Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1919-03-09
(By Blanche Brace)

(By Blanche Brace)
 Coblenz, Grmany, Feb. 2O.-To see Coblenz today is to be reminded forci- bly, of sertain frivolous song the American soldiers used to hum some- times as they marched toward the frOnt-line trenches back in France.
 "We don't want the bacon,
 We don't want the bacon,
 All we want is piece of the Rhine"
 They have it, for the time being, at any rate. The city is given over to hem. American soldiers march in tri- umph parade twice every day through the streets of Coblenz, while the citi- zens stand still to watch them pass. American flags fly from each of the many patrol boats that snort up and down the river. The boys from the United States look down the top of the huge statute of the Emperor Will helm, where the Moselle flows into the Rhine. Across the river the great fortress of Ehrenbreitstein has turned khaki-codored with their uniforms. They even waltz with felt slippers ov- CT their hob-nailed boots, on the hard wood floors of the room where the Kaiser Bill once slept, in Stolzenfels Castle, a few miles away They at tend Y. M. c. A. entertainments in Coblenz's great Fest Halle.
 They are billeted everywhere. The best in Germany is none too good for the boys of the United States. Here you find them quartered in factory, there in theatre. Soldiers who spread their blankets down in the mud few weeks ago are sleeping now in alleged royal beds, some of them. They have traded their decooting stations for marble bathtubs, and their shell-holes for castles. Only the faithful army "slum" has followed them into their new condition of grandeur.
 Dreamed. He was A king
 "Gosh, these beds get on my noives!" Complained an East Side private from New York, who wore the D. s. C. Hast night I even went and dreamed I was Rink myself.
 "Did you have good time?" Some- one demanded.
 Say, where do you get that stuff about eighteen cents for 1t, and WSolCl VI CHC O. O. V. VI COuISC didin't have a good time. l woke up plum crying because could never be boss of Tammany, that's what kind of la good time had. The next night spread my blanket down on the floor. <" None of the Americans would want to be king if it meant staying here permanently. They would swap the whole of Germany, now that they have seen it, for any square foot anywhere back in the United States. It has been sometime since most of them marched across the Rhine, and the first thrill of finding themselves in Boche-land has rather worn away. That blue and red and white emblem upon their arms, with it's round o and interwoven A, which signifies that they belong to ale American Army of Occupation, still warns their hearts, of course. Other wise, they certainly wouldn't pay a perfectly good mark and a half, or aboutabout eighteen cents for it, and sew it upon their sleeves themselves, as they do excepting those who ask Y. M. C. A. women to do it for them.
 But the American soldiers are so adaptable that they become acustom- cd to almost anything in few hours, and after that they long to try some thing else. Being ill Germany was an old story by the end of the third day, and sleeping in castles had lost it's sav- or by the second night. Then they haunted the "Y." huts for home at- .mosphere. ..l
 Hang Kaiser Bill
 The excess energy which they no longer use up in fighting has expend- ed itself in queer ways up here. It led to a group of them to hang the Kaiser,-in effigy-in the village of Maven recently - .t
 There is an army rumor that it .caus- ca over 100 of them to explore beyond the neutrality boundaries clear to Co., longne, billeting themselves upon the German people and living upon the fat of the land as they went.
 There is another story about how q a dozen of them arrived to find that their division had moved on, and de- claed to take over the German village while they waited to find out where their, outfit was. They elected their own burgomaster, and ran the shops to suit themselves for as much as three days, according to the story.
 The truth is they want to go home. They are far more homesick, living comfortably up here in Germany than they ever were while they were dod- ging bullets. in the trenches. They are willing to stay. in Germany as long as they are needed here, but they can't i help regarding the time as a period of waiting for the whistle of their boats.
 T suppose you ain't got any straight lope on when we get away from here?" is always theiir first wlstful question to T.. M. c. A. workers.
 Little groups of American soldiers on the banks of the Rhine and eye the forests and castles on the i other side with mixture of curiosity i and of ennui.
 Proud of HOnors
 "Gosh, bet there isn't steam fur nace in the whole lott" First Division