gether in the meadows and drink from the stream, and there are hills in the distance, and the wooded spurs of Coucy and Saint-Gobain."-How anxiously we follow our troops there today! And down he came through the air scented with the breath of rejoicing trees and grass to Chauny the industrial, where the river stole away like a thief and swung around corners with an eddy, the willows nodding all the way. So many centuries went to the making of that golden valley that is now a ruin! And so he got to Noyon on the river in a plain surrounded by wooded hills. It amused him to describe the straight-backed cathedral with its two stiff towers and its east end like the poop of some

great battleship; "almost any moment a window might open and an admiral thrust forth a cocked hat and proceed to take an observation".

Have the German guns and firebrands respected Calvin's birthplace, or is the place more noble as a ruin than when its sturdy bargemen walked its streets in peace?

The line of the invaders' retreat is desolate save for the crosses that mark the resting-places of the brave who loved freedom more than life. Very soon man will come creeping back, and plough and spade will in time bury the horror of war. But time will not so quickly heal the wounded hearts of those whose dear ones lie buried in far-off "douce" France.

Herbert Putnam wired me to proceed with haste from Binghamton, New York, to a camp library somewhere in Texas. He sent along a uniform into which I was poured and then buttoned, buckled and strapped in until I was an object of admiration to myself and of curiosity to others. It must have been the label-which some said reminded them of a hand-painted soup plate-for while on the trail of the setting sun I was variously addressed as "Judge", "General", "Boss".

The railroad man handed me a ticket longer than a short-story, in three chapters, the last stopping at Fort Worth; so did I. Before it became a suburb of a military reservation, Fort Worth was known as a "cow

town". It is now a very dry, sanitary and moral town, whether by conscription or volition need not be here discussed, except to note that when the United States Government sets out to be paternal it plays the part to the last detail. And all this not for the salvation of Fort Worth; not in the least degree, but for the very good health of the boys at Camp Bowie, for whom your Uncle Sam has an intimate responsibility.

The job was to run the A.L.A. camp library at Camp Bowie, Fort Worth, Texas, and a mighty fine job it was. An intensive vacation, something doing every minute, night and day, seven days a week. There were two libraries; one a fixed and established

collection of about 12,000 volumes, touching, at least, the whole gamut of knowledge, classified and duly catalogued, installed on the shelves, drawn and discharged as in any public library, though by a slightly simpler method. This is a collection selected, largely, by A.L.A. headquarters and by them kept up to the minute, particularly in technical and military books, including air service. The use of this library is about evenly divided between fiction and non-fiction, a proportion of which any city library would be proud to have. Library hours were, nominally, from 8 A. M. to 10 P. M.; actually, they began earlier and lasted longer.

The other collection was fluid, changing from day to day, sometimes forty thousand, sometimes fifty, sixty thousand volumes. These were sent to us under instructions of the A.L.A. by libraries in Texas, Oklahoma, Montana, Colorado, California, and were stored, temporarily, in bedroom, storeroom, platform, tent, in boxes of varying capacities. Over and over again the staff thought they had this collection well in hand and were ready to manœuvre when a big army-truck loaded to the guards with boxes of books would roll up, and the driver joyously announce that he had thirteen boxes from Utah, eleven from Montana. These books came to us, as a rule, prepared for use and also as a rule, selected with common sense. The percentage of junk, antiques and derelicts was no larger than that encountered in any city library in the A.L.A. book drive. They covered literature, standard authors, the arts, history; there were many beautiful sets. This collection is drawn upon, first, to enrich the permanent collection of the main library; second, and chiefly, to supply the Y.M.C.A., the

K. of C., Jewish Welfare, Christian Science, Salvation Army, Soldiers' Club, (all in Fort Worth) and, notably, the flying fields, of which there are three in the vicinity of Camp Bowie, distant eight, ten and fourteen miles, respectively, from headquarters. Then there would be at various times, according to the demand, collections of books sent to the Signal Corps, to the Machine-Gun Battalion, Divisional Headquarters, Hostess House, Nurses' House, etc. In a word, any unit on the reservation was entitled and invited to draw on the camp library, and the requisition was honored at sight.

The Y.M.C.A. huts were our chief distributing agencies, collections here running from 500 to 2,000 volumes, and the various Y.M.C.A. ("Y" it's called) educational secretaries making monthly reports to the main library. There are great possibilities for developing this phase of the work through a closer working partnership between the Y.M.C.A. and the A.L.A. The "Y" libraries, as well as the K. of C., are, or should be, changed every two months. An important phase of the work is the handling and distribution of magazines contributed by the public to every camp library; at Bowie amounting to fifteen or twenty mail sacks a week-wheat and chaff, and a good deal of chaff, fads and cults, religious and otherwise. The camp library drew the sacks from the post-office and, with the "Y" people, sorted and culled and tied in bundles, preparatory to the semi-weekly task of distributing the magazines to the "Y" huts, the K. of C., the base hospital, etc.

The flying fields are in a special class, by reason of the selected quality of the men and their reading habits. So it was desirable to install books not only at the "Y" hut

in every flying field but also at the officers' mess. There was a demand for the latest publications on air service; also for literature, a wide range, and, notably, for poetry. The most interesting human document in the shape of a registration book I ever saw was at Barron Field. Every state in the union except Delaware was represented; the British Empire and all its provinces.

Our largest branch was at the Red Cross house, where we installed upward of 3,000 volumes, in charge of a trained librarian, whose gracious work includes visiting the wards of the hospital and carrying the cheer of the book.

No man may set metes and bounds to the influence of the camp library, its informing and enlarging of the mind, its illumination of the spirit, its broadening of the vision, its fusing of the common purpose. "My" division (I humor myself by calling it mine) left the post for overseas with the bands booming and the boys roaring, "The Panthers Are Coming"! They meant it a message of good cheer to our allies, of warning to the Huns. It will hearten the former and the latter will do well to heed. For one hundred, four, five hundred thousand; nay, one, two million, three million, as many as may be needed, American youth will be going overseas-youth, quick of leg, alert in mind and body, fused and animated by the common purpose. They have learned their business, and know it so well that even in the rush of battle they will deliberately stop to adjust their sights. They will finish the job in a neat and workmanlike manner. Not all the forces of the powers of darkness can stop them from finishing the job.

The camp library helps in the day's work and the day's play. Here the boy comes for amusement, fun, adventure, laughter, for the detective story, the sea story, for the story that brings back mother, father and the kids. Here he comes to think, study, and find a pilot who may guide him through the web of diplomacies, lies, subterfuges, philosophies, to the simple truth, to a plain answer to "why the United States is at war". He comes to study the printed page which will help make him a better soldier. The color of his hat cord does not matter, whether he wear a bar of silver or gold, or two; whether he wear a chevron or no on his sleeveit does not matter. He is a member of the army of freedom, pledged to defend the colors-that is all and that is enough. There is no more democratic place on the reservation than the camp library; and with a lawn, window flower-boxes, palms, ferns, pictures, letter-writing materials, and no signs, no "don'ts", we tried to make it an attractive and friendly place.

The camp library is a standard by which to test the quality of the American army. The test shows a reading, studying, reading, studying, thinking army. They want to know why, where, how. Beware the army that thinks!

The influence of the camp library does not stop with its particular military reservation. We issued upward of 8,000 books for overseas, collected under authority of Divisional Headquarters, requisitioned by commanding officers; and all done under the approval of General Pershing, who believes that the book is a military asset. The colonel of the 143rd regiment sent one afternoon a requisition for 3,500 books, with a sergeant, a detail of men, an army wagon and four mules to take them away. It was

done before sundown. There was a book for every man in this regiment of high standing. In many instances the men came in to make their individual selections for overseas-Shakespeare, Browning, Emerson, Stevenson. In addition the camp library cooperating with the Red Cross and the Y.M.C.A. placed about 9,000 magazines on troop trains. And what was done at Bowie was merely typical of what is going on at every camp library.

Haughty moments come to the Camp Librarian. I was making a strategic retirement after mess from the Hostess House when the most beautiful and intelligent woman I ever saw stopped me and said:

"General, may I speak to you?"

"Madam", I replied, "you may speak to me, though I am not a General"; and to my daughter who was with me: "Girl, walk behind me; I've been mistook for a General."

On the Fourth of July, Lizzie Ford had taken me over to Camp Dick, near Dallas, for the air tournament, in which birdmen from three fields took part. Lizzie was in one of her worst and most temperamental moods and wanted to stop at every red tank for gas or oil. At one of these stops a venerable native son, of great dignity and elaborate courtesy, after he had waited on Lizzie said to me: "Colonel, you-all's a fightin' man an' I sure know you've come from the fightin' front where the noble youth of the Lone Star State are eager to be and where, I pledge my honah, they will prove themselves worthy sons of noble sires. Tell me, sah, when you think the war will be over."

I had not the courage to undeceive him. I enlisted in the ranks of liars and pretenders; for, muttering something about army regulations for

bidding, etc., I gave Lizzie her head. I hope some day to go back and confess the truth to that trustful old man.

I was swathed in my uniform, labels and letters all on at the proper angles according to Hoyle; humidity was high and I was steaming freely, while auto-absorption of my vapors was sluggish. The time was the hottest hour in the hottest day in the history of the world in the hottest place in the hottest state of the United States, to wit, in that Fort Worth hotel frequented by the khaki which wears leather leggings. I did not mean to be obtrusive in my military bearing, indeed my chief worry was how long I would live without breathing and whether Herbert Putnam would enter a notation after my name, "Died while wearing his uniform in the performance of duty", when the most intelligent middle-aged civilian I ever saw, saluted and said, "Excuse me, but are you in aviation?" I scanned him closely and suspiciously, but he showed no trace of humor, and his motive could not have been ulterior, for Fort Worth is drier than the fondest dreams of William Jennings Bryan and the W.C.T.U. Guarding every avenue of escape so I could not debouch, that middle-aged civilian recited how many pounds of yarn his wife had knit into I forget how many thousand socks, sweaters, mufflers, wristlets, and of the sums of money he had poured into bonds, stamps, funds, war-chests.

There is no lack of talkers in war work-sometimes I think there are too many of us-but there is a great need of listeners, of patient, sympathetic people who will just let the boys talk while they listen. The Y.M.C.A. makes much of securing men to talk to the boys. It ought to be the other

way round. At Camp Bowie I would sit around by the hour while the boys talked to me. I raised the wages of my darky janitor because the boys. would contentedly talk to him from 6.30 to 7.30 A.M. and let me go to breakfast. It is tough, I know, just listening; a greater self-denial than a foodless meal, but if it makes the soldier boy happier than anything to just talk, talk, talk-of his mother, his girl, how soon he is going over, what Christmas will find him home-why it's worth while.

My haughtiest moment was at a flying field, where I had gone in civilian clothes, and mighty few of them. I had wandered into the officers' club for a drink and to arrange for placing a couple of hundred books Lizzie Ford had brought. A clerk, a mere civilian, spoke up superciliously and more than intimated that I was misplaced; that the clubroom was for officers only. He thought I was one of the laborers, a ditcher, plumber or carpenter, working about the place and not eligible for the officers' club. That was my proudest moment. A corporal or major or colonel or something explained to the clerk my job and that Herbert Putnam had sent me out with some books which he, the clerk, probably couldn't understand; and the clerk seemed to think he should apologize. I assured him he had greatly honored

me.

The 36th Division, Guard Army, General E. St. John Greble, Commanding Officer, was popularly known as "The Panthers". The tune most played and sung on the reservation was "The Panthers are Coming", and for a few days before leaving, the band of the 143rd regiment quartered a few rods from the camp library, would get up at 4.30 A.M. and send the warning

notes of "The Panthers are Coming" booming over the camp post.

The Panthers have gone, and are with the Fifth Army Corps, MajorGeneral Omar Bundy, commanding; with Major-General W. R. Smith, commanding the division; and Colonel E. J. Williams, Chief of Staff, as at Camp Bowie.

Soon after my arrival Divisional Headquarters staged a great spectacle (I do not say for my information) which brought to a head and put to test all the months of meticulous drill and unrelenting discipline, the formations by squad, company inspections, the great hikes. The spectacle was a great and general review of the entire division, in full marching order. Six and twenty thousand men marching on a great plain; sweeping up the slope, past a little group of officers on horseback, the Commanding Officer and military representatives of France and England; salute! a fanfare from the band, each regiment wheels to the left, crosses the plain and then down the slope on the other side to barracks. For two hours the plain is alive with men and horses and vibrant with sounding brass. More men than the Americans numbered at Bunker Hill; a larger army than that with which Washington attacked Howe at Germantown-by the standards of today a handful, a corporal's guard.

Horse and foot, guns and ambulances, monstrous army trucks, skeleton two-wheelers for carrying the wire-laying equipment of the intelligence service, fat and stolid mules pulling clumsy wagons, slender-limbed horses quivering with the excitement. Infantry, cavalry, artillery, engineers and signal troops, trench-mortar battery, machine-gun battalions, stretcher-bearers. Flying over our heads, and not so very far either, birdmen, back