The Stars and Stripes Part 5

Base Censor Reads Them All, Including 600 Not in English

"Now, how the devil did he pick mine out of the pile?"

Shuddering, a young American in France gazed at the envelope before him, addressed in his own handwriting, to be sure, but with its end cut open and a stout sticker partially closing the cut. Stamped upon the face of the envelope were the fatal words "Examined by Base Censor." And the words, because of the gloom they brought the young man, were properly framed within a deep black border.

It was this way: The young man in question had been carrying on, for some time, a more or less hectic correspondence with a _mademoiselle tres charmante_ in a not far distant town. That in itself would be harmless enough if he had sent his letters through the regular military channels--that is, submitted them to his own company officers to be censored. But dreading the "kidding" he might receive at the hands of his platoon commander--which he needn't have dreaded at all, for American officers are gentlemen and gentlemen respect confidence--he had been using the French postal service for his intimate and clandestine lovemaking. That, as everyone knows or ought to know, is strictly forbidden but the young man being "wise," thought he could put one over on the army. Result: That much dreaded bogey-man, the Base Censor knew just how many crosses he had made at the bottom of his note to Mlle. X.

But he needn't have worried a bit, for the bogey-man isn't a likely rival of any one. In fact, he isn't a man at all, but a System--just as impersonal as if he wrote his name, "Base Censor, Inc." Also, he is pretty well-nigh fool-proof and puncture-proof--which again removes him from consideration as "a human."

Remembers No Secrets

All delusions to the contrary, the censors.h.i.+p, though it learns an awful lot, doesn't care a tinker's hoot about nine-tenths of the stuff it learns. It isn't concerned with Private Jones's morals, with Corporal Brown's unpaid grocery bills, with Sergeant Smith's mother-in-law, with Lieutenant Johnson's fraternity symbols. It is, however, actively concerned in keeping out of correspondence all matters relating to the location and movement of troops, all items which pieced together might furnish the common enemy with information which would be valuable to him in the conduct of his nefarious enterprises.

In addition to keeping such damaging information out of soldiers' and officers' correspondence, the base censors.h.i.+p is lying in wait for everything and anything in the mail line which the senders hope to slip through uncensored. It regularly goes over a large proportion of the mail which has already been vised by company officers. It sifts through all mail for the army from neutral countries; and finally it censors all letters in foreign languages, written by men in the A. E. F.--letters which company officers are forbidden to O. K.

In the exercise of this last-named function lies perhaps the greatest task allotted to the base censors.h.i.+p. Our army is probably the most "international" in history, and it sends letters to the base written in forty-six different languages, excluding English. Out of 600 such letters--a typical day's grist--the chances are but half will be written in Italian, followed in the order of their numerousness, by those inscribed in Polish, French and Scandinavian. The censor's staff handles mail couched in twenty-five European languages, many tongues and dialects of the Balkan States and a scattering few in Yiddish, Chinese, j.a.panese, Hindu, Tahitian, Hawaiian, Persian and Greek, to say nothing of a number in Philippine dialects.

A Few Are in German

An interesting by-product of the censors' work is the discovery of foreign language interpreters within the ranks of the army. One soldier, for example, wrote in Turkish and wrote so well that the censor handling the letters in that tangled tongue pa.s.sed on his name to those higher up. As a result, the man was detailed to the interpreters' corps where he is now serving his adopted country ably and well.

Seldom, say the members of the censor's staff, is anything forbidden found in the foreign language letters. The only striking feature about them as a whole is the small number that are written in German. In fact the Chinese letters as a rule outnumber those expressed in the language of the Kaiser.

Besides all this thousands of letters are sent direct to the base censors every day, in cases where soldiers are unwilling that their own immediate superiors should become acquainted with the contents. To humor, therefore, the enlisted man in a former National Guard unit whose censoring officer he suspects of trying to cut him out with The Girl Back Home, the base censor takes the responsibility off the company officer's shoulders; and the enlisted man feels oh! so much relieved.

Those clever chaps who devise all sorts of codes to tell the home folks just where they are in France, meet short shrift at the censor's hands.

For example, one of them was anxious to describe a certain city in this fair land. "You know grandmother's first name," he wrote naively, thinking it would get by. But the particular censor it came before, having a New England grandmother of his own, promptly sent the letter back with the added comment, "Yes, and so do I! Can it!"

Another man was so bold as to write: "The name of the town where I am located is the same as that of the dance hall on Umptumpus avenue in " well, a certain well-known American city. He was also caught up; for the censor, being himself somewhat of a man of the world, shot the letter back with the tart comment: "I've been there, too."

Those two men, however, were more fortunate than the average in having their letters sent back to them for revision. The usual scheme is for the censor to clip out completely the portion of the letter carrying the damaging information. In case, therefore, a man has written something innocuous--but interesting none the less to his correspondent--on the other side, he is simply "out of luck." One can see it pays to be careful.

On the whole--aside from the mania which seems to have possessed some men to give away the location of their units in France--the censoring officials declare that the army deserves a great deal of credit for living up to both the letter and the spirit of the censor's code. They do, however, find fault with the men who continually "over-address"

their letters--that is, who persist in tacking on the number of their divisions to the company and regimental designations. This, for military reasons, is forbidden, but many men seem as yet unaware of the fact.

Many Thank-you Letters

During the first half of January the base censor's office alone handled more than 8,000 letters a day--two thousand a day increase over December, due, no doubt, to the thank-you letters which our dutiful soldier-men felt compelled to write in return for those bounteous Christmas boxes. In the spring, though more transports will be coming over, more men will be writing letters, but still the work will go on.

The abuse of the letter-writing privilege by one man might mean the loss of many of his comrades, so the long and tough job of censoring must be "seen through."

So, you smarty with the private code to transmit all sorts of dope to the folks, have a care! No matter how the letters pile up, old Base Censor, Inc., is always on the job! Like the roulette wheel at Monte Carlo, he'll get you in the end, no matter how lucky and clever you think yourself. Or, as Indiana's favorite poet might put it,

"The censor-man 'ull git you ef you don't watch out!"

MIRABELLE

One striking feature of the war is the number of women and girls engaged in various kinds of work back of the lines. The British Army has thousands of them doing clerical work or driving ambulances, while in the A.E.F. their activities so far have been limited to canteen work with the Red Cross or Y. M. C. A.

Most of them are practical individuals doing a lot of good, but occasionally one slips over imbued with the idea that soldiers are sort of overgrown bacteriological specimens to be studied and handled only with sterilized gloves.

Possibly one of the latter inspired a certain A.E.F. private to lapse into poetry after he had stowed her baggage away and heard her dissertation on what the camp needed. His verses were:

The ether ethered, The cosmos coughed, Mirabelle whispered-- The words were soft:

"I shall go," Mirabelle said-- And her voice, how it bled!-- "I shall go to be hurt By the dead, dead, dead.

To be hurt, hurt, hurt"-- Oh, the sad, sweet mien, And the dreepy droop Of that all-nut bean!

"One must grow," Mirabelle wailed, "And one grows by the knife.

I shall grow in my soul In that awful strife.

Let me go, let me grow,"

Was the theme of her dirge; "Let the sobbiest of sobs Through my bosom surge."

The sergeant took a lean On the canteen door The captain ran away: "What a bore! What a bore!"

WAR RISK INSURANCE

February 12 is the last day to take out war risk insurance.

DO IT NOW!

THE MACHINE-GUN SONG.

(As rendered by a certain battalion of Amex _mitrailleurs_, to the tune of "Lord Geoffrey Amherst.")

We've come from old New England for to blast the bloomin' Huns, We have sailed from afar across the sea; We will drive the Boche before us with our baby-beauty guns To the heart of the Rhine countree!

And to his German majesty we will not do a thing But to spray his carca.s.s with our hail; And when we're through with pepp'ring him, we'll make the lobster sing As we ride him into Berlin on a rail!

CHORUS.