Foreign News: The Army Pays

A Corsican landowner presented a claim for damages: U.S. soldiers, said he, had cut down six of his trees for firewood. Officials of the U.S. Army Claims Office asked how he knew the soldiers were Americans. He had a requisition—some penciling on the back of a can label. It was addressed to "Private Mortimer Snerd." Satisfied that only an American could have written that, the U.S. Army paid the Corsican $90 for his trees.

Such cases cram the files of the Claims Office, which follows the Army wherever it goes, last week was...