The Washington times., 1917-11-12

SS HC VI W paint u llLIlc PIT
ture Of a cantonment town as /
saw tia few days and nights ago
1t was, last spring, a quiet
enough little junction city Of few
thousand inhabitants. Then, in the
summer, the contractors descended
on it, took possession of the rail-
way sidings, and built many 9TH
ers, rushed to work thousands Of
laborers on a large tract of land
not q mile away, and in two
months time cleared forests, built
|, roads, and churned up hub-deep
the mud where other roads win
be before winter, erected hundreds
Of wooden barracks, stables, gun
sheds, cook houses, administration
buildings. Then, in September,
the first drafts of the national
army began pouring in. Today
about 10000 of these young men,
all torn abruptly from familiar en-
vironment, from the more or less
settled habits of work and friend
ship. torn by the grim hand Of
war for training as individual
units Of a colossal but as yet Who'll
ly new military machine.
Organized Vice Follows
The Soldiers.
Into the little junction city
poured, at the same time, as in
evitably as parasitic insects mov-
ing to their prey. the hosts of or
ganized vice. The little city
fought them earnestly, but feebly,
through its loose-jointed, rather
casual, typically easv-going poll
tical organization. Commissions
organized by the Government-by
the first great Government that
has ever, right from the beginning
Of a war, determined to protect
its young soldiers from evil infiu-
ences, no matter what subtly pow
erful organized forces it might
have to fight and destrov-moved
in, set up standards of decency;
impressed them on the local au-
thorities, moved on to neighboring
cities that are not an hour away
by trolley or by convenient and
ever waiting automobiles, >and
grappled there with the local prob
lens Of drink and immortality.
But, able and determined as the
men of these commissions were
and are, effective IS has been, al
ready, much of their work, forcible
as is the new, hitherto unheard-of
Federal regulations that alcoholic
drink may not be served to men in
uniform and that soldiers must
wear their uniforms, the blind,
persistent forces of organized and
unorganized evil press in here,
there, everywhere.
Yes, in spite of this organized
and determined stand against evil,
evil persists. The camp follower
is tradition as old, though not so
often mentioned, as armies.
The forty thousand soldiers
each a boy with a home some
where, with a wife or girl some
where, with his own little puzz-
ling tangie of personal problems
in the life he has got 10 live iif he
livesl. are in the care of n corps
of officers.
They have got to make officers
out of themselves as well as make
soldiers out Of the forty thousand.
The Human Side of
Life In the Camps.
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 fel-
lows, but who are now cogs In the
hghting machine. What of their
minds and spirits? What are they
thinking, behind the quiet, already
bronzed faces under the wide
TI RTIms OF the campaign hats?
what confusions are there, what
stirring, restless desires what
Somplex personal problems, what
desperate needs of mind or spirit?