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JOHN WENSTRAND, Ex-'18 O. T. C., Camp Stanley, Texas
To those who are not in the army, but are still in school, the army and army life is a something they read a lot about, bear long harangues about, but never really understand. No doubt a reader of any popular magazine knows more about army life than the soldier himself, since each magazine has some fair writer of national fame interview a few commanding officers, inspect a few camps, and then write a eulogy on how hpapy (sic) is the soldier's lot. To one who has passed thru rookie days, who has experienced most of the pleasures and a considerable share of the discomforts of army life, a great number of these articles seem humorous.
No doubt every one knows of the strenuous training, the earliness of reveille, the long hours of drill, but very few know just what a "shave tail" is, or a "dog robber" might be, so the side of a soldier's life which is most interesting is the way in which he spends his leisure moments. How he succeeds in spending his magnificent salary of $30.00 minus a compulsory allotment, a liberty bond or two, surely it's a gay life if one doesn't weaken.
A soldier has a vernacular all his own; at "chow" time he eats "slum" and "red horse" instead of dining on meat pie or corned beef. He has forgotten that butter exists or that a beef has anything but flank. He drinks coffee black and strong, yet he has no "grounds for complaint" because he knows the cooks and the "old man" would give them the world if he could. Then in their leisure moments, playing cards, writing home, or athletic sports take up most of their time. No outfit amounts to anything unless it has a football team, a baseball team, or good prize fighters, and when they play games they play for blood.
The biggest thing in the army is comradeship. Can you imagine a college man bunking in a tent with a stock yards laborer, a bank cashier, a city tough, and a minister? Yet combinations quite as incongruous as that are not uncommon. And the best of it all is that they all swear by each other; so the big thing in all is this new comradeship, this new feeling of nationality. This knowing we are a nation and we are fighting for the children of all nations. Comradeship, a linking together of all men into a common companionship, and making of a new United States. That, then, is our soldier, be he college man or gutter bred, he is bringing about an idealism, a bigger, closer relationship. The army is a melting pot bigger, greater than one thinks, and from it comes this new yet old doctrine of brotherhood.
And the Nebraska University man, be he soldier or sailor, private or officer, feels that now he has finally begun living, and that be is now a real American. Yet somehow he sees that back in college he was first taught these things and with true Cornhusker spirit he is going over the top with his comrades, not simply a United States soldier, but a founder of a new Americanism, the beginning of a new nationalism. And it all comes from the one small word - comrade.
WENSTRAND.
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A branch of war work centering in the University which has brought the institution much credit is the campaign of the Four-Minute Men. Prof. M. M. Fogg, of the department of Rhetoric, was appointed last August the state director of the department of public information and placed in charge of the Nebraska division of Four-Minute Men, a position which he accepted in addition to his duties as professor in the University.
The work of the Four-Minute Men all over the country has been a remarkable aid in the Liberty Loan drives, the War Savings campaigns, and in carrying to the people by word of mouth other information about the war which the government wishes emphasized. Every evening, in theaters and moving picture houses of America, able speakers speak by authority of President Wilson upon some aspect of the war.
As chairman of Nebraska Four-Minute Men, Professor Fogg has brought information to the people of the state and rendered service to the government in a manner that has not been excelled in any other state. Under his management the Nebraska department of public information has reached the place where it has been designated by William McCormick Blair, director general of Four-Minute Men, as "the most efficient organization" of four-minute speakers in the country.
The efficiency of the organization is indicated by the fact, although Nebraska ranks far below a number of other states, in number of four-minute speakers it ranked third.
In recognition of Professor Fogg's work, Mr. Blair used Professor Fogg's report on the work of the Nebraska branch for November, 1917, as a special bulletin, which he sent to the 16,000 Four-Minute Men of the country with this comment: "By painstaking and conscientious work Professor Fogg has built up one of the strongest Four-Minute organizations in the country."
The growth of the Four-Minute volunteer army may be judged by the following extracts from reports of the state department to the government:
On November 3 there were 104 local chairmen. During the Liberty Loan campaign closing that week one-third of a million people, corresponding to a quarter of the population of the state, in one thousand addresses.
On November 24 there were 122 local chairmen, directing 914 speakers in 205 theaters.
February 20 the state chairman was in communication with 212 local chairmen in that number of Nebraska towns and cities, and these 212 local chairmen were in charge of over one thousand speakers.
One of the members of the faculty who has identified himself prominently with war work is Prof. J. E. Le Rossignol, director of the school of commerce, a man who, as a former Canadian, has been deeply in sympathy with the cause of the allied democracy since the outbreak of the war. Professor Le Rossignol's patriotism has been recognized by governmental officials by his appointment for the winter of 1917-1918 as fuel director and administrator for Lancaster county.
Professor Le Rossignol's work in connection with University war enterprises has been the most marked, however. He was one of
the instigators of the plan to organize a faculty patriotic league and its undergraduate ally, the student patriotic league, and upon its formation was elected president of the league, whose purpose, as stated in the constitution, was to co-ordinate the patriotic endeavors of Nebraska faculty members so that they might be applied to the best advantage.
The biggest enterprises in support of the war that the University has undertaken have been under the direction of the Faculty Patriotic League. In the Second Liberty Loan campaign the league raised over $50,000 from the faculty alone. This work was under the chairmanship of Major O. V. P. Stout, at that time dean of the college of engineering. The students' subscriptions to the campaign were $23,000, making a total of $73,000.
The biggest undertaking of the league, was the raising of $15,000 for the Y. M. C. A. Red Triangle fund. The faculty and student branches of the league, working together through a monster mass meeting of all University people, heavily oversubscribed the quota, the amount reaching $23,100.
The more recent work of the league has evidenced itself in the Red Cross drive for 1,600 memberships for the University, which was successfully waged. A permanent committee for similar work was appointed by the league with Prof. R. D. Scott of the department of English literature as director, and the War Savings campaign and the recent Third Liberty Loan drives were under his supervision.
The beginning of the world war in the hearts of many Cornhusker sons who answered the call to the army and navy and in the hearts as well of the reserve army of those who stayed behind was April 24, 1917, the day of the All-University patriotic mass meeting. It was at that time that the University made its confession of faith; that it threw aside all past academic inquiries and took up the sword against autocracy.
In the University of Nebraska, as well as every free institution of learning, there was difference of opinion in regard to America's position in the world war, and there were those outside the institution who believed that the decision of the government did not end the argument. Placed in this position, the University could do nothing else than assert its fealty, and for this purpose the patriotic convocation was planned. Everyone connected with the University - from employes to regents - had their part in the demonstration, and so conclusively did they take their stand that all doubts of the future support Nebraska was to give the nation were banished by all who were open to conviction.
The convocation began with a parade, in which marched over four thousand Cornhuskers, and closed with a mass meeting in the Auditorium. The procession from the University was so long that the Veterans of '61, leading with fife and drum, had reached the Auditorium before the last units had left the campus. The University regents and faculty members followed the fife and drum corps, and the cadet band and regiment and students by classes completed the rest of the marching bodies. Practically every one of the marchers in civilian dress carried a flag, and the fifteen hundred co-eds were dressed in white. The sight was an inspiring one.
When the last sections of the procession had filed into the auditorium it was filled to capacity. Every seat of the big hall that
