A soldier's mother in France

by Rheta Childe Dorr

“I know that my boy is being well cared for in his regiment, and I’m not afraid of what may happen to him as long as he is on duty. But what about his off hours? What is to prevent him from falling into bad company?”

I know that this thought has troubled the minds of many mothers of soldiers now in France. And no wonder. Ever since the first training camps were set up in this country the most lurid tales have been spread abroad about the alleged immorality of the soldiers’ off hours. Some of these tales were spread by pro-Germans, pacifists and cowards who hoped to defeat the draft laws. Others were the result of a certain kind of imagination. The vast majority of them were untrue.

But even if any of them were true, if boys of twenty-one, away from the restraining influences of home, found unusual opportunities for immorality right here in the United States, what must it be in France? Many American women have it firmly fixed in their minds that France is a shocking immoral country. It isn’t, but I do not hope to be able to unsettle the conviction.

I will content myself with saying that even if France were a second Sodom or Gomorrah, our soldiers would be safe there. As safe, or safer, than they would be at home. The reason is that they are under military discipline and military supervision every hour of their lives. In their off hours they are supervised by the most efficient and powerful police force in the world, the military police of the American army.

Military police is what we call them for short. They are really assistant provost marshals. They are everywhere in France where there are American soldiers. They police Paris and all other cities, towns and villages in our zone. They are found sitting at a little table in all the railroad stations, and every traveling American soldier, be he officer, non-com or private, has to report the minute he arrives to the station marshal. This applies to all holders of military passes, Red Cross and Y. M. C. A. workers, and war correspondents.

The marshal examines the papers of the traveling officer or soldier, stamps them and enters the name and destination of the traveler in his book. This happens when the soldier leaves his base and when he returns. They keep track of our men on all their travels.

They also keep track of our soldiers in their daily walks abroad, whether on duty or pleasure bent. There are certain rules in our expeditionary force which apply to all alike, from General Pershing down to Bill Smith, private, just arrived from Camp Funston or Camp Upton. One of these rules is that no member of the expeditionary force may associate with women of the submerged class.

If a military policeman sees an officer or a soldier in such company it is his duty immediately and without any delay to separate the two, and gather the offending man in. If he fails to do so, and the fact is established, the policeman is punished. But he doesn’t fail.

Some of our younger officers, only a few, I was assured, didn’t believe at first that a simple private soldier would dare arrest them for the offense of having a “good time.” Two of these very new lieutenants tested it out in Paris once. They annexed a pair of women of the underworld and started out to find whatever may be left of the night life of the French capital.

What was their indignation when a slim youth of about twenty-three, wearing the uniform of a private, with the sole addition of a brassard marked A. P. M., walked up to them, saluted and stepped politely between them and the open door of the taxi-cab.