“Perhaps in the old days when war and your home town seemed as far apart as Paris, France, and Paris, Ill., you were a superior person who used to snicker when you passed a street corner where a small Salvation Army band was holding forth. Perhaps—Heaven forgive you—you even sneered a little when you heard the bespectacled sister in the poke-bonnet bang her tambourine and raise a shrill voice to the strains of ’Oh death, where is thy sting-a-ling.’ Probably—unless you yourself had known the bitterness of one who finds himself alone, hungry and homeless in a big city—you did not know much about the Salvation Army. Well, we are all homeless over here and every American soldier will take back with him a new affection and a new respect for the Salvation Army. Many will carry with them the memories of a cheering word and a friendly cruller received in one of the huts nearest of all to the trenches. There the old slogan of ‘Soup and Salvation’ has given way to ‘Pies and Piety.’ It might be ‘Doughnuts and Doughboys.’ These huts pitched within the shock of the German guns, are ramshackle and bare and few, for no organization can grow rich on the pennies and nickels that are tossed into the tambourines at the street-corners of the world. But they are doing a work that the soldiers themselves will never forget, and it is an especial pleasure to say so here, because the Salvation Army, being much too simple and old-fashioned to know the uses of advertisement, have never asked us to. You, however, can testify for them. Perhaps you do in your letters home. And surely when you are back there and you pass once more a ‘meeting’ at the curb, you will not snicker. You will tarry awhile—and take off your hat.” We have received a letter from Mr. Lewis Strauss, Secretary to Mr. Herbert Hoover, who has just returned from France, and he says that Mr. Hoover’s time while in Europe was spent almost wholly in London and Paris, and that he had no opportunity for observing our War Relief Work at the front. The concluding paragraph of the letter, however, is as follows: “Mr. Hoover has frequently heard the most complimentary reports of the invaluable work which your organization is performing in invariably the most perilous localities, and he is filled with admiration for those who are conducting it at the front.” The Chicago Tribune (May 17, 1918), Quoting from the Above, also Speaks Editorially. The acid test of any service done for our soldiers in France is the value the men themselves place upon it. No matter how excellent our intentions, we cannot be satisfied with the result if the soldiers are not satisfied. Without suggesting any invidious distinctions among organizations that are working at the front, it is nevertheless a pleasure to record that the Salvation Army stands very high in the regard of American soldiers. The evidence of the Salvation Army’s excellent work comes from many sources. Appendix. A Few Facts about the Salvation Army