The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1919-06-27
FRIDAY, JUNE 27, 1919.
ARMY WELFARE WORK.

The country is beginning to get the
" hindsight' of wartime policies and it
will be valuable if the wisdom can be
conserved for application in future
crises and difficulties. A recent post
war Judgment is that of Raymond D
Fosdick, chairman of the commission
on training camp activities, in a report
made public by the war department.
Mr.. Fosdck declares that the rival
ries engendered by the sectarian nature
of the different organizations sharing
in the United War Work Campaign
fund of $172,00O,OO0 were very detri-
mental and should be avoided in the flu
ture by the government through a single
nOnsectarian agency. He also discusses
the work of the different organizations.
The Y NJ. C. A. in the conduct of the
canteens was conducting an actual
business in which it incurred much loss
on account of its unframed personnel
and the untitness of part of its agents
who We're "utterly unadapted to this
purpose and had no common ground in
mixing with our virile, red blooded
young soldiers" There is also, in Mr.
Fosdick 5 opinion, some Legitimate
criticism of the amount of work in
France accomplished by the Knights of
Columbus with the large allotment of
money made to them.
No criticism is made in the report of
the work of the Jewish welfare board,
the Salvation Army or the women con
nected with the different organizations
Here is what he said about women
After eight months with the troops
in France, / am convinced that the
average woman worker attached to a
hut is worth four or five men workers.
Certainly her effect on the morale and
spirit of the troops is extraordinary.
An Honest to God American Girl as
the soldiers call her, can do more to
keep the men cheerful and create an at
mosphere of home than any other fac
tor; and the work of our women in
France-Y. M. G. A. girls, Salvation
Army girls, Red Cross girls and the rep
resentatives of other agencies-has been
IN no small degree responsible for the
unflagging devotion and inexhaustible
patience with which our troops carried
forward their high enterprise.
Mr.. Fosdick sums up the sectarian
rivalry as follows:-
"The tendency is to stimulate rival
ries and iockeying for positions that are
disheartening to witness. To see the
representatives of these different agen-
cies vying with each other in an at
tempt to make a lasting good impress
sion upon returning troops bringing
prominently into the foreground their
respective emblems and insignia, is to
despair of the whole system of social
work in the war Our men have been
glad to receive what the societies had
for them in the shape of service or sup
plies, and they have not cared two
straws whether it came from Protest
ant, Catholic, or Jewish hands Our
boys fought at Chateau Thierry and in
the Argonne as Americans. They did
not fight as Protestants, Catholics OF
Jews. As a matter of fact there is nc
reason for sectarianism. The religious
interests of the army are wisely con
fined to the chaplains -
The report is said to be approved by
Secretary Baker and doubtless will be
by most thinking Americans who will
remember these teachings of experience
and direct future activities accordingly