ARMY MEN BUILD AN
OVER-SEAS PITTSBURGH
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Mammoth Warehouses and the World's Largest
Cold Storage Plant Spring Up in
Three Months.
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FORESTERS AND ENGINEERS DOING THE WORK.
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"Winter of Our Discontent" Sees Big Job of Preparation
Speeded "Somewhere" in France.
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You, Mr. Infantryman, out there for heaven knows how many hours a day jabbing at a straw-filled burlap bag and pretending it's old Rat-Face, the Crown Prince—been doing that ever since you came over here, haven't you?
You, Mr. Artilleryman, loading, unloading, standing clear, and all the rest of it until your back aches and your ear-drums wellnigh cave in—
[You, Mr. Machine-Gunner,] going out every day and lugging about a ton of assorted hardware and cutlery around a vacant lot—
You, Mr. Marine, land-logged, land-sick, trying out your web feet in wading through the muddy depths of Europe instead of wading ashore through the roaring surr-yip! hi-ho, and a bottla grape juice!—
You, all of you, own up now! Doesn't seem as though you weren't getting anywhere at times, now does it? [Doesn't seem as though you had made any] particular progress, eh, what? Doesn't seem to have made the beef any tenderer, the supplies come up any quicker, the Q.M.'s clothing get issued any quicker? As far as you can see, things have been pretty much at a standstill, on account of the weather and what-not, for some time, haven't they?
With Speed and Drive.
But that, Mr. Infantryman, Cannoneer, Machine-Gunner or whoever and whatever you are, is where you are, for one, dead wrong. The old U. S. is making all sorts of progress here in France—progress towards your comfort, and upkeep, and safety, and toward that of the millions who are coming along to play your game with you. Not in your particular section, perhaps, but, in a certain spot in inland France, the old U. S. has been engaged in big doings this winter, doing big things as only Americans can do 'em and putting them through with the speed and drive that, as we like to think, only the Yanks can put into an undertaking. And the work [which the old U. S. has been doing] at that particular place in France, has excited the outspoken admiration and surprise of every officer of the Allied armies who has watched it grow.
In three months this spot in France has been transformed from an insignificant railroad station—such as White River Junction, New Hampshire, or Princeton Junction, in New Jersey, say—surrounded by wild woodland and rolling plains, into a regular young Pittsburgh of industry. Fact! Not only a young Pittsburgh of industry, but a young St. Louis of railway tracks, a young Chicago of meat refrigerators, a young Boston of bean stowawayeries, a young New York water front of warehouses. Just for example, the warehouses already put up at this place will hold more stuff than the new Pennsylvania Railroad freight terminal in Chicago, which is some monster of its kind.