The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1918-06-01
Americans Behind Lines
Grouchy When They
Think What They Miss
THEY LONG FOR
REAL EXCITEMENT
Call Themselves ''Prison-
nier de Guerre" OF
Prisoners Of War
BY RHETA cHrLDE DoRR.

/
was in a bad humor. He was in q
very bad humor. If a stray cat OF
dog had appeared on the wharf q
that moment he would probably have
kicked it. AS it was a woman in the
khaki uniform Of a war correspondent
the sentry contented himself with
iroaring q challenge that brought her
tup standing. Having produced her
pass he stood aside with a scowl
lshouldered the rifle which had been
pointed at her most menacingly, and
made q gesture with his head which
meant, well, then. move on"
But the correspondent was the
orrespondent-did not move on.
tstopped and said mildly: you don't
lseem to be enjoying yourself today
What's the matter?"
S. What's the matter?" he repeated
3uriously. Every darn thing is the
matter. What did leave my bust
ness for. what did leave my wife and
kids 3or?tWhy to. come over here and
fight the boche. And what am I do
ing? Rousta,bout work on blasted
line Of docks, miles away from the
S6Su uSIS 1.-Two IIlOI1LI1S ia L4I4S
hole, working like a subway digger.
His People Pioneers.
a look at the town back there where
we go for a bit of amusement when
the days over. Worse than any
slum back home. Talk about the
horrors Of the trenches. I'd swap the
mud we live in for a trench. Talk
%usr.
winds right the fumes from that
picric acid factory up the river blow
down and choke the lungs out Of
u.s.
DO you get these spells often?" I
asked. Whereupon he grinned a little
and relaxed his scowl. 1 asked him
where he lived and he named a
thriving town in western Kansas. He
had a real estate business in town,
but his folks still lived on the big
farm which his father had proved
up on thirty years ago. 1t was fine
place, yielding a big income, enough
to keep the old people in comfort for
the rest of their lives, and to support
his young family while he was at the
war.
came from the prairies myself
and I could Just see that farm and
the old folks who had gone out to
Kansas in their lusty youth to take
up government land. They had built
la sod house, turned up the tough
prairie grass, ploughed and sowed and
cultivated under burning sun, per-
formed terrible labor to get their
first meager corn crops.
They had fought drought and grass
lhoppers, lived through billiards. and
fcyclones, endured poverty and priva-
1gn
such is the greatness and the virtue
lof our America.
/ sat down on a nail keg and talked
to that lonly. homesick, aggrieved
soldier about the pioneers. From
SEngland first, and later from every
tother country in the world they had
tcome, moved by the divine unrest Of
ambitious spirits to the United
! States.
On The Job Once More.
They had crossed the plains in
trough wagons, daring weather, star
I walton and thirst, hostile Indians.
They had leveled forests, they had
built homes with no tools but axes
land hand saws. They had farmed
laird lands. They lived in caves and
fdugouts. They had raised corn that
some years they had been forced
Ito burn for fuel because there was
(no market for it. But they lived,
land won out, and built homes for
lGheir children.
And now, once more the Americans
kare pioneering. They are pioneering
/ in France. They are building an
Earmy and doing It. as their fathers
fbefore them, from the ground up. IF
you were not building these miles
OF docks and warehouses, If We didn't
have hundreds of thousands of men
constructing ice plants, storage ware
houses, railroads, barracks, bakeries,
lhangars, hospitals, how would the
linen in the trenches get food and am
knunition and clothes and medical
supplies and everything else they
have to have before they can win
the war;" put it to him straight,
and he turned an uncomfortable pink.
"Of course, you are right" he
tsaid 'But we have to blow off once
in a while. You see we didn't know
anything about it before we came. We
drew our numbers in the draft, and
most of us were mighty glad Of it.
tIraining camp, and we thought we
pgere going right into the big show.
I'VE thought the engineers would
be right up at the front building
railroads for the artillery. Instead
of that we are kept down here,
hundreds of miles from the fighting
doing the kind of hard labor some
OF us have money enough TO hire
dome at home"
Prophecies Not Fulfilled.
why. do you know" he continued,
stlat in. -. )" naming a nearby en-
gineering camp, where immense sea-
plane hangers were being built,
there is one company Of SO men
every one g. graduate of a univer-
sity or q technical school? All OF
those men are in overalls, doing day
labor"
I did know those men. I had seen
them, or some OF them, the day be-
fore at the noon hour smoking short
pipes and cigarettes, sitting or
gnrawIing on their backs beside the
road. And q fine, husky, happy lot
thew were, too. Nothing in their
university careers ever did for them
what this rough job Of pioneering
was doing
There was one man there who had
put in q magnificent water system
sn his home town. When he went
Ia France the newspapers gave him
q great seId-off described his work.
end said that no doubt he would be
called on to take charge OF the
Nfater system in one Of the large
French cities. When I met him he
was acting ais water boy to a rail-
road tie carrying squad
The engineers In this part Of
rance publish a monthly magazine
called The Splker" They love toI
set hold Of these newspaper notices