The Richmond Virginian. (Richmond, Va.) 1910-1920, 1918-09-30
STACKER RECORDS
DRAFTED FOR WAR
General Bell Heads Plan 10 send
Million Photograph Discs To
Men Overseas.
WAY TO STIMULATE MORALE
Appeal to Country To Put Much idie
Material Into Active Service
mt the Front.

Committees in 500 cities and towns
throughout the United states Will
start active work today preparing for
Stacker Record Week. October 20
to Novem Der =, when the country Will
be combed for idle photograph. rec
ords to be sent to the soldiers ana
sailors overseas and those in camps
here.
The movement to force Stacker rec
ords to do some substantial work for
the country was started by Vivian
Burnett. the author and composer,
who has organized the Natonal fho-
nograph Record Recruiting Corps ana
enlisted as active mem bers OF the ma
tional committee, headed by Major
General j. Franklin Bell, I. :. ~,
nearly zoo persons of distinction IN
musical. social and public life. Some
of these are Mrs. Newton ID. Baker,
David Bispham Enrico Caruso. Nine.
Frances Aida, Mrs. Carrie Chapman
Gait. Robert w, Chambers, Walter
Damroseh, James Montgomery Flags,
Mrs. John II. t'lagler Daniel Froh-
nan, Nine Amelia Gaili-Curci, sam
uel Gompers, Victor Herbert. Mrs,
Franklin X Lane John Mccormack,
Mrs Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Mrs.
Ethelbert Nevin. Francis Rogers
Nine, Schumannii eink. Lieutenant
John Philip Sousa, and Miss Ida NJ
Tarbell
Mr.. Burnett said. in discussing his
plans: Music makes morale, and the
monograph is the soldiers favorite
musical instrument. In the training
camps. on the transports and battle
ships. and in the dugouts and hospi
tais. monographs are making the
men happy and cheerful, and helping
to keep them fit- But i'll hundreds
of places records have been played
TIL they are worn out. and in others
machines and discs are entirely lack
ing.
The need of supplying in an or
Eanized way the tremendous demand
for monographs and records has be
come impossible TO ignore. The Ma
ticnal Photograph Records Recruit
ing Corps has for its purpose a CO.
oriinated. nationwide collection and
distribution Of reeo ds and instru-
ments.'
General Bell as honorary chair
man. has urged the committee to
drum up every idle record in the
country Music has established it
self as one Of the important adiuncts
in stimulating morale" said the dis
tinguished soldier. The responsible
ty for keeping plenty of good music
constantly at the service of the sol
diers and sailors rests with the civil
ian forces back of the lines "
In every home where there IL
phonograph the committee believes.
ia number of good records are Idle.
They hold that these are Stacker
records that our boys need them at
sI. oil
American to do his share toward fur
nishing the fourth essential " as mia
sic has been called. toward helping to
win the war Stacker Record Week
will start the bali rolling, and IL Is
/ hoped that a million old records viii
be collected 10 SO Immediately into
service at the front. on shipboard and
in the camps. New records will be
welcomed, and machines and needles
with them. The need for records is
shown by many letters written from
men in the trenches and from lead
ers of various war activities
Jerome Swinef8rti; representing the
commission on training camp aetivi-
ties OF the navy department az song
leader for the training station at
/ Norfolk, Va. wrote TO the committee:
Down in the " buildings at Nor
folk and Portsmouth. a the big naval
hospital and the st. Helena training
station, 1t is absolutely pitiable to see
the WORKOUT records that are still
being used-because there aren't any
new ones. Don't think for minute
That the records are trated carelessly
oh. no. thy are far too precious for
! that the records are treated carelessly
over until they arc completely worn
cut
Z My work brings me in touch every
/ day with hundreds, sometimes thou
sands, of enlisted men Of the navy. T
wish the folks back home could real
ize the great part that music plays in
/ the lives of these men and their abso-
! lutte hunger for it. If they did realize
! il there wouldn't be any need to ask
for records-thcy would come in by
thousands"