Trench and camp. [volume] (Augusta, Ga.) 1917-1919, 1918-09-04
CAPT. ]. RICE SMITH
ENTHUSES LARGE
CROWD
Addresses New Men of Group
7 and Receives a Tremendous
Ovation. House Packed to
Capacity
(ey MacNeij,)


The rookie when he comes to camp
is pretty we'll provided with most
things. The army mess apportions
him sufficiency of caiories to build
and keep up the boldly part of him.
He is clcthier and is provided with a
tent. The "Y" provides him with pa
per and ink and stamps for writing
to the folks at home The army of
ficials provide an ample absorbent
for any spare leisure that he may
have. In all the weeks that he has
been here no one has mentioned war
to him or why he has been brought
hither and why presently he win be
sent hence.
Most of the rockies know why, but
in the dust of the drill field. in the
1ambs at the bath house, in the mess
line, in the crowded tent, he is likely
to lose sight of it altogether
Back home he may have beca patri-
otto enough, and most likely has pro-
missed each of his friends to bring
them a dead German. But he gets sort
of lost. The Secs" at building 231
got ii into their heads the other night
to try an experiment in the way of a
patriotic speaking. The idea was new
and consequently it was sprung with
some trepidat,on. Unusually the embryo
soldier is too restless after night mess
to sit still long enough to listen to a
speech on patriotic lines.
Secretary Campbell went about it
carefully. He selected his man judic-
iously; he arranged the setting crafti-
ly and no more viii he indulge in
doubts as to how some hundreds of
beginning soldiers will react to a pa
triotic speech. No effort of the ''Y''
has been met with such wild outbursts
of enthusiasm The bni1IiDpe &
crowded until they oozed out of the
windows and some of the rockies were
suspended from the rafters. The
speaker was greeted with polite clap
pings of the hands, but before he had
gone for FIVE minutes, the applause had
grown to an ovation and at the end
the roof heaved above the impact OF
the volume Of enthusiastic appreciation
that swept from the audience They
crowded up around the venerable
speaker and his hand must have
grown weary under the ordeal OF much
hand-shaking.
The speaker was J. Rice Smith, OF
Augusta, a man who had seen war in
its terrible reality. His body has
aged somewhat since the days that he
saw the devastation of the Valley of
Virginia, and, as he said since he
fought beside the fathers of The boys
who were his hearers, but his heart
is still young. and his eye has lost
none of the youthful snap and vigor
The years have embellished him in
spirit and his spirit marches out with
tn younger generation that goes out
to see to the liberation of the world
This youthful spirit in a body that has
lived out its three score and ten
caught the enthusiasm of the soldier
audience and swept them along with
it to pitch of enthusiasm that was a
new experience to the most. The
deadening grind was forgotten, the
senseless torture of endless drilling
under soaring suns, took on meaning
and purpose. The spirit that carried
the south through the grilling half a
century ago was made to live again
and to get hold Of the rockies. 1t viii
20 with the to France and will hurl
them against embattled Huns, and with
an impact that will tell in the final ac-
counting