The Stars and Stripes Part 8

An Officer Formerly in British Army Tells How Kultur Repopulates Itself.

A new and startling story of German atrocities is told by an American formerly in the service of the British Army, but now attending one of the A.E.F. schools in preparation for a commission in the American Army.

It is in accordance with other stories of the prost.i.tution of womanhood which the Kaiser is forcing in order to repopulate the German Empire.

The rapid British advance at Cambria, in November, when towns which the Germans had occupied for three years were captured before the latter could deport the civilian population into Germany as is their custom, disclosed the latest effort of the German army. French women and girls had been made the victims.

"Among the refugees who pa.s.sed along the roads making their way southward farther into France after we made our first big advance were scores of women and girls, each marked on her breast by a cross in red paint," said the officer. "These were disclosed when the refugees pa.s.sed in front of our medical officers who were inspecting them. All of them were about to become mothers, and the French interpreter who was a.s.sisting the medicos explained that the cross indicated that German soldiers were the fathers. The crosses had been painted on them, the women explained, to show that their children would belong to the German Government.

This Iron Cross Red Hot.

"One of these unfortunates, apparently not more than seventeen years of age, had not only been painted but branded with a hot iron so that she would be marked for life with the sign of the cross. She said that a German officer would be the father of her child. This officer, the girl said, had been quartered in her parents' home and she had been forced to accede to his desires.

"After her health became such that he had no further use for her, she said, he ordered her to act as his personal servant, doing the menial work in his chamber. It was not long until she was unable to continue this and then, angered at her weakness, he ordered soldiers to scour the paint from her breast and burn the cross into her flesh. When this was done, she was forced to leave her home and taken to a maternity hospital which the army had established for other girls and women of the town in the same condition.

An Eye-Witness on "Kultur."

"I myself saw the girl who had been branded and the others who had been painted like sheep and heard their stories, as I had been detailed to supervise the return of the refugees. Thank G.o.d, America, by coming into the war, will help to stamp out this beastly 'kultur' from the world and make it a safe, clean place to live in for your womenfolk and mine--our mothers, our sweethearts, our wives, and our daughters. I have a daughter just seventeen years old," concluded the American grimly.

WHEN THE FRENCH BAND PLAYS.

There's a military band that plays, on Sunday afternoons, In a certain nameless city's quaint old square.

It can rouse the blood to battle with its patriotic tunes, And still render hymns as gentle as a prayer.

When it starts "Ave Maria" there is no one in the throng But would doff his cap, his heart to heaven raise; And who would shrink from combat when, with bra.s.ses sounding strong, There is flung out on the breeze "La Ma.r.s.eillaise"?

When it starts to render "Sambre et Meuse," the march that won the day At the battle of the Marne, one sees again The grey-green hosts of Hundom melt before the stern array Of our gallant sister-ally's blue-clad men.

And when it plays our Anthem, with rendition bold and clear-- While the khaki lads stand steady--then we feel That, though tongues and ways may vary, we've found brothers over here, Tried in war, and in allegiance true as steel.

For it's olive-drab, horizon-blue, packed closely side by side, Till their color sets ablaze the grey old square; And it's olive-drab, horizon-blue, whatever may betide, That will blaze the path to victory "up there."

So, while standing thus together, let us pledge anew our troth To the Cause--the world set free!--for which we fight.

As the evening twilight gilds the ranks of blue and khaki both, And the bugles die away into the night.

WHEN PACKS ARE LIGHTEST

BY CHAPLAIN MOODY.

Probably the cow is the least complaining and discriminating of all animals, yet it is worthy of note that the wise farmer who understands his cows does everything to make them as happy as possible and studies their comfort and convenience as far as possible. This is not because he is a sentimentalist, but for the very opposite reason. He knows his cows will give more milk and he will get more money therefrom if they are contented in their bovine minds and not worried by the high cost of living and other problems.

The expert poultry man will tell you that the frame of mind of his feathered employes has a very direct bearing on the egg output, and so he tries to study their happiness.

Recently experiments have been carried on in some factories with phonographs, and it has been proven that if the fingers of the employes are stimulated by some music they enjoy, it is possible to get more work out of them. In some Cuban cigar factories it is the customary thing to employ a man to read to the cigar makers some story which they like, as, under these conditions, they work better and faster.

All this is not done out of sentiment, again, but because it contributes to efficiency. The cow, the hen, the factory girl and the cigar wrapper do better work for being in a pleasant frame of mind.

While we of the American Expeditionary Forces do not fall into any of these cla.s.ses, the same is nevertheless probably true of us. We can be better soldiers if we are cheerful than we can if we are not. It may be difficult to see how you can sight a gun any better for smiling or bayonet a man more effectively when you are cheerful. But if we believe what we are told, this is so, and, hence, since we all want to be good soldiers, it becomes a duty toward this end to be happy, just as it is a duty to wash your face or police your bunk, or to keep your rifle clean.

It is a _duty_ to be happy.

That is all very well and good to say, some one interrupts at this point, but you cannot be happy when your feet are sore or you do not have all you want to eat. Or, it would be easy to be happy if the mail would come, or they would "bust" the Mess Sergeant, or take some other great step forward in the improvement of the army. But we all know better.

Our happiness is not dependent on conditions outside of us, but on our hearts within us, and some of the happiest men have been the victims of extraordinary misfortune and some of the unhappiest people have been possessors of great wealth who could have all they wanted. The most joyous book in the world was written by an old man in prison who had come to the conclusion that when they let him out they would chop his head off. Many a man has just grinned himself out of worse fixes than you or I are ever apt to get into.

There are very few things we cannot laugh at. By laughing, we do not actually shorten the hike, but we make it seem shorter; we do not in reality lighten the pack, but we make it seem lighter, and it all comes to the same thing, for we would rather carry a heavy load and have it seem light than carry a light load and have it seem heavy. If we laugh at the cooties when they come, and hunt them with the same merriment that the French hunt the wild boar, the joke will be on them after all, for they do not laugh back. And then they won't seem half so bad. Laughter is a good insecticide.

We American soldiers in France are in for a big thing. Just how big it is and how long it will last we do not know and no one can tell us. But we are determined that America shall do her part and that we as individuals shall do ours and be the best soldiers possible, and this is some task when we remember how gallantly our Allies have fought. It will be, in our own language, "some job," and for this reason we must use every means within our power to accomplish it. So we must not forget happiness as an a.s.set to efficient soldiering. We will all smile where the coward would whimper, and laugh where the weakling would whine, and buckle down to what Robert Louis Stevenson called "The great task of happiness."

[Cartoon: VOLUNTEER VIC'S BIG IDEA BY LEMEN IN THE ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH]

[THANK GOODNESS! IVE GOT ON MY STEEL HELMET THIS RAIN WOULD GET MY FELT HAT ALL OUT OF SHAPE]

[GEE! THIS THING TURNS ALL THE WATER DOWN MY NECK]

[TIN-SMITH]

[DONT SEE WHY THEY DIDNT THINK ABOUT BUILDING A GUTTER ON THESE BLAMED THINGS BEFORE]

THERE'S A REASON.

No more ham or eggs or grapefruit when the bugle blows for chow. No more apple pie or dumplings, for we're in the army now; and they feed us beans for breakfast, and at noon we have 'em, too; while at night they fill our tummies with a good old army stew.

No more s.h.i.+rts of silk and linen. We all wear the O. D. stuff. No more night s.h.i.+rts or pyjamas, for our pants are good enough. No more feather ticks or pillows, but we're glad to thank the Lord we've got a cot and blanket when we might just have a board.

For they feed us beans for breakfast, and at noon we have 'em, too; while at night they fill our stomachs with a good old army stew. By, by gum, we'll lick the kaiser when the sergeants teach us how, for, dad burn it, he's the reason that we're in the army now!--Pittsburgh Post.