TROOPS IN TRENCH AT LONG ISLAND CITY READY FOR A GAS ATTACK.
TROOPS WEARING GAS MASKS CHARGING IN OPEN ORDER AT LONG ISLAND CITY.
"GAS!" TROOPS HASTILY DON THEIR MASKS AT THE ALARM.
TROOPS WEARING GAS MASKS CUTTING BARBED-WIRE ENTANGLEMENTS IN TESTS AT LONG ISLAND CITY.
"Help us to give him the best gas mask." That was the slogan which was carried on the posters, catching the attention of almost every person in the United States. More than 1,000,000 pieces of literature were distributed. The Red Cross established 163 collection points, and collection barrels appeared on the streets of practically every community in the United States. The Junior Red Cross, the Food Administration, and the Department of Agriculture gave valuable assistance. The Boy Scouts organized nut gathering parties. The governor of Massachusetts proclaimed November 9, 1918, to be gas mask day for the collection of carbon material, and 28 other States fixed gas mask days in November. Two reels of motion pictures were shown through the country. Journalists aided the campaign in newspapers and magazines. Frederic J. Haskin sent out a valuable article which was published in many of the important newspapers of the United States. One Oklahoma town took a day off en masse and gathered a whole carload of nuts.
This campaign started September 13, 1918, but was abruptly cut short on the 11th of November. Thus it is impossible to give exactly the result of it, since many of the scheduled shipments of nuts and fruit pits were canceled and found their way into fuel bins. However, at one time there were on the rails, en route to the carbon plant at Astoria, 100 carloads of materials supplied by the patriotism of the American people. It was estimated that some 4,000 tons were collected in this brief period, exclusive of the material from the California canning industry.