The daily Gate City and constitution-Democrat. (Keokuk, Iowa) 1916-1922, 1917-11-06
E1ow Camp Fund Money VIII
be Spent; Yours VIII Help
[By Christopher Morley.l

level meadows of New Jersey, guard
ing a railway bridge. 1t was half {
mile to the nearest farmhouse. hal
a dozen miles to town. Those boys
: former national guardsmen, were
lonely, bored. and thoroughly fec
up with the job. Pacing up ano
down a wind-swept bridge on rainy
autumn night, with no diversion but
the thunder of warm glittering Pull
mans roaring over the trestles, is a
thankless job. Making the world
safe for Pullman passengers" one OF
the boys used to mutter as he saw
a headlight blaze around the curve.
There are a lot of arduous thank
less jobs in this task Of making the
world SAFE" and putting one-cent
stamp on a magazine now and then
doesn't go very far to keep our sol
diers cheerful and interested. There
are long spells of duty, there are
homesick twilights after the days
! drill is over, there are cold idle
hours when a man welcomes some
other diversion than squatting under
wet canvas by blowing candle, call
| ing Come across Phoebe" to the
recaIcitrant bones.
| Those boys by that New Jersey
| trestle were pretty sick of their Job.
down In the rank mist of the river
bottom How they could have vel
coined dynamiter or two bent on
blowing up the bridget And then
one morning there ratified up tin
henry with the red triangle of the
". NJ c. A. on it. A typical Y. NJ.
c.. A secretary (by which one Is
to understand combination me-
chanic, pianist. athlete, preacher.
good fellow, and fordsmith, who has
been turned down by the army be-
cause he is left-foote6 hailed them
with Hello, boys, here's some junk
for you!" And he unloaded phono-
graph and records. pile of books
and magazines (not old ones. ether,
and a generous supply Of notepaper
and ink Also baseball bat and
several balls. You can guess whether
they helped TO make one tent cheer
full. AS you rumble over that bridge
in the Southern express, and catch
CLINT of bayonet beneath the car
window as you flash by, you can see
the lighted cone of khaki canvas
down below. The photograph is
playing Over There" and Where Do
We Go From Here?" There are lots
| of syncopated tunes named in honor
of Professor Jazz (whoever he may
| be) that are doing their bit under
! lonely trestles or above reservoirs
and aquedcts.
An army isn't nourished on
Nietzsche and Pythagoras and the
articles of war alone. There has to
be whole lot Of George NJ. Cohan
and Harry Lauder behind 1t. Those
big rudy fellows il khaki are just
lonely, homesick. overgrown boys.
They are going to fight not merely
on their boots or their stomach or
whatever Napoleon said an army
fights on, but also on their available
stock of laughter and high spirits.
Anything that helps to keep up the
morale" of the men (Which is sim
ply foreheady way of saying
| "guts," that fine old Anglo-Saxon
word) helps to win battles. Our
boys are not going into the inferno
in any flush Of heroic emotion or any
sudden Jingle of star spangled pat
riotism. 1t is sober, serious, logged
business, and every man knows very
clearly by this time what war means.
/ Our soldiers are as well equipped,
paid, fed and drilled as any in the
world. but there is one thing no
/ government can buy for them or no
quartermaster can issue to them,
and that Is their spirit. That has
to be created from within. The
drafted men come to their vast can
| tonments sad, lonely, homesick, and
| (not unnaturally) thinking that all
that made life robust has come to an
end. Few of them are fitted by in
| telIect or previous training to look
! n
stride of embattled democracy 1t
is the magazine writer's and the
women novelists and other comfort
able undrafted people who talk that
way. The average conscript, being
human, sees the probleH, in the light
Of his own personal situation. He
may be worried about his family, he
may have had to sell out his little
business, there are score of rich
skeins OF life and love that have
been rude1y broken. He comes to
camp in pretty glum state Of mind.
And who shall blame him?
And then, the miracle! By the
time he has been in camp three
weeks or month, the magic has
seized him. He Is keen, ambitious,
eager to do his best and be an eff
Client soldier. The strangeness has
worn off. He begins to grasp the
meaning and purport of THIS military
routine He is proud of his officers,
those young fellows from the train
ing camps who are so patient and
so untiring. And his officers are
proud Of him. Those young gradu-
ates of Plattsburg and Madison bar
racks and Fort Myer and all the
other officer camps have heroic
lob. You will see them drilling
souads Of men who know no word
of English, teaching them to know
the right leg from the left by tying
different colored strings round them;
illustrating squad movements by I'M
ing I'M pebbles on the ground before
their pupils.
Now 1t is no derogation OF the
army to give credit to the civilian
that is irving to help