The labor standard., 1918-04-15
Troops in France Are Training to the Highest Point
 of Efficiency.
KNOW NO FEAR OF FRITZ
Soldier Writes of Work and Expert ences With Army at the Front Old Regulars to Be Used as .. Crack Units of the Unit.
 ed States Forces.

ana WILL devote the rest or the minutes between now and bedtime to a. long, delayed letter to you. I only just re- turned to my company after being away for 8 mOnth-in a blamed sight colder place. I had long and won- derful trip, the details of which can't, of course, recount. Let 1t be men toned. however, that among other things did was sleep in real steam heated room, with sheets, five electric lights, all going at once, and a bath room. I was a next-door neighbor of Hank Wales, of the I. N. S., who, I dis covered, worked in Sacramento, taking the job left when I went to Panama. He knows you, and mentioned that | did, but didn't go into any details. My trip, my one night of luxury and Ehy reversion to the life of the army have brought realization of one thing, though:
 To pervert the title and main strain of the latest Broadway and first-line trench hit, the fun is over, over here. From now on it's business.
 France, to the American soldier, never again will be what it has been. This thought began to formulate itself in the minds of the lucky Americans who came over here in the late sum- mer of 1917, about the time the snow began to fall and the fog to come in from the coast. Now it has crystalized. The grave, whole-souled, sincere six months welcome of France is over. It was a welcome not so much regal as it was genuine-nOt one such as is spoken at banquet when the mayor turns the hypothetical keys of the city over, but of the man who opens his home and his all and says, not in words, but in deeds, You are one with us; what we have is yours" And for tunate were the Americans who were present at this welcome. The army that comes this year will be welcomed, hut not as we were.
 No Longer Novelty.
 Not that France has intentionally moderated her tone. There has been a merely natural relaxation, of course, and the "soldat Americaine' now is accepted more is matter of course than as novelty. But the big factors are that the United States is getting into the war-and it is winter. There is less liberty now than there was no all-night passes, and frequently Sunday is broken by inspection and drills. There is no military permis- sion to visit nearby cities except on /, business. Visiting of the cafes is per mitted only between noon and 2 D. m. and D. m. and S:3O for officers and Eenlisted men. Winter has brought long nights and cold days, it's Red Cross sweaters and the 17 pairs of socks from home, and, incidentally, the keen est appreciation of three fruits of civil lization which "back home' are such common-places that their existence creates no more thought than the fea on Electors back.
 These are light, heat and water.
 War, and it's cOncomitant economies, cause step backward in evolution and human progress-supericial at least-and luxuries vanish, one by one, while what, the American of today sub consciously considers as necessities are stinted. An aeon or so ago water and artificial heat and light might have been considered luxury, or dissipa- tion by our developing ancestors. But now they are normally in the class of things we must have. There is, of course, no alarming scarcity of any of these things. Merely conservation.
 Over here we hear that the lights are going out on Broadway, and Dear born street, and Canal street, and Mar ket street; that they are mixing soft coal with hard to conserve, but at the same time give the flat dweller warm radiator to get up by. And then we figure that the scintilIating, on-and-off cigarette sign, at the corner of Broad way and Sixth avenue, for instance, would supply enough light for whole division that just one of those restless snakes pursuing each other around the edges of that sign would illuminate the whole of this Grand Hotel du France, in which we now are billeted, and be a distinct betterment on our present two-candle power (actuaD lighting plant.
 Every Town Has One.
 am divulging no outstanding physical characteristics which might betray locality when I mention the 1FdHu T1otel uu fidACS. AAcy tAc as common as Maxim's restaurants in the United States Every town has one, and they generally are august, aged hostelries, living, like the Missis- sippi river steamboats, on their reputa- tion. This one is comparative juve- nile. It is only one hundred and one years old, according to a corner stone we discovered the other day. But at that it hasn't got electric wiring and plumbing and furnace in the base ment, and if we only had just the rat tie on the end of that snakes tail hanging on a cord in room No. F there would be four jubilant soldiers in that .4pent chambre.'
 When the United States took over tlle Grand Hotel du France it got it