The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1918-09-17

Get Lessons in Freneh-Sinoing One
of the Chief Joys of the Trip.
BY WILLIAM @. SHEPHERD.
"When do we leave de sea and git
onto de ocean," asked a worried-look-
ing negro soldier ON a transport in
mid-Atlantic.
jes' ez much ez Wen yer be" answer
ed his partner.
go on. Dis is too smooth for de
ocean. Dis is de sea, l tell YOU"
The next day the season of CLASSY
sea- had gone and a lively wind
whipped the Atlantic.
Didn't / tell you? Didn't / tell
your" said the negro soldier. II knew
sure we'd come to de ocean If we kept
or travelin'."
But ii isn't only among the dtrk
boys in our army that ignorance of the
ocean prevails. Not one in a thou
sand of the million and more Ameri-
can boys in France today ever crossed
the ocean; literally hundreds of thou
sands of them never saw either the At
lantic or the Pacific until they came
to the seacoast to take ship for the
war. Riding, crowded, in a ship. on
q strange ocean is no fun.
low to keep our hundreds of thou
sands of boys happy and well and as
comfortable as possible while they
are passing through the strange adj
venture of getting to France Is a task
that the army, the navy and the Y. NJ
c. A. are working out. It's an un-
blazed trail they are following, but
each day with new experiences and
new lessons brings them nearer to the
mark.
Days Drag Heavily.
Ten days on the ocean Is a heavy
drag ON soldier morale. How to get
into those ten ocean days pep. fun.
laughter, music and lots of play, as
well as lots of drill is no easy problem
to solve.
The army men realized, as 500 as
We began transporting troops to
France, that midocean strains on the
men might injure their morale consid-
erably and, perhaps, undo much gocf
work that had been previously done in
the camps at morale-building.
The navy men, who supervise the
transport work, came to the same
realization both as regards the
troops they transported and their W
civilian or merchant marine crews.
And thus the Y. NJ. c. A. was invited
onto the ocean.
The "Y" had to pick its way care
fully.
At first, so it appears, the work was
not without error.
Being a human institution, the 'Y'
had to find out, first, how not to do the
job. For instance. on several ships
a happy-go-lucky type Of secretary
tried the work. His wholesale good
mornings" his stories, which he hat
trained himself to tell and which were
of the zippy sort that the men
themselves had at their tongue ends.
and his attempts at breezy good cheer
all fell fiat. He found himself In dam
ger of being considered as excess car
60. On the other hand. the Y. M. c. A.
secretary who felt that he was a mis-
sionary among a lot of hayward boys
found himself left out In the cold.
The "Y" leaders have discovered by
this time, In the great war, that a ~"
man who isn't liked by all the men
with whom he comes into contact had
better be called back home.
And now, after several months of
experimenting, the Y. M. C. A. has
learned that service to the boys and
nothing but the best of service is what
is needed to make their work efficient.
The secretary who goes on each troop
ship to France keeps himself In the
background and only men who can do
this are chosen for the work. The "Y'
service may stand out but v the
man who renders 1t.
For the first day or two the "Y"
man on a transport quietly makes his
preparations the novelty of being on
the cean is claiming the full atten-
tion Of the thousands Of American
boys aboard and seasickness has not
hit them.
Ready for the Show.
About the second day out the young
men r glad enough to read that, In
their particular section Of the ship
that evening, there is going to be q
boxing match, or q movie show,
Word gets around that q ~" man on
board has brought a library Of the
latest books with him and thousands
of magazines. Punching bags appear
here and there. "Where'd you gel
those checkers?" the onlookers ask OF