piness.

Recently experiments have been carried on in some factories with
phonographs, and it has been proven that if the fingers of the employes
are stimulated by some music they enjoy, it is possible to get more work
out of them. In some Cuban cigar factories it is the customary thing to
employ a man to read to the cigar makers some story which they like, as,
under these conditions, they work better and faster.

All this is not done out of sentiment, again, but because it contributes
to efficiency. The cow, the hen, the factory girl and the cigar wrapper
do better work for being in a pleasant frame of mind.

While we of the American Expeditionary Forces do not fall into any of
these classes, the same is nevertheless probably true of us. We can be
better soldiers if we are cheerful than we can if we are not. It may be
difficult to see how you can sight a gun any better for smiling or
bayonet a man more effectively when you are cheerful. But if we believe
what we are told, this is so, and, hence, since we all want to be good
soldiers, it becomes a duty toward this end to be happy, just as it is a
duty to wash your face or police your bunk, or to keep your rifle clean.
It is a _duty_ to be happy.

That is all very well and good to say, some one interrupts at this
point, but you cannot be happy when your feet are sore or you do not
have all you want to eat. Or, it would be easy to be happy if the mail
would come, or they would "bust" the Mess Sergeant, or take some other
great step forward in the improvement of the army. But we all know
better.

Our happiness is not dependent on conditions outside of us, but on
our hearts within us, and some of the happiest men have been the victims
of extraordinary misfortune and some of the unhappiest people have been
possessors of great wealth who could have all they wanted. The most
joyous book in the world was written by an old man in prison who had
come to the conclusion that when they let him out they would chop his
head off. Many a man has just grinned himself out of worse fixes than
you or I are ever apt to get into.

There are very few things we cannot laugh at. By laughing, we do not
actually shorten the hike, but we make it seem shorter; we do not in
reality lighten the pack, but we make it seem lighter, and it all comes
to the same thing, for we would rather carry a heavy load and have it
seem light than carry a light load and have it seem heavy. If we laugh
at the coo