The patriot. [volume] (Indiana, Pa.) 1914-1955, 1918-01-12


Hot Springs, N. c., near Asheville,
where SIT officers and 1,O64 seamen of
German merchant ships are detained
by the United States immigrant Serv-
ice, hooded incandeScentS strung on
the topmOSt strand of formidable
barbed wire fences throw their fun
nelS of light inside the barricade, the
guard being stationed in darkened,
high perched sentry boxes. Lights sim
iarly spring up in the rooms of the
four-story hotel, where the captains,
mates and engineers of the big liners
are quartered. No sound comes from
these Teutonic cantonments-they give
no more sign of life than Belgian vii
lagos left in the wake of German
armies.
On the tracks barely outside the bar
ricade trains begin to pass with silence
shattering roarS, great trains of go and
20 cars drawn by giant moguls with
flaming furnace doors-the aristOcrats
of freights for whom all signal lights
show clear as they speed eastward to
the Chesapeake ports with cargoes of
grain, horses, lumber and machinery.
Those within the wire know what that
rushing eastward pOrtends.
Sure Germany Is Winning.
! But no other message do they be-
lieve, or, if they do, they conceal belief.
They read American newspapers, but
| tell the guards Germany is winning the
war and that it will be over in four
months. They say the Americans have
never repaired the ship engines their
now interned crews disabled because it
cannot be done in this country. Off
GERS of the great ship Vaterland say
she has never left Hoboken docks.
Differences between officers and men
have sprung up and fears of forcible
encounters made it necessary to estab-
lish separate camps. The men when
they realized that they were freed
! from enforced obedience to their Off
GERS began to show increasing evidence
of resentment for past strict diSci
pline. The officers were enraged at
this incubation with American ideas.
liness for the Americans
But talk does not lessen the vigi-
lance Of the fifty-two American guards
working in three shifts. "They are
Germans" said a hatchet-faced guard
with his hand on his holster. he look
ed up at the nearby forested cliffs
where the French Broad river emerges
With crashing waters into the broad
ened camp valley. "And some day
the casualty lists will show of the boys
from this state killed in France. And
then
ConceaIments on Those Cliffs.
'Then what?" he was asked. ''Yes,"
said he, "What" and looked again at
the concealments of the cliffs overlook
Ing the camp.
The officers have the advantage of
the men in the matter of quarters
though the food is practically the
same. The fOur-story hotel was leased
| by the government with it's equipment
of private baths, steam heat and fine
furniture and surroundings of tennis
courts, crOquet grounds and big pool
of naturally hot water. The men are
housed in eight one-story wooden bar
racks built for their use, each barrack
20 by 163 feet in size, with double
decked hunks, heated by stoves and
served by a detached shower bath
house IA by so feet, in the rear of each
4 barrack.
/ German artisans did all the work of
J construction, being paid by the United
States at the rate Of $50 a month No
alien there has to work unless he wish
es, and if he does he is paid. One day
all of them quit work because they
resented the publication in a local
newspaper that they were slow work
ers and had to be told how to do ev-
/ erything.
The Germans find variety of ways
of entertaining themselves. Some play
tennis, others croQuet, some bowl, some
go through a semimilitary drill, and
each camp has it's team for playing
what the guards call football. The
, bail is like a football, but it is not
kicked. 1t is batted with the hand
For the men, the International Y. NJ.
G. A. has established a clubhouse
equipped with tables, reading matter,
games and moving picture outfit. An
American secretary is in charge.
Work for Idle Hands.
The officers have nearly completed
a miniature German village by the riv-
erside. The houses are tiny affairs
scarcely large enough to let a couple
of their burly builders squeeze in, and
much ingenuity and artistic design is
shown in their rustic fashioning. Tree
limbs broken brick, stones, old carpet,
f]attened tin cans, all picked up in the
hotel groUqds, are the material used.
The United States furnished nothing.
Commodore Ruser, chief of the Water
land, built one of these tiny houses and
is very proud of the little bricb stove
which heats it. When wor'iing on
their houses the officers seem TO have
shed their officialdom and appear as
kindly, simple men. The common sea-
men are building a similar village.