The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-10-20
Soldiers at Camp Funston Are
Strong for Music.
They Are Drilled Each Night at
Y. M. C. A. Quarters.
MANY HAVE GOOD VOICES
Hymns and Ragtime Both Pop
uIar With "BOys."
Music Drives Away Blues, Gen.
eral Wood Says.

camp Funston, Kan, Oct. 20
Everybody ready, now watch me.
: ats it, put a little snap into it.
Don't be afraid to open your mouth.
It won't hurt you. Now, all right, all
together, ready, one, two, three!"
No. it isn't any new form of drill
regulation or bayonet practice nor a
football team in training. 1t is just
G. H. Guthrie, leader of mass singing,
teaching the soldiers at Camp Funston
to sing. 1t may be heard almost any
night during the week in one of the
seven Y. NJ. c. AS now open, where
the boys gather at nights
Mr.. Guthrie expects to develop as
many singing stars as DR. Paul With
Hgton will develop football lights.
Football is fine when it comes to de-
veloping the men physically but sing
ing raises their spirits and keeps them
where they should be. 1t is one of
the chief enemies of dull care lone
chiefly when some one" back home
4Srgets to write. Singing is a part of
the program outlined by Maj. Gen.
Leonard Wood and he desires every
soldier in camp to take part Mr..
Guthrie has been sent here to teach
mass singing in connection with the
Y M. G. A. work
To Have Big Choruses.
At first the men will begin singing
in small bodies until they get the hang
Of the thing and learn how their
voices. are pitched. The big auditor
ium will be finished in about three
weeks and then the singing classes will
be held there. The auditorium will
hold more than three thousand per-
sons.
The men will be taught how to sing
every kind of song. There will be a
a arpp FnNxT cfo
dard pieces and a great many march,
ing songs with catch tunes, for these
are what the boys like
1T is just as essential that the SOL
diers know how to sing as it is that
they know how to carry rifles and
shoot them" General Wood said to-
day Singing is one of the things
they should all learn 1t sounds odd
20 the ordinary person when you tell
him every. soldier should be a singer
because the layman cannot reconcile
singing with killing. But when you
Know the boys as L know them you
will realize how much it means to
them to sing.
"There isn't anything in the world,
even a letter from home, that will
raise a soldiers spirits like a good
catchy marching tune. When a man
has been tramping for hours in the
hot sun, carrying heavy pack on his
back, or when he is toiling along in
the mud on a cold, rainy day. or when
he has to remain in the barracks all
day with nothing to do, singing drives
away the jumps and makes him sit
up and find that the clouds have a
cheerful lining.
Il have seen men toiling for hours
through the rain and mud, every one
of them detected, spiritless. tired, cold
wet and forlorn, cursing the day they
entered the army, transformed into d
happy, devil may-care frame of mind
through a song. Their heads pop UP
in the air, their eyes sparkle and the
spring comes back into their step.
I'VE hope every man here will be a
singer, because, when he gets to
France, the hours in the trenches and
: back of the lines VIII be long and
dreary. We desire him to be happy
and carefree, and to help Keep his
comrades that way"
So the Eighty-ninth division of the
national army will be a division of
singers as well as soldiers