The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-04-12
SALVATION ARMY TO HELP RECEIVE
 26TH DIVISION

Boston, April 12-The feeding of at least 5000 doughboys and providing sleeping quarters for about 1,4OO Will be the Salvation Arnny's contribution to the reception for the Yankee Dt- vision when they come down from Camp Devens on the 18th Of thls month, and march in review of mil lion or more New England men and women. Everybody but the "Sallies" regard it as rather a big job, but the blue-bonnetted lassies never gave 1t a second thought, for had the re- quirements been greater they had the organization and the buildings to take care of the returning heroes.
 Recently the New England province of the Army purchased the Hotel Rexford in the West End for home for service men. This will be ready when the Yankee Division arrives. A thousand heroes will be provided with sleeping quarters in this hotel. In the huge canteen in the basement 5000 will be fed every day while the l celebration is on. Four hundred more
 will be housed and fed in the Army s l Social Center on Vernon street, RoS- | bury. In normal times the Army con- | ducts a dental clinic and social ser vice for the poor of the district in l this huge establishment. If the Inili- l tary authorities get stuck for room | the Army can take care of several | hundred others in the Peoples Palace | in the South End where they provide | clean, comfortable lodgings for sevtral
 hundred working men at a minimum 1 of cost and at a loss to the Army ! I,o1 ole available.
 All of these places have been sup ported in the past by the collections | of the tambourine girl on the street | But the Army has expanded fastel | than the lassies could collect change 1 enough to support it's work. Again these girls were needed for work il
 the slums, in new hospitals that art to be placed in commission for thu | wives and relatives of service men 1 Here in New England the Army ha
 hundreds of thousands of new friend
 that it must keep in contact with ant 1 they are going to meet this responsi 1 biIity. It is a nationwide expansion
 and to meet it the Army will have
 drive for $13,OO0,0OO for Home Ser
 vice Funds May 19 to 26. New Eng
 land will be asked to contribute S2
 28O,Oo0.
 Two years ago the average man O
 the street only thought of the Saliva
 ton Army in connection with thei tin-panny, noisy street meetings, thei work for the outcast men and wOme and the poor in the slums Every , | body knew that they did good wor but it was all happening in a differer 7 world than they lived in. But no7 the Salvation Army in most ever = large municipality in New EngIan
 has grown by leaps and bounds an f no great civic movement is conplet ; without the Salvation Army partic f pating in it
 , All this happened within two year } It was the doughboy's letters from th l front line trenches that sent a thri t. from one end of the nation to th l other when he described in his chaI , acteristic way the wonderful brave1
 and efficiency of the "Sallies'' as |
 called them. With this great popl
 larity great responsibilities came
 the Army, and today, as in the case | 1 the reception of the Yankee Divisio, s the Salvation Army is assigned u = greatest task of all civic and war O ' ganizations, simply because they hay < the facilities to handle them.