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Show SOLDIERS AT f RflNT HAVE NO USE FOR YOUNG MEN WHO INSIST ON HOME SPORTS The following clipping from tho Stars and Stripes, the newspaper edited edit-ed and published by the members of the American Expeditionary forces, shows the spirit of the paper and of the men in France. The Sporting Page Goes Out This is the last sporting page The Stars and Stripes will print until an Allied victory brings back peace. The reasons for tho decision to discontinue dis-continue an ancient institution are almost al-most as numerically great as Allied shells crashing into German lines. They are at least sufficiently thick to pulverize or blot out any objections that might be offered by those who have yet failed to see the light. This paper realizes the great aid sport has given in the past in developing devel-oping physical stamnia and enduring morale among thousands of those now making up the nation's army. It recognizes the value pf such training for the future. It was sport that first taught our men to play the game, to plriy it out, to play it "hard. It was sport that brought out the value val-ue of team play, of long, hard training train-ing and the knack of thinking quickly at a vital point of the' contest. But sport as a spectacle, sport as an entertainment for the sideliners, has passed on and out. Its glamor in a competitive way has faded. Its leading stars are either in the iron harness of war or forgotten until Germany, is beaten. The Stars and Stripes appreciates In full sport's abiding value and tho countless thousands of well trained men it has sent Into the line. But tbxiso men have given up the glory of the sporting page boost and the old action snapshot. They are not to be mentioned today because their Job has taken on another hue. I There are tennis and golf champions, cham-pions, football players galore, track stars without number, boxers and ball players who have traded tho easy glory they know at home for the hard, un-glorified un-glorified grind of the S. O. S. or the bloody heritage of the western front. And their fame hero belongs .with the mass, not with individual mention. Neither is there space, entertainment entertain-ment or policy In attempting to handle han-dle the scores of hundreds of ball games played all over Frane. A 40-page 40-page paper would not make a beginning. begin-ning. And those left out would remember re-member the offense longer than those included would remember the space alloted them. What, then, is left, In the main, for a sporting page printed in France within hearing of tho guns? Such headlines as these "Star Players Divo for Shipyards or Farm to Escape 'Work or Fight' Order" "Cobb is Think of Enlisting This Fall" "Fulton "Ful-ton and Dempsey Haggle Over Purse" "Williard Refuses to Fight" and so on through a countless list that doesn't does-n't make any too heroic an appeal to those grinding away upon the job back of the lines or to those living and dying In tho mud and dirt of the front three thousand miles away from home. The Stars and Stripes Is printed for the A. E. F., not to help perpetuate the renown of able-bodied stars, who, with unusual qualifications for war or useful work, elected to hear only the "Business as Usual" slogan abovo their country's call for help in the greatest war she has ever known. There is but one big league today for this paper to cover and that league winds its way among the S. O. S. stations scattered & throughout France and ends at the western front Any work that is part of the Big Job, either in the lines or back of it, from Chateau -Thierry to San Francisco, is or utmost value. But "entertaining the people back home" isn't part of the Big Job, nor do we believe the bulk of them want to be entertained in any such way. When it finally came to a point where any number of able-bodied men were rushing Into various occupations at the point of the boot, when the Secretary of War was forced to produce pro-duce a ruling that would make hundreds hun-dreds of these men "work or fight" as tho squabble and scurry grew day I after day, tills paper felt that it no longer had space left for suqb activitiesnot activi-tiesnot wltth so many events of far greater interest taking place within sight and hearing of Its working staff. There is no space left for the Cobbs,, the Ruths, the Johnsons, the Wlllards and tbe Fultons in the ease and safoty of home when the Ryans, the Smiths, 'the Larsons, the Bernstoins and others oth-ers are charging machine guns and plugging along through shrapnel or grinding out 12-hour details 200 miles in' the rear. Back home the sight of a high fly drifting into the late sun may still have its thrill for a few. But over here the all absorbing factors are shrapnel, high explosives, machine gun bullets, trench digging, stable cleaning, clean-ing, nursinc. training back of the lines nd other endless details throughout through-out France from the base ports to beyond the Marne. Sport among tbe troops must go on for that is part of the job. Sport among the youngsters back home must go on for that, top, is part ol the training job. But the glorified, the commercialized, commercial-ized, the spectatorial sport of the past has been burnt out by gun fire. The sole slogan left Is "Beat Germany." Anything that pertains to that slogan counts. The rest doesn'J. And that Is why this is the last sporting page The Stars and Stripes will print until jan Allied victory brings back peace. |