Conrad S. Babcock, Lieut.-Colonel,
Inspector General, First Division.
“The Salvation Army keeps open house, and any time that a body of men come back from the front lines, in from a convoy, there is hot coffee and sometimes home-made doughnuts (all free to the men). I was in command of a town where the hut never closed till 3 or 4 in the morning, and their girls baked pies and made doughnuts up to the front, under shell fire, for our infantrymen. A Salvation Army lassie is safe without an escort anywhere in France where there is an American soldier. That speaks for itself. I am for any organization that is out to do something for my men, and I think that it is the idea of the American people when they give their money. What we want is someone who is willing to come over here and do something for the boys, regardless of the fact that it may not net any gain—in fact, may not help them to gather enough facts for a lecture tour when they return home.”
Headquarters, Third Division,
September 5,1918.
My Dear Mr. Leffingwell:
Your letter of July 22d just received. It has, perhaps, been somewhat delayed in reaching me, owing to the fact that I have recently been transferred to another division. I only wish things had been so that I might have granted you or a representative of the Salvation Army an interview when I was in the States recently, but, being under orders, I could wait for nothing. Whatever I may have said, in a casual way, of the work of the Salvation Army in France, I assure you was all deserved. Your organization has been doing a splendid work for the men of my former division and other troops who have come in contact with it. I have often remarked, as have many of the officers, that after the war the Salvation Army is going to receive such a boom from the boys who have come in touch with it over here that it will seem like a veritable propaganda! Why shouldn’t it? For your work has been conducted in such a quiet, unostentatious, unselfish way that only a man whose sensibilities are dead can fail to appreciate it. I have found several of your workers, whose names at this moment I am unable to recall, putting up with all sorts of hardships and inconveniences, working from daylight until well into the night that the boys might be cheered in one way or another. Your shacks have always been at the disposal of the chaplains for their regimental services. Whether Mass for the Catholic chaplains or Holy Communion for an Episcopalian chaplain, they always found a place to set up their altars in the Salvation Army huts; and the Protestant chaplains, also the Jewish, always, to my knowledge, were given its use for their services. I have found your own services have been very acceptable to the boys, in general, but perhaps your doughnut program, with hot coffee or chocolate, means as much as anything. Not that, like those of old, we follow the Salvation Army because we can get filled up, but we all like their spirit. More than on one occasion do I know of troops moving at night—and pretty wet and hungry—that have been warmed and fed and sent on their way with new courage because of what some Salvation Army worker and hut furnished. And as they went their way many fine things were said about the Salvation Army. I am sure, as a result of this work, you have won the favor and confidence of hundreds of these soldier lads, and, if I am not terribly mistaken, when we get home the Salvation tambourine will receive greater consideration than heretofore.
I am glad to express my feelings for your work. God bless you in it, and always!
Sincerely yours,
Lyman Bollins, Division Chaplain,
Headquarters, Third Division, A. E. F., via New York.
At the Front in France, June 12, 1918.
Commissioner Thomas Estill,
Salvation Army, Chicago.