The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-01-29
THE BIRMINGHAM AGE-HERAID TUESDAY, JANUARY 2e 1918

JANUARY 29, 1918
 be over there in large force and the question that then had to be answered was, How will we maintain an army in France? Special studies had to be made of that problem, and this is what they showed.
 RAILROAD WORK
 They showed that the railroads and the facilities of France had during this war been kept in an excellent condi- tion; far better than any had sup posed possible under war conditions. And yet, that those railroads were used to the maximum to take care of the needs of the French and the Brit ish themselves and that when our army became a great army 1t would be necessary. for us to build back of our own line an independent line of communication.
 "In other words, France was a white sheet of paper, so far as we were con cerned, and on that we had not only to write an army, but we had to write the means of maintaining that army, and from the first time when care full and scientific study of the oppor- tunities of France to help us were made, from that hour until this, we have been building in France facil- ities, instruments, agencies, just as many as we have here in the United States and more-many of them of the same character For instance, the French had naturally reserved the best ports in Franco for their own supply. The channel ports have been reserved for the British. When we came in it was necessary for us to have inde- pendent ports of entry in order that there might not be confusion and ad- mixture of our supplies going through these ports of decentralization with those of other nations. We were given special ports. As you perhaps recall, the ports of France are tidal ports. ports with deep water and tidal basins at high tides, with insufficient water for landing at the docks when the tide is out.
 DOCKS AND WHARVES
 "As consequence, the construction of docks and wharves in ports of that kind is very much more difficult than where you have a deep sea harbor and all you need to do Is to erect pile wharf We have had to build docks, we have had to fabricate in this country and send over dock handling machinery, we have had to send from this country even the piles to build the docks. We have had to have quantities of cranes manufactured in this country and sent over to be erect ed on these docks; we have had to erect over there warehouses at the ports of embarkation in order that these vast accumulations of forces and supplies which go over can be properly housed and cared for until they can be dis tributed into the interior.
 We have had to take over and are in process of rebuilding and amplifying a railroad 600 miles long in order to carry our products from our ports of disem- barkation to our general bases of op- eration. And all that, gentlemen has to be done, not only studied out as neces- sary thing to do, but when so studied out and reported here the manufac- turies for those things have to be carried on in this country, and the things shipped over there-nails, crossties, spikes, fish plates. engines, cars buildings. We have had to build ordnance depots and re- pair shops and great magazines of supply
 in the interior. All of that problem has been carried forward step by step. The plans for a single ordnance repair shop, which I saw sometime ago, covered acres and acres of ground, designed over here, the iron work fabricated over here |disassembled put in ships and carried abroad to be reassembled over there
 BUILT BARRACKS
 We have had to build barracks over there for our soldiers, and in the mean time to billet them around in the French villages Building railroad tracks over there and building them here Is very different thing, gentlemen.
 When we summoned the lumber In dustry of this country to produce the lumber to build, our own cantonments, 1t came in great and steady stream from all over the country, but when we talk about building barracks in France 1t means this. It means to organize, as we have organized, regiments of for esters and sending them over into the forests of France, which they have as- signed to us for our men, cutting down the trees, setting up sawmills, making the lumber in various sizes. transporting it to the places where 1t is to be used, and then finally using 1t.
 "We have had to go back to the plant ing of the corn in France in order that we might sometime make harvest. Our operations began in the forests of France, not in the lumber yards as they did in this country.
 That great staff under General Persh- ings directions containing so many men from the American army. enriched by captains of industry and masters of tech nical performance in this country all of these large industrial operations under general direction, such as the railroad and dock buildings, under former vice president and now vice president per- haps of the Pennsylvania railroad. At | terbury, and the men who are carrying | forward these operations. which are quite as expensive as those which are car | ried on over here, and of far greater diff | fculty, because 1t means getting material | by cable as to sizes and specifications, having 1t fabricated here and sent across through these infested 5000 miles of ocean, and then set up on that side.
 BUILT HOSPITALS
 'In addition to that, on the other side | it has been necessary for us to build | hospitals, and that Is where the major l need for hospitals may be. It has been necessary for the surgeon general s | staff to be divided in this fashion and l to select supplies and procure materials, and to send over staffs of trained per ! sons to supervise the construction of | these hospitals and to man them and | equip them. All of that has gone on | contemporaneously with the work which | has been done in this country. and then, | in order that another element may be | added to this kaleidoscopic character which this war necessarily has, I call | your attention to thing which you hl- | ready know. This war had a moro or | less set character until the Russian situ- | ation changed, as it has changed in the l last few months. When We had gotten more or less used to the situation cre- ated by the uncertainty as to Russia. there came the great Italian defeat which called for even greater changes in our plans, in many ways.
 50 that what might have been per-