Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1918-06-23
TE DAILY GRAPHIC PINE BLUFF MORNING.

For instance, part Of the service which the "" performs for the army is running those country stores which pass under the noms de guerre of post exchanges and cantee1s. Here is fer tile field for criticism, sporadic and local and sporadic criticism. but crit. icism which must be answered before the highest efficiency can he reached. For instance:
 Bill Jones goes to his quartermas- ter and buys 9 package of cigarets. He pays for it less than he paid in America. Next morning he drops into "Y" caQteen and buys the same sort of cigarets. He pays trifle more for it than he would pay in America, and he is sore. Not only is he sore. but he exerts the fine old American privilege of kicking about it and airing his soreness. The burden of his com plaint is that the "Y" is trying to make money off him.
 The investigator hears of it and asks the reason why this should be SO. The "Y" purchasing agent tells you that the army commissary de- partment transports supplies to it's posts free of charge. It pays no freight on steamers from America: it pays no carriage or truckage in France. That huge item of cost does not enter into the commissariat con sideratiOn. This cannot be so with the Y. M. c. A.. It has to pay for freighting it's commodities across the ocean. and freight rates are not on the bargain counter at this writing. It has to pay railroad freight to transport. The wonder is, we are told, that chocolate. or cigarets, or handkerchiefs or what not can be had as cheaply here as they are had. The regrettable point is that "Y" canteens have to enter into competition with commissariats which possess all the advantage.
 The commissariats cannc: begin to supply the demand. The "Y" scan- teens are a necessity. Both are sell ing at the figure which to each is the lowest possible, so when your son writes home and tells you it looks as if he were being stung by the "Y" can teen, just think it over, and you will see
 Then it comes to the personality of the man who is running the canteen. There are men in France who have the ability to get so close to the sol dier that when they say, Jack, this
 is the fact. We've got to do it so because -" Jack believes him and is satisfied, because Jack knows that man is on the spot to do everything in his power for the soldier. He knows that man will work IS hours a day, 90 days month, and then will be willing to get up in the middle of the night to meet flock of motor trucks ambling towards the front with sup- plies and ammunitions. and dig up coffee and smokes for it. He knows there is man the soldier can show the picture of his best girl and get the sort of reply he wants. He knows there is 8 man the soldier can ask for advice-or if he wants it. for real religion-and get the article he desires in the way he wants it. Such men. and they are in the big majority. can handle any situation, and it is such men who are doing the real work of the "Y" in making the A. E. F. more efficient fighting force.
 But there are exceptions when thou sands of men are picked hurriedly for emergency employment. Men land in Franco without fully understanding what is expected of them, and without understanding France or that splendid organization. the A. E. F.They come with enthusiasm, but without definite knowledge of what the army wants oi them and until they adjust themselves to conditions, they are apt to come to grief
 One thing few men realize until they have been here a week or two, and that is that they are an integral part of the A. E. F. and that they are work. ing under the authority of the military not as they suspected on their owr hook or for the Y M. c. A. Their jot is to do as they are told. and to do il quickly and exactly. That they car learn, and do learn, or they hear the approaching footsteps of grim retribu tion. Most of them learn more-they learn what real service means. The, learn to forget their own egOs and t( love humanity as cxamplified by ar army of bully young men in khaki. Hundreds of men are lading here monthly to take up some service un der the Red Trianele They are of al sorts and from all environments. | approaches the marvellous how they are made to fit. Preachers have ar
 rived filled with ardor to evangelize They find their true service can bes 'be done by driving motor truck
 Bankers come and speedily find ou
 that they can do the best job gettin, up entertainments in some lonely hut
 One rich and useless bachelor strucl
 these shores filled with the desire t,