CIVILIAN FRONT: The Belles of San Antone

In San Antonio last week were several thousand soldiers of the Third Army waiting around for the furloughs due them after maneuvers. Delay had its compensations. No need had they to pose the question: Madam, have you a daughter fair? Ready to see that the boys had a fine time were 1,000 Texas maidens.

The girls who turned out to entertain the boys were San Antonio’s Liberty Belles, who have volunteered to bolster morale by acting as dates for lonesome draftees. The Liberty Belles are organized along semimilitary lines; four girls take orders from a corporal, three corporals from a sergeant, five sergeants from a lieutenant. On the ground that few enlisted men, however lonely, would enjoy stepping out with a lieutenant, that rank is limited to older Belles, who mobilize the girls at San Antonio’s Municipal Auditorium, whence they are dispatched by bus to the scene of operations: the Army Y.M.C.A., Fort Sam Houston, Brooks and Randolph Fields, etc. If a Belle is absent on duty nights, she is likely to lose her red-white-&-blue merit badge, be drummed out of the ranks.

The Liberty Belle brigade got under way last June, when the reluctance of San Antonio’s young ladies to meet the Army so scandalized an energetic matron named Mrs. Norma M. Hancock that she soon had San Antonio by the ears. Business houses, clubs, churches and politicos earnestly persuaded girls to join up. To get a name for the corps, a citywide contest was held. Pretty Agnes MacTaggert, who won it, was denied membership in the Liberty Belles because she was only 16 (age limits: 17-25).

The Liberty Belles are very serious about their work. Besides dancing with soldiers, the Belles listen sympathetically to their troubles, play cards, ping-pong, or just sit, if that’s wanted. The girls are warned against allowing one date to monopolize their evening, against giving out phone numbers carelessly. So well had the brigade done its job that San Antoniannes who wouldn’t have spoken to a man in uniform a year ago now look forward to their dates with the Army.