The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-07-12
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

Since the signing of the arnnistice have rather looked with sympathy upon those who have been invited to make talks before the clubs here in Birming- ham about the war
 confess that this was my feeling at the last Rotary luncheon, when Mai. H. B. May of the 167th infantry was called upon for talk after tfeA riot of fun which had been had over the drinking bout when buttermilk was substituted for ginger ale.
 AS he arose to speak I wondered how he would be able to overcome the at- mosphere of humor which had been gen. erated, but he had not been talking long before was aware that he had dissipated it and created what the French so aptly call a milieu of his own, and then l knew he was going to make a hit |
 And that is just what he did. In the first place there are some public men who wear an air of importance and rather offend by their cocksureness Now, Major May was absolutely free from this. and
 
 on the other hand by his modest and straightforwara manner won his hearers from the very start.
 
 Any public speaker knows that if he can establish sympathetic touch with his audience in the first five minutes of his address he can do with it as he pleases for once a crowd gives it's heart and mind to an orator, it is his to sway and mould at will. Happy is the man who makes a quick connection with his auditors.
 | Now the subject of recruiting in itself just at the close of the war is not in itself calculated to stir much, general interest in men who are outside of the age limit; and yet Major May, taking this for his topic, soon had us all eating out of his hand and hungry for more, for we saw that he was not trying to make a. speech but was simply bringing to our attention situation that was full of meat.
 He brought to our attention the great opportunity now offered to men within the volunteer age to get an education ithrough travel and at the same time have chance to do some real study along vocational lines to equip them for efficient service at the time of their final discharge if they desired to re- enter civilian life. Uncle Sam is offering some very attractive propositions to the youths of America.
 It was fitting that he should give us some new lights on the valorous deeds Of the famous Fighting Fourth Ala bama," and how our hearts burned as he set out in detail the story of the monotonous camps the test of endurance in patience in the trenches and the su preme courage of the real conflict of battle. It was pathetic to hear of 300 men down and no hospital to care for them, and of how they had to be brought in one by one into a stable to be operated on. | se
 His joke on Major Moon, our own Bir- mingham boy. was greatly enjoyed. After paying tribute for the highest cour- age, he yet added that he was a bit obsessed by the talk of the French who for many weary weeks fed the regiment upon gas for breakfast, dinner and SUD- per, until he felt as if the honor and the lives of the men under him were de- pendent on a thorough knowledge of the volatile substance being used by the un- ssrupulous Huns to win the war |
 He went to studying it with a thorough ness that made him an expert on the sub- ject Now it seems as if the one thing denied the rank and file in France was the chance to bathe even on a Saturday night, and that many resorted to per- fume as a substitute. It so happened that one of the young officers got hold of a bottle of sweet smelling poniade. and l leaving Major Moon in the dugout. went above and used liberal supply on his i hair.
 1 In perfect innocence, without any thought whatever of playing prank on Major Moon. it seems he started down into the dugout, and the major, whose back was to him, somehow got a whiff of new odor and thinking the Germans were trying out a new form of gas, had the gas alarm sounded. and clapped on his mask. After proper time had 1 elapsed he took it off and sent one of his aides aloft to find out more about 1 the attack. To show his knowledge of French he returned in a moment and said. Pas de gas" oh" answered the major, that is the most poisonous kind"
 l I have read much about illiteracy in Alabama. I have heard number of talks about it from the picked men and women of the state, and I have written a good deal about it myself, but the greatest in- dictment against the intolerable situation was made by Major May in his telling story of three Alabama heroes who showed conspicuous courage in the 1trenches and on the battlefeldS yet who were handicapped because they hardly knew how to read or write.
 l One of them. a sergeant from Sumter county. had received the D. S. cross one from Dale had been cited for bravery under fire. and one from Tuscaloosa though wounded severely and sent to base hospital. yet somehow managed to cut through the rcd tape which sought to tie him and returned to his company, | and served in shoeipc borea. ~..,-