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Show AMERICA IN FRANCE. America is doing wonderful things j behind the front In France. In an advertisement ad-vertisement of the pictures "America's Answer," which are being shown In the moving picture houses in tho United Unit-ed States, what may be considered an authoritative statement Is made by tho committee on public information, from which the Standard extracts evidence evi-dence that, at last, America's war machine ma-chine is beginning to move with massive mas-sive parts and tremendous force. ' America is building Its own docks, its own railroads, its own hospitals; it is damming French streams for the conservation of water and Jo secure an adequate supply of water for American Amer-ican enterprises; it is erecting American Ameri-can machine shops, and it is creating an elaborate system of storehouses to protect the enormous stores being rushed across tho ocean for the American Ameri-can armies In tho field; it Is introducing introduc-ing American machinery to create eve ry conceivable needed thing that It is possible, to manufacture in France. Through the work of the engineers, American railroads are "beginning to spread all over France. Right of way for a double line has been secured from the French government by array engineers, extending from the coast to the battle front, including the construction con-struction of hundreds of miles of trackage track-age for yards and the necessary sidings, sid-ings, switches, etc. Hundreds of miles of track reach from the front to the American base hospitals and the larger permanent hospitals in the rear. There have been produced for the railroad operations of the war department depart-ment In France more than 22,000 standard gauge freight cars and more than 1,600 standard gauge American locomotives. In addition to this, purchases pur-chases of both cars and locomotives have been made abroad. Incredible as it may seem, Uncle Sam has his own machine and boiler shops in France. Freight space on ships Is precious, and the quartermaster's quartermas-ter's department quickly discovered that it was much more economical to send locomotives and other machinery to France in sections than to assemble them in the United States. This, however, how-ever, necessitated the erection of big machine shops, with powerful cranes and every needed appliance for putting put-ting the parts of heavy machinery together. to-gether. One of the most important branches of the work is the assembling assem-bling of locomotives. At the present time two or three locomotives are completed and run out of the American Ameri-can shops "somewherein Franco" every eve-ry day. These locomotives aro usually usual-ly of the Baldwin type, such as arc familiar fa-miliar in the United States, but in Franco they attract a great deal of attention, at-tention, as they are larger and more powerful than those in use on the French railroads. Their tremendous "pulling" power is also a constant source of astonishment, as one of these engines can draw a mile of j freight cars (or goods vans, as they are known in Europe) without straining. strain-ing. In. order to do this, however, it was necessary to build American railroads, rail-roads, and hundreds of miles of track have already been laid in France. There is a wonderful three-mile dock built on swamp land. |
