New-York tribune., 1919-05-07
Y. M. c. A. Wiped Out Its
Mistakes, Says Perkins

|
that it is far better for the men to
| spend their money on such articles as
these than to spend it in other ways.
For the most part the men hold the
| same views.
Waste Was Avoided
"The Y. M. c.. AS definite pro-
gramme in Europe from the beginning,
and continuously, has been to bend
every effort and use every dollar it
could obtain to occupy the leisure time
of the soldiers and to do this with
various forms of entertainment, ath-
letics, worthwhile educational activi-
ties, etc. Can there be any doubt that
every father and mother, every wife
and sister, and the men themselves,
will approve the Y. M. c. AS course in
: this respect? Is it not infinitely better
to do everything possible to occupy the
leisure time and to fill the long drcary
evenings of the soldiers than to use
the money in giving away larger
quantity of cigarettes, chocolates and
other similar articles ~
Referring to supplies, Mr.. Perkins
says it was found necessary to sup
plement supplies obtainable through
ordinary channels by setting up fac
tories. The twenty biscuit factories,
thirteen chocolate factories, three
candy factories and eight jam factories
operated in this fashion, when work
ing at their maximum, produced month
~ 10.160,O 600 packages of biscuits,
100000 tablets for drinking chocolate,
3,5G0,000 bars of sweet chocolate,
100000 bars of milk chocolate, g.
100000 bars of chocolate cream, l.
100000 nut covered chocolate rolls,
100000 cartons of caramels and
100000 tins of jam.
1t also engaged the factories of
Tolosa, Spain, to make paper. In all of
these enterprises great difficulty was
experienced in getting raw materials.
After referring to the huts operated
in France, Mr. Perkins passes on to the
athletic activities for which the "Y"
provided a large number of expert
directors and 2,350,000 athletic articles,
all of which were given to the men.
Entertainment was on a colossal scale,
he says, the service employing 922 en-
tertalners and in France alone having
an attendance at their shows of more
than 100000 men. This was in addition
to the large number of shows given
by the men with the assistance of "Y"
workers and exclusive of the moving
picture shows, which arc estimated to
have entertained a total of more than
5O,OOO,000 persons.
About Religious Zealots
"The Y. M. G. A." Mr.. Perkins goes
on to say, has been criticised for the
KIND OF religious services it held and
TOR the methods used to get the men
to attend them The soldiers who went
to Europe developed spirit of service
and self-sacrifice. The lives they were
leading were very real, and the reli-
glon they wanted to hear about was of
the same sort. Some speakers did not
comprehend this, and therefore failed
to grip the men. AS to the methods
instances where a scheduled entertain
ment of some sort would be converted
into religious meeting.
"Such occurrences we're not part of
any organized programme of the
I. M. G. A; they were the actions of
certain individuals who were short
sighted and overzealous, and the rea-
son given in most cases was that the
huts were in such constant use that
1t was impossible to avoid having one
activity overlap another. On the other
hand, 1T must be remembered that in
the many places where the services
have been properly conducted they
have been remarkably successful. A
Coblenz, whore thousands of men reg
ularly attend the Sunday evening ser
vices in the great Fest Halle"
The sending home of soldiers remit
tances also involved a great deal of
work, Mr.. Perkins says, for while the
amounts sent home were small, the
total number was very large and the
aggregate sums handled up to April l,
1919, to $19,542, 1896.
Work Being Carried On
Touching on the belief of many that
the work would be less important after
the truce than before, Mr.. Perkins
points out that this is an error. The
work is far more important, he saws,
because OF the greater amount of lei
sure time the men have. To maet the
extra requirements it has doubled it's
motor transportation service, more than
doubled its athletic and entertainment
activities and increased its personnel
V oV per cent Much OF this work is in
Germany, where it has 487 centres.
Special tribute is paid to the work Of
the women sent to Europe by the or
ganization.
ut is impossible" says Mr.. Perkins.
to overestimate the value of the work
done by the women. On April l there
were over 2,657 women actively engaged
IN the canteens, the leave areas and
IN the recreational department. They
participate in and chaperon the
dances, help get up entertainments and
do large amount of visiting with the
rmen and in remarkable degree fur
n1sh home atmosphere which is most
beneficial"
Faithful Service" Cited
"As I have said," proceeds Mr.. Per-
klns, reverting to the matter of "faith-
ful service" "there have been individual
failures and semi-failures in the dis
charge Of the Y. NJ. C. A. work. but
these have been infnitesimal compared
with the work as a whole That the
Y. M. C. A. did not lose large sums Of
money is remarkable tribute to the
honesty and faithfulness of the thou
sands Of men and women who were
engaged in this work. There were a
lew men who actually stole the money
placed An their charge, but these cases
were rare.
Whenever discovered arrests were
made and the men punished. The vast
majority of Y. NJ. G. A. men and women
who handled money were scrupulouslv
honese, and the success of the Nj,
=. a work in Europe Is unquestionably
due to the sacrifices made by indi
vldual men and women of the organi-
zation and the generous manner in
which they gave of their physical and
mental strength.
mo higher tribute could be paid
the work." Mr.. Perkins says, chan
is now being paid by the army itself.
for 1t is either taking over or largely
cooperating and enlarging the activ-