Trench and camp., 1918-10-10

printed on super-calendered paper in
magazine form, was their camp publi-
cation at Wadsworth.
Now take Camp Sewer. Not only
was there not single trained news
paper man available at the outset, but
the publishing facilities were very lin
tied, the local newspaper plant being
taxed to the limit of it's capacity and
facing serious labor shortage.
But just as this recital illustrates the
divergence in facilities, it illustrates
also the universality of the Trench
and Camp" service. Through its Ma
tional Headquarters, Trench and
Camp" was able to solve many Of the
local problems; through the self-sac-
rificing patriotism of the local pub
Usher the ultimate handicaps were
overcome. Camp Sewer has its own
newspaper. And be it said here that
the Camp Sewer edition has been
steadily improving.
Mention has been made of the diff
Guilty In providing local editors for the
individual camps. Some unfortunate
selections were made; some unfortu-
nate mistakes resulted.
Il was the aim of the Trench and
Camp" movement to produce a chain
of local papers, each one rejecting the
life within the camp and portraying
the hope of the nation in its soldiers.
Trench and Camp" aimed to be as
President Wilson put it, sin a very
special sense soldiers newspaper"
Where Trench and Camp" realized
its ideal and became "a living, vital
transcript of the life of the army" it
instantly won place in the hearts of
the men. They came to await its
weekly appearance as they would the
arrival of letter from home. Where
Trench and Camp" fell short of its
purpose it also fell short of popularity.
The reason for any failure was not
difficult to find. In nearly every in
stance it lay in the calibre of the local
editor. Where a local editor was
broad-visioned enough to catch the
spirit of its ideal of service he had no
difficulty; where the local editor was
narrow-visioned and used the columns
of the paper to serve his own purposes
he failed. Some editors thought Of
|" Trench and Camp" as Y. M. c. A..
organ. They failed to glimpse the
ideal, which was and is unselfish serv-
ice. When the National War Work
Council sanctioned the expenditure of
funds for camp publications it was not
that the Y. NJ. c. A. might be adver-
tised, but the Association might in
crease the scope of its service. No
narrow-visioned man could understand
the spirit of that kind of a contribu-
ton. It took months, in some in
stances, to eliminate such men. But
the elimination has been accomplished,
we believe. IF we at the National
Headquarters are mistaken we have
only to be informed, and this state
ment is made on the authority of DIR.
John r. Mott, General Secretary, and
Messrs. Fletcher S. Brockman and ].
S. Tichenor. Associate General Secre-
taries.
Now then for a statement of the
achievements of Trench and Camp"
Weekly newspapers are now pro-
duced in thirty eight of the great train
ing camps. Some of these papers
would be highly creditable even to
large cities. Some of them suggest
metropolitan newspapers and are pro-
duced with the assistance of metropol-
itan newspaper men. Some papers are
not so creditable. But only one or
two are really poor and there are ex-
tenNating circumstances. We ak Ma