do the sewing
nit
Wood has done have not the slightest
| doubt that he will NIL this mighty bill
|
At the conference OF the National
! COLLEGIATE Athletic Association held in
washington recently, presided over by
Lieut.. Col. Palmer L. Pierce, [. ;. A,
| and at which l6s American colleges
we're represented, Secretary Baker
made an address on college Men in
the Training Camps" which moved
tbe delegates to the point of agreeing
to continue athletics during the war.
They also passed resolutions, the pur-
nose of which Col. Pierce explained
| afterward, was to modify IL not to do
away altogether with the specialized
athletic plants developed at most col
leges, and TO substitute therefor a
system which would have for its basis
| athletics for the undergraduate body
at large. He made it plain that this
meant the doing away with the idea
that sports should be resumed in the
fall on the same scale as they existed
when they were abandoned in the
| spring.
Secretary Baker said: college sth-
| Ietics is not merely a means Of diver
| sion and recreation. American col
lege athletics as developed in the last
score of years has made the college
boy of today a man as compared with
the college boy of fifty years ago. We
have in training camps 1000 men.
Most of them are men of college eN-
perience. / visited one Of these camps
three days after 1t was organized. l
was amazed at the ease with which
these men adapted themselves to the
military life The spirit of team play
which had been engendered in these
men by college athletics made this
possible. We will call together an
army OF 10000 men. They will need
recreation, for they will have some
leisure. They must have a healthy
environment. The colleges have solved