Page:The history and achievements of the Fort Sheridan officers' training camps.djvu/224

 ��THE FORT SHERIDAN ASSOCIATION

���A DAILY EXERCISE

��Boche propaganda which had fooled the people of this nation for several years, did not cease with the declaration of war on April 6th, True, at the Training Camps it did not descend to the cow^ardly depths reached at Camp Grant, and some other cantonments, where hungry men in the mess halls crunched, unwarned, on breakfast food flavored with ground glass; nor was there opportunity to mangle innocent men by creating defective airplane parts. The gentle method adopted was the spreading of rumors with the intention of belittling the strength of the Allies and enlarging on the prowess of the Hun; thus creating a sense of fear among the candidates. Needless to say, even had the rumors been true, the men were not of a type, and no true American is, to be thus easily intimidated. One rumor told of the tremendous mortality of Allied officers. Some parents, perhaps, w^ere affected by such rumors. It w^as for them, no doubt, that the follow^ing statement by Roger Babson, the eminent statistician, appeared in the papers during July:

Fourteen men out of every fifteen have been safe so far. Under present conditions, where man power is being saved, not more than one in thirty is killed.

Only one man in five hundred loses a limb — a chance no greater than in hazardous conditions at home.

Most of the w^ounds sustained in the trenches are clean cut and of a nature that a few w^eeks in the hospital makes the subject as as fit as ever. But 300,000 French soldiers have been discharged on account of wounds during the three years of the war.

From fighting in the trenches most of the wounds are in the top of the head, simply scalp wounds. Practically speaking, a wound is either fatal or slight, with few in between these two extremes.

Of course, the whole thing is horrible enough as it is. But 1 wish to tell the fathers and mothers left behind by the boys that, looking at the matter in the light of cold-blooded statistics, these boys are not going into anywhere near the danger the folks at home imagine.

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