STARS AND STRIPES

Military Journalism

The nearly two million soldiers of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) frequently complained that they could get no reliable news from home. The Paris editions of the New York Herald and the Chicago Tribune printed society news rather than sports scores. AEF leaders saw an opportunity to disseminate information about military decorum and orders. Once it was determined that the costs of printing an eight-page weekly could be covered by selling subscriptions and advertising, the AEF began to publish its own newspaper, the Stars and Stripes, on 8 February 1918. It ran through June 1919, for seventy-one weeks, and eventually reached a circulation of more than one hundred thousand. Its staff swelled to more than three hundred.

Civilians in Uniform

The newspaper's foremost writers were journalists in civilian life and conducted the paper's business as ordinarily as possible. Harold Ross, who would later become the longtime editor of The NewYorker, became chief editor, and he was assisted by distinguished journalists Grantland Rice, Alexander Woollcott, and Franklin P. Adams. While one of the paper's chief purposes was to keep morale high among the troops—with stories selected and slanted in ways most favorable to the efforts of the United States—the quality of writing in the paper made it much more than a propaganda sheet. It provided useful information on everything from hygiene to grief, from politics to baseball.

Doughboy Doggerel

The Stars and Stripes constantly printed light verse composed by the servicemen on every subject from death to beer. The difficulties of living in a foreign country made for some clever verse, as did the required deference to officers. These two topics combined in a typical (anonymous) poem titled "Its Pronounced Foch," about the French commander's name:

The French will think it is a joke
When bungling Yanks pronounce it Foch,
Yet we will make a sadder botch
If we attempt to call it Foch;
Nor can we fail to pain and shock
Who boldly try to say it Foch.
In fact, we have to turn to Boche
To find the word that rhymes with Foch.

War Orphans

The most touching project the Stars and Stripes undertook was a war orphans program. The brainchild of Harold Ross, it linked orphaned French children with American soldiers. For Fr 500 (about $88 at the then current exchange rate) the Red Cross would provide and monitor the child's care and education. The soldier (or often unit) would receive a picture of the child and updates on his or her progress. The project generated tremendous goodwill with the French population and continued to do so as the children themselves came to maturity. People and companies in the United States also participated, and altogether Americans "adopted" thirty-five hundred children.

Something Human

Doughboys and officers praised the paper as something human in the dreary trenches, and as an efficient morale booster, as one small thing that made them feel closer to home. Newspapers in the United States also praised the paper for its high standards and service to the average soldier. Stars and Stripes veterans held high-ranking positions throughout the field of journalism, from the New York Tribune to the Ladies' Home Journal, and between them published dozens of books. A weekly Stars and Stripes, edited in Washington, D.C., was published for a few years after the armistice. The name was revived during World War II to denote a dozen publications for units all over the world. None matched the distinction of the first to use the name.

Source:

Alfred A. Cornebise, The Stars and Stripes: Doughboy Journalism in World War I (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1984).

Stars and Stripes unofficial daily newspaper for U.S. military personnel stationed overseas operated under U.S. Army sponsorship. Stars and Stripes was published in France from February 1918 to June 1919 and resumed publication in April 1942 continuing to the present. Both a European and a Pacific edition are published.

Stars and Stripes • pl. n. [treated as sing.] the national flag of the U.S. It has 13 horizontal stripes, alternating red and white, which represent the original Thirteen Colonies. In the upper left corner is a field of blue with 50 white stars, which represent the 50 states.

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