Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1918-10-16
WIN HE-WAR SPIRIT
MATTER OF CONCERN
Spirit That Rises Superior To
Any Religious Differences
In Any Life
CLEAN. FAITHFUL, MANLY

Commanding general Il JUS as ailA-
ious 10 see his soldiers maintain a
clean, faithful standard of manly in
tegriiy as 10 see them come on VIC
torious in battle Not often has
been possible 10 say so much OF any
army and its leader-certainly never
in any army comparable in size and
significance to the American Expe-
dictionary Force now in France But
il is literally true concerning Cen
eral Pershing And his sentiments in
this regard are not merely unitarian.
He knows right well, OF course, as
any thorough soldier must, that an
army made up of men sound and
strong in personal charac .er is nee
essarily a more dependable army in
military sense than could ever be
constituted from rogues and rutfians.
But his moral concern for his men
goes deeper than that. Ii is out of
his own personal valuation of relig-
ious fai.h-his own experience of it.
that General Pershing has set his
heart on having every soldier under
his command preserve in France
whatever religious faith he brought
from the homelandAall of IL at full
strength-and get more of l. if he
can.
This is the handspring of the en-
couragement which the commanding
general has so constantly given to
the Y. NJ. c. A., the knights of Column
bus, the Jewish Welfare Board and
the Salvation Army. He wants his
men under the influence of these re-
ligious forces. 1t is the secret also
of his quite unexampled pains to de-
velop the power and use of the chap
laincy among his troops-.he reason
why he insisted on creating the here
tofore unheard of office of senior
chaplain" of the army and on APP
pointing to the position the man who
had been his own most streng hen
ing spiritual ounselor-Bishop Brent
No great soldier ever issued before
to his troops any such moving relig-
ious appeal as that unofficial but
nightly effective word of counsel, so
widely circulated by the Y. M. C. A.,
in which General Pershing, like an
older brother of his soldiers, begs
them to be true to the precepts of the
Saviour. And these public signs con-
firm the reality of the conviction
which an innocent revelation of head
quarters secrets tells of his express
ing to his staff: Gentlemen, this army
of ours has a heart and a conscience,
and that heart and conscience must be
fed" In that noble word is spoken
the explanation of much that makes
General Pershing unique among the
military chieftains of his time.
Such avowals from the commanding
general naturally have a tremendous
effect on his subordinate officers. The
influence may be slow in filtering
down to the subalterns, but among
the higher grades remarkable con-
sensus of sentiments sustains the
commanders eagerness for keeping
the army morally fine. An incident
in one of the best disciplined regi-
ments of the front line reveales how
strongly this better ideal is already
intrenched in the thought of army
leaders. A lieutenant newly assigned
to the regiment lectured his platoon
on the military duty of avoiding con-
tagious disease Understand me
now" he said sternly to the men;
Il don't give hang about your NOR
ais or your character; that's no con-
Germ of mine; but am responsible for
your keeping in fit condition to do
your work as soldiers, and therefore,
demand that you keep out of places
where you might contract contagion
that would disable you"
The colonel of the regiment heard
of the speech and promptly sent for
the lieutenant. did you talk to your
men in this way that has been re-
ported to me?" he asked. The lieu
tenant acknowledged the accuracy of
the quotation. do you think that
talk of that kind stands for the mind
of your superiors and represents the
spirit of the A. E. F.?" was the next
question. The lieutenant thought it
did. The colonel fas almost fierce:
We'll, tell you it doesn't The bust
ness of ana. E. F. officer is to look
out for the moral character of his men
just as much as for their physical
efficiency. You have been assigned
to this regiment. You think you be-
long to it, but want to tell you you
are never going to belong to us until
you revise your opinion about what
you are here for. This regiment runs
on a different idea
The question of drink rests on the
same basis. The higher up in the
army an officer stands, the stronger
generally speaking, is his earnest
ness about inducing his men not to
drink even the permitted French
wines. One colonel said: What made
prohibitionist out of men was see
ing National Army regiments that
have been organized out of the draft
from the dry states-.he states that
have been dry long time. so that
their present generation of draft age
has grown up without even seeing
saloons. The draft men from Kan
Sas. for instance, are simply mag
nifcent If that's what prohibition
can do for an army. I'm certainly for
prohibition all the way through
Rev. Paul Moody, younger son of
the great evangelist, Dwight L. Moody,
is Bishop Brent's Protestant associ-
ate at chaplaincy headou9 rters; Faith
er DOhery his Catholic sOciate The