Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 January 1919 — LITERARY CLUB PROGRAM. [ARTICLE]

LITERARY CLUB PROGRAM.

The few members of the Ladies’ Literary Club who braved the frigid atmosphere of Friday afternoon to hear the excellent program presented were well repaid. The question of government control of public utilities was presented Dy Mrs. L. E. Barber, whose name on a program is always an assurance that the subject willpe given in the most helpful and entertaining manner. Taxing as an illustration the transportation and distribution of the output of a single coal mine in eastern Kentucky, she proceeded to illustrate the advantages of government supervision over public utilities. The suoject being one of such broad interest and complicated in its relations to every other question of public interest makes it one to be viewed from many angles, but the intelligent consideration of such subjects in this unbiased and unpolitical manner can not fail to mean much to those who wish to form their own opinions of those questions that are frequently discussed in the light of political pre(I.U.CIC6S* The subject, “Our American Soldiers,” was impersonated Dy Captain Cope Hanley, Lieutenant Edson Murray, N. C. Shafer, of the ordnance department, and Harry Moore of the tank service, who gave most interesting accounts of their own experiences in the service. Captain Hanley spoke of the mental tests given and -of the interest it had aroused in his own mind in the study of army psychology, of which subject he hopes in connection with a fellow student to publish his observations. N. C. Shafer, after explaining the work of his own department and describing the quantities of military materials accumulated on the eastern coast, made the assertion that he was quite certain that no other country would be wise in “getting funny” with Uncle Sam. He illustrated the gigantic scale on Which, this country was doing things by stating that in the day on which the armistice was signed this country manufactured 2500 tons of mustard gas, which was more than al Ithe European countries together.. Lieutenant Murray relieved the seriousness of the discussion by giving a very humorous account of his own experiences as a private*in learning to ride and care for a horse and respond to the various other strenuous and new experiences to which he was subjected. His frank confessions elicited many hearty laughs from his hearers. Harry Moore’s story of the difference between the life of a tank man as pictured by the enlistment officers and the actual experience, caused many smiles; having a picture in one’s mind of going across to a foreign training camp With all the new and wonderful experience that would imply, and then to be given A pick and shovel to help put in a sewerage system in a N. C. camp, would no doubt prove a rude awakening. The boys each spoke in the very highest terms of the work of the Y. M. C. A, and the part that the women have played in the life of the soldier. It was evident that although they had been in the service but a short time their ©vision had been greatly enlarged £ that home, their fellow men and religious institutions would mean more than they ever .could have meant otherwise. Their willingness to respond to the invitation to speak was greatly Appreciated by the chib* xx I