The twice-a-week Twin Falls times. (Twin Falls, Idaho) 1916-1918, 1917-08-14
LINE TURNED OVER TO THE
AMERICANS TO HAUL
SUPPLIES
u. S. Workmen Take
Place of Gauls
War Department Acts With
Promptness and Avoids Error
That Cost the British Nation
Much.
(By c. r. Bertelli)


international News Service)
PARIS, Aug. 14-Uncle Sam has
only been in France since June 26, but
already several hundreds of miles of
French railway lines, stretching be-
tween his coast landing bases and the
soldiers, have passed into his hands.
American locomotives are footing their
shrill whistles where only the faint
shrek of the French engine was heard
before; American siding and switch
ing methods are in active operation
and American steel bridges have been
thrown across culverts.
Underneath the grimy blouse of the
engineer is an American shirt, and a
close inspection of his shoes will re-
veal it is a Regular Army 8. The
French Government has loaned part
of its rolling stock.
When the shipping experts figured
out it would take eight tons of ship
| ing to maintain each American soldier
in France a great number of peO-
pie wondered what it was all about,
how each Sammy" (as the French
people insist on calling our boys)
could dispose of eight tons of food or
shoot eight tons of ammunition. But
here are some of the things the av-
erage American forgot to include in
his calculations.
Every month between 400 and SOC
portable, knock-down huts arrive
With them, per month, come $4,000
rolls of taxpayer to be used for roo
and wall covering, rendering them alb
solutely waterproof. Hundreds o.
baths have been imported to be in
stalled inside the huts. Over 1,00(
pumps have already been shipped tC
force water for the tubs. One hun
dred miles of two and four-inch pip
ing to conduct the water from the
pumping stations is being brought in
Countless electric generating plants tC
manufacture current from the pumps
are being set up
= Although the French Government
has turned over its huge State for
ests to our forestry experts, who are
continually cutting away tons of lum
? ber to be used in trench shorings, the
building of dugOuts, repair, etc, the
American army is importing from tn,
United States 10000 tons of our owl
lumber monthly.
Huge quantities of machinery fo
the handling of cargoes on docks
travelling cranes, tracks, trucks, mo
o tors, cordage, steel wire, hawsers an,
5 bolts are arriving by every transport
II In addition to the munitions of wal
the cranes unload laundry machines
Il real American fire engines and sta
/ tionary engines
Over 250,000 rolls of wire, some @
= it barbed for the trenches, some of
h for telephone and telegraph and som
/ for ordinary bailing, are on their wa
l. to France. Some is already here.
l. addition 10 the twenty American loco
i motives already in service, the Coy
e ernment has placed a contract i
y America for 300 more engines, mos
2; ly of the smaller type, intended fc
|; use on the front. The gauge of til
S. French railway is three-sixteenths
,e of an inch wider than that of I'll
II American, but because of the leewa
. allowed in building locomotives an
cars the American designs will real
lily accommodate themselves to Il
French lines.
s At the outset the American w;
Department is avoiding a mistal
In made by England at the beginning
as the war when the requests forwardC
ri to London for supplies for the Britis
n. army in France were tabled and gol
"a over by a committee some miles r
n moved from the fighting front TT
d result was that London usually T
y duced the amount demanded by Il
ID army in the field, which found itse
a. short of numerous, necessary thing
". General Pershing sent in a reque
On for $4,000 stoves, capable of wo,
~, | firing tO he installed in fha troor
he quarters Part or the $4,000 has &
Ill ready arrived. The remained is
m. its way. The war department h
b. apparently accepted the viewpoi
that the man on the field knows bt
ter what he needs than a departme
thirty-three hundred miles away a
has not reduced the quantity call
xy for