g the strain of conflict, could not be depended
upon to stand in the hour of temptation. As a result the whole field of
preventive measures was thoroughly studied and vigorous treatment was
applied. The Army regulations as to prophylaxis and the introduction of
intoxicants into camps were strictly and honestly enforced. The Army saw
to it that state and local laws as to liquor and prostitution were
properly carried out, and if these were lacking, they were promptly
enacted. The so-called Zone Law was adopted for the purpose of placing
the immediate vicinity of camps under Federal control. In some cases
where the community showed signs of regarding the Army policy in this
regard as a _beau geste_ and nothing more, it was made to realize that
while the War Department could not compel the community to mend its
ways, it could and would move the camp in twenty-four hours to a more
wholesome environment. I am proud to say that it was necessary in only a
very few instances to bring forward this aspect of the situation, but
when it was necessary the Department spoke in no uncertain tone.

As a result of this general policy, in which the Navy shared, many a
wide-open town received a thorough house cleaning for the first time in
its career; in all between 120 and 140 red light districts were closed
and kept closed; and the underlying sordidness of many a smug
self-satisfied village was brought to light and remedied.

The men who came to the camps tainted with venereal disease or broken by
drink or morphine--and the number of these was great enough to shock our
national complacency (and incidentally to explode the national
assumption that the country is primarily the abode of virtue as the
city is of vice)--these men were salvaged by the tens of thousands and
turned into useful self-respecting soldiers and citizens.

The lesson of clean living was taught by the spoken word, by the moving
picture, by the printed page, by the doctor with a scientific
thoroughness and by the layman with a frankness and sometimes a
colloquialism which would for once have rendered Mrs. Grundy speechless.
As an instrument of virtue, the tract is, of course, of time-honored
usage, but the name of George Ade in the list of tract writers is a new
and significant one.

More important than all this, however, in my judgment, was the
realization by the Army of the great truth that the soldier--or any one
else for that matter--goes astray in only the rarest