The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1920-11-09
The work at Chaumont, however, is
soon brought up to date.

| The work at Chaumont, however, is
soon brought UP to date.
Private Good is released and sent to
ST. Sulpice. where a great many store
houses of the U. S. army exists. Then
he may get his letter or twenty letters
if he stays long enough to get them.
But in the meantime two or three
months may have elapsed, and Private
Good and his relatives are GUESSING
the bum" mail service. A large part
of the personnel of the army in France
was constantly on the move to army
/ camp, schools or special work with
French instructors Private Good s
case is not an exception
In his case and thousands of others
every effort was made by the clerks
in the postoffice service to get the
/ letters delivered, but the thousands of
people back home who have mailed
/ these letters must appreciate and at
tempt to visualize. in certain cases,
the essential difficulties, minute per-
centage of the whole under which the
postoffice department of the United
! States army performed it's unusual
task.
Letters Badly Addressed.
! Many letters were addressed so bad
/ ly that often the best clerk in the of
| flee could hardly read the address.
! Secretary Franklin Lane said over
! 200, 900 applicants could not read their
name in applying for enlistments. No
doubt 300, 900, were very poor writers
and again many thousands of letters
were addressed incorrectly. Some of
our soldier orderlies were not any too
well acquainted with their proper
| a
problem. Every hour for months
| brought changes from headquarters.
Often daily papers and magazines
were never delivered because the
first-class mail was first in our esti-
nation.
One of the chief difficulties Of our
present day postoffce troubles is c!ut-
tering up the channels of our mail de-
livery with circulars and so-caIed
publications that no one would ever
subscribe for and If he did he certain
ly has money to throw away.
| Often mail for whole divisions were
held up until they were so fixed that
their postmasters could take care of
,, tie mail. Just one look into our old
confidential scheme book would con
vince any skeptic that our difficulties
were more than enough to discourage
our best clerks.
Other Difficulties.
AS an example of delay | noted in
| visiting one of our hospitals which
was full of our heroic marines at that
| time A patient said to me, Say you
mail man, when do | get my letters?
| asked him how long since he had
heard from home. He said four
months.
How long have you been wound
| ed?" l asked
Three weeks" came the answer.
How many timse have you been
moved in that time?" "Oh. about
eight times" said the lad and added,
Il leave here tomorrow"
One can readily see the difficulties
which had been experienced in locat-
+ ing the hero. With every mail sent
be sent to another address. The cen
trail records office at Tours worked
thousands of men trying to keep track
of over 100000 men. requirements
were very frequent. Hence their
mail was dragging along trying to
catch them. Delivery to transporta-
ton corps was very difficult. Thous-
ands of small detachments hardly ever
received any mail at all until later
some of them got their mail when they
arrived back in the states.
Some mail was destroyed by fire, or
by train wreck. Many accidents Oc-
Cured on the French railroads. French
railroads are good, but not like the