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CONVOY OF U. S. SHIPS EN ROUTE TO FOREIGN WATERS WITH OUR SAMMIES

AND SUPPLIES

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OUR SAMMIES "TIED DOWN" ON AMERICAN DESTROYER IN ROUGH SEA

well-being. He has, of course, received his shots in the army for typhoid and smallpox, the scourges of ancient armies, before he leaves the training camp, and thereafter he is under constant medical supervision. I would not willingly give away information that might be of value to the enemy, but it will be small comfort for him to learn of the far-seeing provision which is governing our preparation. Daily lectures that I have listened to on board, delivered by the chiefs of the medical staffs to nurses and doctors, proved conclusively that we have profited by the shocking experiences of our allies during the early months of the war. American wounded are not to be left unattended for days, for a service that is as nearly ideal as human foresight can make it, was in full operation before the first American soldier was struck down on the soil of France.

Now, how about food? Well, let us take a

sample breakfast that I helped the enlisted men on our ship to demolish one morning. Cereal and cow's milk, broiled sausage, bacon or ham, bread, butter and jam, all of the best quality and no limit but the appetite; there's nothing the matter with that. Lunches and dinners were equally good and no two were served alike. Several times I recognized dishes as being the same that had been served to the officers and first class passengers in the salon dining room. The piano in the men's quarters was a far better instrument that that which we had in the salon, and it was always in use. After the ports were closed at night and thick darkness settled outside the ship, the men played and sang and danced till the bugle sounded "taps."

Shower baths and daily drills helped out the good food in keeping the men fit and fine, and nothing that would tend to keep them happy

was left to chance. A physical instructor arranged sports and pastimes, boxing, wrestling, tugs of war, in which the contestants strove to carry off the money prizes contributed by the officers, and the honors for the companies or services to which they belonged. Cards, checkers and chess helped to fill in, and never an hour of the day but half a company could be seen, heads together in approved minstrel style, intoning their songs that ranged from rag-time ditties to ultra-sentimental ballads. Be sure that "Kaiser Bill," sung to the tune of a popular song was never omitted.

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I hear the cattle lowing in the lane, And see again the fields of golden grain; I almost hear them sigh as they bade their boy "good-bye"

I wonder how the old folks are at home." This little sketch of our "Sammies" at sea would not be complete without some mention of their mental attitude toward this new business of war upon which they are embarked. Next to the spirit of the mothers who have given them to

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"SAMMY" IN HIS LIFE SUIT

their country, comes that of the sons. They do not feel that they are being offered. up as sacrifices upon the altars of liberty. Far from it. Their feeling is that of being engaged in a great adventure in support of a righteous cause into far countries where strange sights are to be seen. The flame of chivalry which burned so brightly in the bosom of the knight-errant of long ago would not altogether blind him to the beauties of the strange countries through which he was questing. Between the beheading of giants and slaying of dragons, he visited no doubt at the castles of the damsels he rescued, and may be imagined as "fox - trotting" or "onestepping," or whatever the olden equivalent thereof happened to be, after din

ner in the evenings. And so with our lads. While out to drive the German out of France, they intend to see and hear and learn and have a generally good time meanwhile.

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WYOMING MAN DEMONSTRATING HIS LIFE SAVING SUIT

The suit in the union style is made of specially water proofed material. The complete outfit weighs 15 pounds. The foot of the suit is weighted with a five-pound lead shot. This tends to bring the person wearing the suit into an upright position. The suit is absolutely water tight and fastens in front with patent clasps. The buoyancy of the suit is derived from a life belt of a special composition passing about the waist and over the shoulders.

This surface cheerfulness, however, does not impair the force of their serious purpose. Many of the doctors I talked with had given up large and lucrative practices to take a sublieutenant's pay. Among the engineers who are to build our military railways in France, were men who had relinquished high positions in the great railway services of our country. The casual way in which they spoke of their personal sacrifices rendered them still more impressive; and this fine temper was to be found just as much in evidence among the men. Though quite unconscious of it, they are all furnishing to history the spectacle of the last "Crusade"; one which is the greater because instead of attempting to regain the Holy Sepulcher or extend the temporal dominions of some church, they are fighting to defend a great

world principle. The more powerfully because of its quiet tone, the statement of one man illustrated their spirit.

"Those Germans are all wrong. We are going to put them right."

That purpose shows in their bearing so strongly that it greatly impressed the Londoners when our first troops marched through their city. "They were so tall and lean and muscular, square-jawed, brown, steel-eyed," one London journalist commented upon them. "They look so dangerous, yet so quiet. Those fellows are going to give the Germans a surprise.

That exactly describes them "dangerous and quiet." Born and raised in the wider (Continued on page ix)

W

By WILFRED H. SCHOFF

Secretary, The Commercial Museum, Philadelphia

THOEVER glances back over the history of these United States for the century past must be impressed with the entire singleness of vision which guided the American people; and the fervor of the protests that were made against extension of our rule into the far Pacific, no less than the popular antipathy against participation in Europe's affairs, which persisted so long after the beginnings of this great war, testifies anew to the fixity of purpose that animated us. To the people of the United States it seemed, during that lapsed century, as though Nature, in framing our continent, had set bounds to our destiny for many generations to come. The labor of subduing and of utilizing to the full its seemingly measureless resources held our imagination, as well as our enterprise, in

thrall.

Europe-over-crowded, driven by pitiless need to wide commerce and the adventures of the seas--remained mightily content. Europe, beholding the vast strides we continued to make in the achievement of our task, regarded its own factories and merchant fleets and, at thought of our energies turned to trade, shivered as Kipling did at thought of the sword in the grasp of this peaceful people.

Bitter, secret strifes and forays raged abroad between Chancellories, bankers, shipping and shippers for this prize of trade and that unpicked haunch of commerce, while we hewed to the line and all but looked askance at those few and new pioneers among us who realized our power and discerned the possibilities that awaited the wielding of it.

The war pitched into our hand the purse of Fortunatus. Probably the original Fortunatus, while he spent with Fortunatus lavishness, continued to react to the sensation that remained dominant in popular feeling for so long a time-the naive, childlike wonder over the sheer strangeness of it all. Those who

shared in the plenteous dividends, those who swung to riches from the end of a shoestring, those who gripped fortune by the throat and made her stand and deliver, may have felt like so many Little Jack Horners pulling out plums with much self approbation. But they were by no means all of the people; and, until the time came for our own plunge into the lava of the world's chaos, we remained, on the whole, preoccupied with the simple wonder of our unsought riches.

It was in such a manner that the huge increment of our South American trade befell us. There were those among us who had been its pioneers staunch, courageous, far - seeing builders of the future against the overpowering odds of rivals long and strongly entrenched; and they gained much that had been more than well earned. But, as compared with the systematized, organized, often subsidized campaigns of the cartels, the bankers, the manufacturers and shipowners abroad, the American people had done nothing to merit such a recompense. The purse of Fortunatus, working overtime, was disgorging almost embarrassing largess. We took what we could of it-naively, as before-and let the rest roll past, beyond our care and ken.

But now, and here, we held something which we knew need prove no fairy gold during the years sequent on the war. The long, unhelped, even unencouraged efforts of those few pioneers of ours in South American trade had accomplished one thing: They had taught the people that South America constituted a natural adjunct to their prime function, a trade corollary to our demonstration of the theorem of our resources. For once, the popular imagination has been fired to flashes of discernment beyond our mere four boundary walls; for once, we feel, as a people, distinct reluctance in contemplating a withdrawal into the still spacious shell of our continent. This hugely

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