Evening star., 1918-01-20
NEW WCENSORSH|P IN
. FRANCE Prizes DEEP
Codes, Sweethearts' Tricks
and Soldiers Oddities Often
, Run to Earth.
READ IN as LANGUAGES

BY JUNIUS b. WOOD.
Cablexram to The Sunday Star and
Chicago Daily News. Copyright, 1918.
WITH THE AMERICAN ARMY IN
FRANCE, January 19.-When a young
American officer who sub rosa has been
carrying on through the French post
office a more or less fervid corre-
epondence with a charming French
blonde. misses one of the daily billets
doux and then receives it a week late
with the end of the envelope. which had
been cut open, closed with a stout
eticker with broad black border
around the words Examined by the
base censor" cold chills shoot through
his backbone. He knows that his Sc
cret is out.
But he need not worry on that ac-
count, for the censorship. though IT
learns much that might shock Mother
Grundy, does not concern itself with
lar personal affairs. Love letters. II
bona fide, abound in intimate conf
dences, and for that reason the ofhcer
intrusted his to the French mails. Now
he asks himself how it was that his
one letter was selected from the mil
Few realize the thoroughness of our
newly established censorship. This is
the answer to the officers question.
They have a censorship office In each
company of the Army, which every one
knows, as its workings are plainly Wis
1ble. They have another censorship,
though, over. this which Is not equally
well known, for its workings are in
visible. This is the base censorship,
which caught not only his French girls
letter, but several hundred others every
day, and some of them much more
damaging.
The base censorship. in addition to
lying in wait for everything that at
tempts to slip through without censor
ship, goes over again large propor-
tion of the mail already censored. 1t
not only censors all mail from the Army
to neutral countries. but all letters in
foreign languages, which the company
officers are forbidden to censor. 1t also
goes over thousands of letters sent di-
rect by soldiers who are unwilling to
have their own officers read them. 1t
vate in q militia company to submit his
letters to an officer who is paying at
tention to the same girl as he Is in the
home town. -.
Letters Read In 20 Languages.
L>4ters are read in forty-six different
more than has been used ia a any offes
army In history. Out Of 600 such LETT
'ters read on typical day half were in
italian. followed in order by Polish.
letters In each OF the twenty-five
principal European languages. with
many in the tongues Of the Balkan
states. while small number are regu-
Hindu. Japanese. Tahitan. Greek. Ha-
Waiian. Persian and Filipino. One mis-
sive was written with Greek letters
translated into English letters. An
other letter was written in the Turkish
language. :
The translators are soldiers detailed
for their linguistic ability. A novel
feature is that anything forbidden is
seldom found in the foreign language
letters. 1t is also striking fact that
the German letters do not exceed those
Naturally. the big bulk of the CEN
Soldiers who think they can slip some
thing over" the censor by dropping
their letters in the French post ONCE
almost invariably come to grief. The
regulations positively forbid using the
French mails The soldier is not aware
that every letter addressed to America
and mailed In town Where troops
are bilIeted is turned over to the base
eensors by the French postal authori-
ties.
Many Unique Codes Are Used.
Many unique codes are worked out to
convey forbidden information. The
colonel in command of the base of1ice
pulled out Of his desk this morning
3 letter with thirty-six little penpoint
dots, apparently scattered at random
over six closely written pages. Taking
the letter over each dot and putting the
letters together made sentence telling
exactly where the soldier was stationed.
AS a result of his ingenuity the bright
soldier will find himself for the next
few days in the guardhouse and may
count himself lucky that he was not
sentence and another writer disclosed
his own cumbersomeness by using the
first letter of each word. Still another
designated sections of France by mem
tioning the trees peculiar to each, such
rs spruce birch and oak. Several used
innocent questions such as inquiring if
Jim's birthday was onY the 10th. thus
showing that he was lpcated in a part
of France charted as No. 10.
Supervising mail already censored
brings more woe to the officers than to
the men, Many are careless and have
q feeling that they need not be as strict
with themselves as with the men. Thus
they pass things in their own letters
which they would not permit in their
mems letters. More than one officer has
received a stern raking over for trying
10 write q letter censored by himself
telling her where he is located.
There is not one chance in one hum
dred that the base censor will read this
letter" one officer wrote to his wife.
But it happened that 1t was the one
hundredth chance However, there was
nothing in it except intimately personal
matters, and. as already mentioned, the
censorship is not interested in knowing
whether or not the grocery bills are paid
The censorship is interested solely m
preventing the sending of forbidden
military Information.
TeJIino location Chief Violation
1t is greatly to the credit of the Army
that but few instances have been found
where the writer's were suspected of
deliberately attempting to evade this
rule. The most frequent violation of
the rules is in the shape of efforts to
tell the people at home where the writ
ers are located. The parts of the let
ters giving such Information are clip
ped out, the censor not trusting to blot
ting. ink. The punctured letters are
forwarded and reports are made to the
oficers responsible for committing and
permitting the. otfense. Over addressing
is another falt. It Is not permitted to
designate the higher units of a regi-
ment. but writer's frequently mention
s~iu vxyifh frf