Arizona republican., 1919-03-03
By Frederic J. Haskin

WASHINGTON, D. C., March 2.- We feel very bitter against the ones in authority for not trying to hunt our boy. after he fought in mud and blood from one end of the line to the other in the worst branch of the army. His father is in poor health. and the sus- pense and grief are killing him by inches: He is our only child, our only dependence in our old age. May the ! Lord help you find him for us
 This is an excerpt from one of the thousands of letters that have recently poured into the surgeon generals of flee of the army, asking aid from its new division-The Port of Missing Men. From all parts of the country they come, and from all classes of per | sons who have lost track of their boys since they went to France, and are l eager Tor any scrap of information. 1 Some of them enclose photographs of l soldiers, and some contain Soiled en- | VelopeS that have carried letters to | France and brought them back again, because the men to whom they were | addressed could not be found. Still l others are sent by registered mail to l impress the surgeon generals office with the importance of the inquiry.
 In the surgeon generals office the letters are stripped of their main facts the name of the missing man, his company and regiment, and the date and name of the place where he was last reported to be-which are then mailed to the Port of Missing Men. 1 This is the interesting name that has I been attached to a newspaper column appearing in all the army hospital pa pers, including the three large ones in New York, Newport News and Wash ! ington, and the twenty six small ones scattered throughout the country. The total circulation of these papers is estimated at fifty thousand In other words, fifty thousand soldiers read these papers and note the names of the men reported under the head, The Port of Missing Men, Out of the fifty thousand, there is almost certain to be one soldier who has known one of the men reported missing in the column. Maybe he was in the same company. and knew where the man was last stationed. In the majority of in stances he is even likely to know what ultimately became of him. In any event he is apt to be able to shed some light on the situation.
 The other day for example the sur geon generals office received a letter from a Washington woman, asking for information concerning the where abouts of a certain lieutenant station ed somewhere in France. She was writing for his mother in Honolulu The name of the lieutenant was i'm mediately printed in the Port of Miss ing Men, and was seen by a private in one of the army hospitals, who re- ported that he had been in a hospital with such an officer at Savenay France. At that time he had been recovering, the private asserted, and was soon to go back to duty The mother of the lieutenant had not heard from him since last May, and this in formation, coming over six months later, was extremely reassurinS.
 You may ask, along with most oi the anxious mothers, sisters and wive! who write to the surgeon generals of flee, why this information is not re- ported by the adjutant generals office of the army. Ones first impulse i. certainly to sympathize with the wo- man who was bitter against the one. in authority for not trying to hun
 d with one more indig nant mother, who writes: '.We can not help but feel that if the govern ment had given as much attention t,
 1ating the boys after the war Wa! over as they did to get them at in, beginning of the war they would knov something about the missing boys
 But upon investigation, they are com pelled to admit that the adjutant gen
 erals office is certainly doing all tha