The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-05-25
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

have left the impression that I did not have pleasant time in the Capital City, I
 want to tell about a ride out to Camp Sheridan I had with Lawrence Lee, the
 Red Cross chairman in Montgomery county; his wife (nee Gussie Aston, the daughter of Judge A. H. Alston) and my cousin, Judge Perry Thomas, and Ser geant Montgomery.
 1 The sergeant had never seen an Amer ican cantonment, so we were driven out to Camp Sheridan, and he was greatly 1 interested in all that he saw It is truly a wonderfully clean-1ooking camp. It seems the ground has a sandy and gravelly subsoil, which is ideal for drain age and drying out quick, and hence is freer from mud than most of the army reservations.
 | If you have never been to one of the ! great army camps it is hard for you to appreciate just or what a large scale they.are laid out and just how many dif- ferent kinds of things have to be pro- vided for. All of them are cities within themselves, and there is always some | thing interesting going on to attract the attention of the visitors, though I inn agine the routine gets quite monotonous to the men who have put in months of patient waiting to go to the front. 1 There was however, a stir and bus | tie noticeable throughout the whole camp and large part of the troops were being made ready to go elsewhere. On the road we met army wagons laden with blankets, and great trucks loaded down with equipment, and in front of the ba tracks of the different regiments were great bags or soldiers kits, waiting to be | put aboard trains, while the men lounged about or waited impatiently for the order | to start.
 1 I saw the great parade grounds as the men were being drilled. I eagerly looked at the trenches, and saw a company on it's way to the grounds, where they are instructed how to use and ward off gas. I was struck with the swinging bags used to train the boys the art of bayonet | thrusts. I was interested in the mimic forts All about and around me were I the latest things in the way of modern warfare but somehow it seemed to me that peace brooded over the camp.
 
 | And yet there was one reminder that could not fail to drive home the fact | that what was seeing was no mere playing at war, no getting ready for a sham battle, but that the soldiers toy | like homes, which lined the various | streets, the acres of tents, the mess l rooms, the barracks, the administration building, the Young Mems Christian as 1 sociation quarters, the Young Woman s l Christian association hotels and the amusement places, were all there because the men who used them were getting ready to face death-that reminder was the stupendous base hospital. The sergeant and I were scheduled to open the Red Cross drive in a few hours Lawrence Lee pointed out certain roorny structures where men were to be housed | who had lost limbs, and one large, impos- l ing edifice was to be given over to teach | men how to walk; in other words, to get | accustomed to the use of their artificial limbs No easy thing to do. as my friend Dick Johnston can testify. It seems you have to break in an arm or a leg just ! like you have to break new pair of shoes.
 l
 l l. of interesting news, a side light on how thoroughly Uncle Sam is getting ready l to care for the men who are going to fight to make democracy safe for the world and not as the Indian of whom the Presiden. told in his great Red Cross speech in New York preparing to make the whole world safe for the democrats. . But to the man with us, the Canadian who had put in two years on vimy ridge, and left leg there, it meant that others like him were to make the great sacri- flee.
 l The ride through the camp and the sug- gestiveness of the hospital preached to me the pressing need of raising the hum dred millions of dollars for the Red Cross. could not get my mind off of the fact 1 that within touch of me was lad who for 20 weary hours of pain had lain out wounded almost to death and no one to give him succor and counted it a privi- | lege that could at least have part in trying to arouse our people to give to the greatest humanitarian work that the sun ever shcne upon, and by so doing not 1 only make it easier for the soldiers of our allies, but help our own flesh and blood and save them, if possible. from the grueling experience of Sergeant Mont | gornery.
 The dove of peace may be long in light ing over the fields of battle, which run from Belgium to Switzerland on the west and pierce far to the Indian ocean in the east, but one day peace is coming. thank God. Not a negotiated German peace, a false peace, which Is made to give tho Prussian miiitarists e breathing spell in which to get ready for another bloody war-but a peace made in which democ- racy will dictate the terms Yes. peace in which the Prince of Peace will come into His own. peace which will give the weary old world long rest from strife.
 1 I got to thinking along this line while in,ss;n1 tba nireon houses in whfrA the