The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-08-02
SUMMARY OF PROGRESS MADE
 DURING FIFTEEN MONTHS OF WAR

1 met in the design and manufacture of artillery carriages, but the artil- | lery program is now approaching a point where quantity production Is beginning.
 The first of four government-own- ed shell-fitting plants has been com pleted and is beginning to produce. In addition, number of private plants are at work loading shells.
 Vast as were the privately owned facilities for the manufacture of pow der and high explosives, the govern ment has provided additional facili- ties which are very much larger than l those which private enterprise had created.
 Ordnance engineers, 1t seems, are well on the way to solution of the problem of the motorization of field artillery. The problem of motoriza- tion of light artillery has been a con- stant factor in slowing up the ad- vance of troops to await the bringing forward of their supporting guns l Tractors have been used by all na- tions, of course, to haul heavy pieces along good roads, but they have been unable to develop tractors for haul ing light pieces over shell-shattered ground. On June 8, the Ordnance Department demonstrated 6-ton ar mored artillery tractor which proved capable of negotiating the most difi- cult terrain, hauling a - howitzer which weighed approximately 5000 pounds.
 Approximately $9o,ooo, 900 are be- ing spent to provide for the manufac- ture of nitrate, which are essential in the manufacture of explosives but which have heretofore had to be pro- cured from Chile. The building of these plants will add to our powder output, will have large amounts of cargo space. and 1t is supposed after the war will produce nitrate for fer 1 tiliZing American farms.
 l Port facilities in France: Among | the most dramatic stories of the war Is that of the development by Ameri- can engineers and American enter prizes of port facilities on the French coast. It is not permissible to say where this development has taken place, but the scope of it may be judged by the fact that it would be possible to handle during the month of July a maximum of 750,OOO tons at the ports of the American Army in France.
 It was necessary, before troops of the Expeditionary Force could be landed, to send an organization of l foresters into the woods of France to send. knocked down saw mills after them, to cut down trees, to shape them into timbers, and to build them into docks in crder that our troops might leave their ships. Fast as | this work was and large as the flow of troops has heen accelerated, the facilities for dockage have kept pace with the shipments of troops and supplies.
 Morale of the Army: Consensus of opinion is that drunkenness in the Army is completely under control, both in the United States and in France. Gen. Pershing states:
 "As there is little beer sold in France, men who drink are thus linn tied to the light native wines used by all French people. Even this is dis couraged among our troops in every possible way"
 1 You may travel for weeks in i France without seeing an intoxicated American soldier. In the Congress sional Record on or about March 31 there is reprinted the statement of a journalist in France, beginning:
 Everyone is on the water wagon ! at the American front. During the past month I have been at the front daily and often twice a day, seeing l thousands of American soldiers. In that time I saw exactly one man | drunk and one other who was under 1 the influence of liquor"
 The Third Assistant Secretary of 1 War, in ten days at a National Army camp adjacent to Chicago, saw two | men intoxicated.
 There is no permanent military camp in the United States with a red light district in it's vicinity.
 The Commission on Classification l of Personnel reports that a surpris- ingly large proportion of recruits ask to be placed in the most haz- ardous branches of the military ser vice. If reply is needed to those who say that the men of the National Army are in camp because they have to be, it is this, that those same men are going over the top because they