The daily star-mirror. (Moscow, Idaho) 1911-1939, 1919-08-23
ARMY OFFICER
ENJOYS NORTHWEST
MAJOR HUTTON GLAD TO BE AT
HOME AS CIVILIAN AFTER IN
TERESTING EXPERIENCES

Major S. E. Hutton who returned
to Moscow some days ago from the
middle west where he had been visit
ing and inspecting industrial plants
notably those manufacturing and as
sembling automobiles, is spending &
few days quietly at home here in ar
attempt to recover from a severe at
tack of hay fever.
Major Hutton secured his discharge
from the army some weeks ago, after
turning in his report on the Caproni
600 bi-plane, which he was especially
sent to this country to prepare for the
war department. When questioned
concerning his army experiences and
his feeling about returning to civilian
life, Major Hutton said:
Naturally, l am glad to be back in
the northwest, for here, it seems to
me, we enjoy the maximum of those
things that make the United States
the best of countries and the Ameri-
cans the best of peoples. We have a
rich and beautiful country and in
telligent, high principled and open
minded people. Here we may develop
individuality, the dearest possession of
an American.
81 count myself lucky in getting
across and especially SO in being de-
tailed to duty in Italy. Enjoy is hard
ly the correct word to use in speak
ing of my army experience, but | re-
gard the past year and a half as the
most interesting of my life in the way
of experience. | have never regretted
enlisting-in fact | congratulate my
self on showing a CLEAN of real intel
ligence when did that. I think Fred
erick Palmer was quite right when he
said officers could not really under
stand the army without having been
enlisted men, but should add the con-
ditions that they should "do hitch"
among strangers without source of in
fluence. Naturally, the idea is not
popular among officers, but neither
is the idea of military service popular
with most previous service men
II am proud of the fact that I
belonged to the best organization of
the best men the world has ever
known and l took more pride in get
ting non-com's warrant than an
officers commission.
> 81 hesitate to let myself be quoted
on phases of army life and military
matters that interest me most, for the
reason that people unacquainted with
army life and military matters as they
actually are, would likely misunder-
stand me or be inclined to doubt me. !
''To illustrate: The acts of Hard
boiled Smith, and conditions at /
Prison Farm No. 2 near Paris were !
common knowledge in the A. E. F.
many months ago. When I told about |
some of these things when | visited
Moscow some months ago, people
frankly doubted the accuracy of my
information. Lately, there have ap-
peared in the newspapers reports of
a number of incidents actually wit
messed by my comrades. They knew
life at Prison Camp No. 2 because
they were unjustly imprisoned there.
II don't want to be understood as
being inclined to condemn the army
wholesale. There is no occasion for
that. It was as well conducted as
any huge public business could be
under like circumstances; but there
is room for improvement; and in that
connection it is to be hoped that ex-
service men will be heard. Their i'm
pressions of the army were not /
gathered from carefully censored or
carefully edited reports for civilian
They were on the in !
side looking out. Army reform and {
a permanent military policy do not
seem such simple matter to them as l