Arizona republican., 1917-05-02
COMING IN IT
 UNITED STATES
 HEARTENS MEN

Declaring that the moral and finan- claI support of the United States as a result of it's entrance into the great world war has already worked wonders on the allied armies in Europe, David Lard, gunner in the Canadian artiI- lery now in training in England, has written letter to his sister Mrs Charles R. Osburn, of 3Z6 Willow ave nue, Phoenix commenting the action of President Wilson and the congress Mr. Laird was formerly agricultural editor of the Montreal Star and he wrote much of interest to persons in this country who are but slightly ac- quainted with the methods utilized in preparing men for the battle fronts
 It is the opinion of the writer that this moral and financial support will have more weight in turning the tide of war in favor of the allies than any thing this government could do in the way of sending an expeditionary force across the seas. He added, however. that there was much coniecture in England as to whether or not America would prosecute the war in an offen- sive manner. For that reason, he said. members of his company were anxious that no time should be lost by the war department in putting a large force on the European battle fronts.
 He wrote in part as follows:
 our division here is not doing any training. In fact, it is not doing any thing-just awaiting orders and why we are waiting no one seems to know. Some of our drivers, just to keep their horses in condition are out seeding for some of the farmers in this vicinity. Three weeks ago we got orders to be ready to move at a few hours notice. A saddled and harnessed ready to move off. but it was only a false alarm
 Tt is treat to hear some of the statesmen over here. Not long ago I went to hear T. r. O'Connor the great Irish nationalist He spoke on the British government and how it should be remodeled; he did not give any new information but he presented the sub ject in a more lucid manner than 1 had ever heard it before He is a real orator and it is a treat to hear his wit and irony.
 We thought some time ago that summer or at least spring had set in but during the past week it has showed almost every night; in fact, it looks as If we are having winter in the sum mer time and vice versa. This morn- ing officially summer set in and our time was set one hour in accordance with the daylight saving scheme. This system is universal over here and seems to work eXcellently
 To provide amusement and variety we had divisional sports day recently which proved a great success For the officers, there was tent begging and jumping; for the men, cauaIty, S o. $. V. c. gas mask races in addition to wrestling and tug-o'-war. All these competitions were carried out on horse back with the exception of the gas mask race and so were quite spectacu- competition of all was the casualty race. For this, the men were rolled up in their blankets on the ground and the horses were outside. On the word go the men had to get up, roll their bIanketS. harness two six-horse teams. one to a gun, the other to the firing battery wagon. After mounting they had to ride q certain distance, take un gun position and fire one round of blank ammunition.
 l had the luck to get the Victoria Cross race. This consisted of riding short distance, jumping a low hedge, going bit farther, picking up d dum- my man and riding back with him to the starting point
 Another interesting feature was the telephone wire laying match Our team put down 800 yards of line, estab.- lished communications and put through q message, all in four minutes The other teams were not so fast, but one team had better laid line so we were only given second place."