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THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
r- ■ ~ s
ATLANTA, GA., 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST.
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail
Matter of the Second Class.
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B fe
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BL? .. .
she Journal’s Service Flag
• In honor of the seventy-three Atlanta Jour
lal men who have entered the service of their
Huntry. The two white stars are in memory
•f Captain Meredith Gray and Captain James
L Moore, Jr., Journal men, who gave their
Ivee for our country in France.
Coals of Fire.
If the people of Germany can appreciate
he difference between heaping coals of fire
n an enemy's head, in the Pauline sense of
hat phrase, and applying the torch to de
maeless homes, they can hardly fail to con
test the conduct of the American and Allied
Roops now in occupation of the Rhineland
rith that of their own armies of invasion.
In his proclamation issued at Treves Gen
ral Pershing, after assuring the inhabitants
the entire region that their private rights
ould be in no wise disturbed as long as
ley respected the necessary measures of
helpline, admonished them “now to devote
purselves to the orderly conduct of your
rivate lives and affairs, the re-establishment
f normal conditions in schools, churches,
ospitals and charitable institutions, and the
ssumption of your local civil life.” It is to
e hoped that the German public will have
ecasion to compare this edict with some of
lose which Von Bissing posted in Belgium;
i no other way could they see more plainly
le difference between kultur and civilization.
I The American, French, British and Bel
ian forces are on German soil as victors,
id in the case of tbe French and Belgians
i victors whose own countries have suf
ired unspeakable brutality at the hands of
le now vanquished foe. Yet, there is no
iggestion of reprisals upon the Rhineland,
o hint of the frightfulness which the Huns
iwed broadcast on their western march.
In Allied countries this considerateness
►wards the enemy’s civilians and respect for
rivate property is taken as a matter of
Mine; but in Germany, we imagine, it can
mreely be accepted as real.
What few titles there are left in Europe
fter the war will be bought up by new rich
jnericans.
New Millions to Feed.
A condition of which we cannot be re
linded too often was cogently stated by the
resident of the National War Garden Com
ilsslon when he said, in urging increased
»d production tn the South. "There are
ew millions of people, cut from under the
eel of the Hun, whom we must feed.”
The collapse of the Central Empires has
tready changed the face of Europe and
rill work still wider changes in the months
bead. It has released from German domi
atlon entire nationalities whom we hitherto
oeely regarded as part and parcel of the
russianized alliance but who at heart were
eeply rebellious against that evil regime,
hus vast numbers of Poles, Czechs, Slo
aks and other non-German peoples have
sen. or will be, released from their bitter
indage. But having been within the iron
ng which the Allies welded about the Cen
•al Powers and having now no hope of re
living food supplies save through Allied
pace, these millions are in a peculiarly ap-
Baling sense the charges of the human-
Rarted and resourceful nations. In their
Igions as in devastated Serbia and Belgium.
long time will be required to restore nor
al conditions.
Meanwhile, it is to fertile and prosperous
merica that the helpless look for succor,
ur fields have been untouched by war, and
nr strength undiminished. What we have
iven has come from an abundance so broad
lat the outgo was but as crumbs dropped
■om the table. It is the privilege no less
lan the obligation of this favored country
> bend its energies to serving the needs of
u impoverished and hungry world.
As a great agricultural section, the South
as a special duty. The raising of food
rops and food animals was always to the
lAterial interest of Southern farmers, and
I to their material interest now more than
ver before. But the»e is today the addi
onal Incentive of ,he human suffering
hich they can believe by turning their pro
active resources to full account.
Those of us who stayed behind can tell the
ys from France that we registered without
Unworthy of a St. Helena.
On Holland’s reported intention of offer
ing to intern the ex-Kaiser for life on some
island of the Dutch East or West Indies, the
New York Tribune aptly remarks that in
this case the precedent of the great exile to
Elba and to St. Helena does not interest the
Allies. For,
“They do ndt regard William the Sec
ond as a dangerous political prisoner.
Napoleon was a poor statesman, but he
was a military genius. William the
Second has no talents either as a states
man or a military leader. The Allied
Powers do not want to see him immured
as a matter of military precaution. They
want tu see him recive his deserts as a
CRIMINAL.”
That is the nubbin of the issue. Having
cold-bloodedly and repeatedly broken the
law of nations, having instigated and sanc
tioned the murder of thousands of inno
cents, having placed himself beyond the paie
of civilization and beyond the right of asy
lum, William Hohenzollern ought to be
brought to the bar of justice and duly pun
ished. The Netherlands Government itself
I has ample warrant for such a procedure on
its own behalf, for under his rule and direc
tion Dutch ships were ruthlessly sunk and
: Dutch lives destroyed. There are few na-
I ions, indecl, t v -* would not be specific lly
justified in trying and punishing the ex-
Kaiser, because in his reign of outlawry he
spared neither neutral nor noncombatant,
neither the most peaceable of neighbors nor
the most disinterested of countries far
acros the sea.
For his crimes against the whole world,
therefore, this once-sceptered pirate and
brigand should receive, not the dignity of
Elba or St. Helena, but such disposal as the
law of all civilized lands provides for con
victed felons.
The Rhine Is now famous for something
more than its scenery.
Where is the ex-kaiser’s talk about “my
shining sword?”
Adventure and Service.
Men who are being mustered out of
military service but who are still eager
for adventure that will be of use to their
country as well as engaging to themselves
will do well to consider the opportunities
offered in the United States merchant
marine.
As a result of the prodigious shipbuild
ing activities which have gone forward
for the last eighteen months under Gov
ernment direction, the American flag is
going to be restored to the seas, restored
by hundreds of trading vessels that will
make their way to all ports that “the eye
of heaven visits.” Upon the outbreak of
the war more than ninety per cent of our
foreign commerce was borne in ships of
other nations. The Stars and Stripes were
unknown to the ocean highways except
through an occasional cruise of a naval
contingent or through the wanderings of
some rich American’s yacht. That unde
sirable and truly precarious condition is to
be ended —never, we trust, to return. The
ships are being produced in plenty. The
present problem is to get crews to man
them.
Here is an inviting, a really alluring op
portunity for young men who have no
binding responsibilities or ties and who are
eager for a look at the wide world. They
can see much, learn much and all the
while be serving their country in a thor
oughly substantial way.
Only twelve more shopping days, and the
war is over.
Sheep Raising in Georgia.
In view of the record that for twenty
years or more the world’s supply of sheep
has diminished while the demand for wool
and mutton has increased, present efforts to
introduce sheep raising in Georgia on an ex
tensive scale appear most timely and profit
able. Experts of the State College of Agri
culture who recently have been experiment
ing to this end in some of the southern
counties are much encouraged. It is alto
gether an erroneous idea, they say, that
sheep will not thrive in a warm climate.
The two essentials, they point out, are an
abundance of grazing and an absence of va
grant dogs.
Few if any States so near the great mar
ket centers as Georgia have her wealth of
natural resources for sheep raising, and, In
deed. for all branches of animal husbandry.
With less than thirty-five per cent of the
State’s farmable area in use, with tens of
thousands of acres of pasture land available
at low prices, and with all the requisites of
climate and soil plentifully present, the op
portunities for profitable sheep raising in
this State should appeal to the most con
servative judgment and enlist the most ear
nest effort. '
The man who kicks on this weather didn’t
have to buy coal last winter.
German Bolsheviki.
The inwardness of the German Bolsheviki
is revealed in the Red Flag’s strident protest
against what it terms international capital
ism’s sending food into the empire. “This,”
screams that organ of crafty anarchy, "is
treachery against the revolution . . . and
should be opposed as a capitalistic effort to
beat the Bolsheviki aims.” No microscope is
needed to discover the motive in this balder
dash. The Bolshevik purpose Is primarily to
keep discontent boiling that demagogues
may fatten on the skimmings of the pot.
Significantly enough these tyrants of the
mob are generally in collusion with tyrants
on the throne. Lenine and Trotzky were
shameless hireling! of Potsdam, and if the
truth were out it probably would betray a
not unsympathetic relation between shag
haired anarchists and smug Junkers in Ber
lin. Certain it is that the Bolsheviki have
proved hostile in every instance to those who
fought and sacrificed for human freedom
What they wish is not liberty; they care as
little for that as the apostles of Prussianism
itself. License and loot are what they really
wish.
THE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA. FRIDAY. DECEMBKK IS. IDIH.
No German “Intellectualism"
For American Universities.
A characteristic bit of Potsdam propaganda
in the United States was the so-called German
University League of which Von Bernstorff
wrote: “Founded since the war, it has done
its best to take the place of the German Asso
ciation. which has been of no use during the
war, on account of its management. The
League has published uder my collaboration
an excellent collection of reports. The sup
port which I have given the League (financial
support, that is to say) is entered in the first
quarter's account, item No. 205.” The New
York Herald, recalling that the League was
founded, with headquarters at 225 Fifth ave
nue, by Herr Dernburg and Herr Professor
von Mach, says that the organization first
came into notice “when it endeavored to in
duce American professors to support an ap
peal in behalf of Germany issued by certain
German professors.” While a few—a pitiable
few—were caught, "being catchable, ’’ the re
sponses from the majority “were so hot that
the Herr Doktor and his League soon went
out of business.”
Never did the rank and file of American
colleges and universities prove their mental
soundness and moral keenness to better ef
fect than In their emphatic rejection of Ger
man propaganda. While Prussia’s soul
less intellectualism, which Is but a counterpart
of ruthless militarism, won a few “high
brows,” whom Dr. Brander Matthews has hap
pily defined as "persons educated beyond their
intelligence,” most college communities in
this country appear to have been decidedly
pro-Ally from the beginning of the war, as
well as wholeheartedly pro-American from
April 6, 1917. This is the more significant
and assuring because these centers of thought
and training exercise a continually increasing
influence on our national life.
When you get blue, think about the war
oeing over and the troubles you had last win
ter with the coal problem.
Town and Country.
Deserved commendation is pouring in upon
the Dublin Chamber of Commerce for its
neighborly manifestations Interest in the
farmers of the country about. Typical of
many comments is that of the Savannah
Press:
"When the Laurens county farmer
and his wife go to Dublin now, they have
somewhere to go. The Chamber of Com
merce is as much theirs as it is that of
the Mayor or of the biggest merchant in
Dublin. It is their town headquarters.
They are made to feel that the town is
glad to have them as a sort of stock
holder in an enterprise which works, not
alone for the county seat of Laurens, but
for all of Laurens county. And the
whole plan is for the good of the entire
community.”
The interests of town and country are at
bottom so interdependent, particularly in an
agricultural State like Georgia, that tbe won
der is there has not been more of the sort of
work the Dublin Chamber of Commerce is
doing. The prosperity and growth of the
town depend first and last upon the develop
ment of the surrounding country; and, In
turn, the country looks to the town for many
services without which agricultural success
would be sorely limited and farm life dis
tressingly bleak. It is by working together
for the entire county’s good that town and
country folk can make the most of their com
mon opportunities.
As far as it goes, the armistice is a good
thing to make the world safe for democracy.
YOUR DAILY WORK
By H. Addington Bruce
DO you really enjoy your daily work?
Are you indifferent to it? Do you
perhaps engage in it only from a dis
agreeable feeling of compulsion?
If you do not really enjoy your work, the
possibility is that it is not wholly suited to
your aptitudes. Besides which, it may be
set down as certain that you are looking at
it from a wrong point of view.
A man’s work should always mean more
to him than a mere means of livelihood. He
should draw from it happiness, content
ment. peace of mind.
This he can do only if he looks upon his
work as contributing something worth while
to the lives of his fellowmen.
For men are so built that THE CON
SCIOUSNESS OF RENDERING SERVICE
IS AN INSTINCTIVE NEED OF THEIR
BEING. Those who have not this con
sciousness are certain to be unhappy,
whether they do not work at all or work up
to the limit of their powers and whether the
monetary return from their work is small
or great.
The idler Is necessarily miserable, be
cause all the while he is oppressed by the
knowledge that he is breaking a basic nat
ural law. The self-centered worker Is almost
as miserable, because his self-centeredness
blinds him to the deeper significance and
higher purposes of work.
Misery, likewise, besets the man who has
chosen his work unwisely. He is unhappy
for the reason that he knows that his blun
dering choice of a vocation is keeping him
from making the most of his talents for his
own good and the good of society.
Even so, if he will but cultivate a keener
sense of the social value of whatever work
he Is trying to do he may gain therefrom a
stimulus enabling him to a surprising ex
tent to overcome his vocational handicap,
and at the same time giving him the peace
of mind he has hitherto lacked.
Os course, if it be not too late for him to
make a new and wiser choice of work, let
him do that by all means. But his second
choice will not make him any happier than
the first, unless he develop the right attitude
toward his work.
Look about you at the workers you know
to b.e happy—people, many of them who,
perhaps, are not making nearly so much
money as you.
Inquire closely and you will discover that
they one and all are imbued with the ideal
of service, and are appreciative of the op
portunity their work gives them to realize
that ideal.
Shift your point of view as regards your
work to bring it more into accord with their
point of view. Think less of your work
with regard to its significance to you. and
more with regard to its significance to
society.
Soon you will find yourself becoming
more interes ed in your work than you ever
have been before, you will bend your ener
gies more actively to doing it well, and you
will know happiness more surely.
(Copyright, 1918, by the Associated News
papers)
SEAMY SIDES OF SOLITUDES
By John Breck
L 3 thoroughly do I appreciate the charms
of my solitude that I feel privileged to
detail, for once, its seamy side. The
most chafing elemnt for the first two weeks
came in such chilly dawns as found me
without firewood. True, I should have chop
ped it the night before; but if I hadn’t, there
was nothing for it but to sally forth slipper
ed and sweatered, into the chill, and wield
the axe, while my breath visualized the
frosty air in vapory puffs with every lusty
blow.
Then slowly it dawned on me that wash
day was inevitably coining to hand. My own
hand, at that. For the only woman I might
possibly wile into such service is herding
goats. She would do anything in the world
for me if I were really sick, but while I have
my heath —well she merely sniffed and said
I had time to learn, which is what comes of
living in a state where women have the vote!
So much for her cruelty!
I started out to attain the experience. Now
the burning question was, the wash to the
well or the water to the house? I chose the
first. It made me tired just to think of
carrying that much water up the weary hill.
But the icy spring refused to lather my soap.
Whereupon 1 built me a stove to heat it
on. I scooped out a hole in the bank, set
up a section of riddled stovepipe, rescued
from the rubbish heap, flattened a kerosene
tin for a top. braced by the rod from the
tail of the wagon, and the deed was done.
"But that’s not the way!” the .horus of
Old-Timers will cut in. "You should of — ’
Yes I know, bu., that was the way I did. And
it really worked —enough to burn my fingers
on the edges of the tub.
By this time I had an audience fully as
critical as the Old-Timers. Two ground
squirrels were sunning their dappled coats
on the rock above, and combing out their
tails, and every little bird that hangs around
my door was attending the performance.
They understood about the water perfectly
well, for they like theirs warm, sunwarm in
a still, sandy-bottomed pool. But they had
one point of skepticism.
“You know, my dear,” said a lady-like
towee in a big voice as quiet as her coat,
“that big things can never flutter properly
in that much water.”
“I didn’t think they ever troubled to
bathe,’’ said the rosy-headed finch who lives
by the brook and dips a dozen times a day.
Well, I went on with my scrubbing, while
they grew more and more curious, until at
last the jay came along and swung on the
wild lilac to jeer at us. Then I ventured
the information that I took my feathers off
so I could see whether I got them clean. Os
• course, they didn’t believe me. But the tit,
who lives just over my head, insisted it was
so. He seemed embarrassed to own that he
had peeked at the privacies of my toilet, yet
not a little puffed up over his superior knowl
edge.
“What color is it, then?” scoffed the jay.
"Pink.”
“Like me,” said the finch, who thinks his
is the most desirable color in the world.
"No, lighter, like —like the manzanita
flowers, 1 mean,” insisted the tit.
"Yah," screamed the jay. “Who ever
heard of a pink animal? I say. redtop, give
me f. snifter our of that private bott’e of
yours. I always wanted to see a blue squat
teroo —maybe it’s strong enough to show me
one.” And he screamed with laughter.
Whereat I forgot what I was about and burnt
the rest of my fingers on the tub. I was
almost mad enough tc take off the remainder
of my clothes —all those I hadn’t in the tub —
and show that jay. But there was the lady
like towee; I knew it would never do.
And when you come to think of it, a pink
animal certainly does sound queer and out
of tune with the scheme of natural things.
But wash day is enough to set any one won
dering whether man is really so superior after
all.
GOD MEANS BUSINESS
By Dr. Frank Crane
What does it all mean, this war. these
times, this general upsetting and reconstruc
tion?
Every thinker unconsciously tries to get
a world viewpoint to understand what Destiny
is up to, to see the meaning of God.
His whole trend of opinion depends upon
his viewpoint of the universe.
Does Destiny have in store for us Socialism,
or some other Utopian ideal? Does Destiny
intend that some dictator or some one mighty
nation should arise and dominate the earth?
One opinion is as good as another, perhaps,
and mine is that God means business.
Business is the best and latest development
of humanity. It means the arrangement of
the social units upon a basis of mutual
service.
Business is Democracy expressed in its most
practical terms. Os course, we are done with
kings and dynasties. And we are done with
slavery. Society can never again be arranged
on terms of master and servant, of lord and
vassal, of king and subject.
It is too soon yet for it to be arranged on
terms of beautiful idealistic altruism. That
is not due yet. It is several stations ahead.
But the world can be arranged on terms of
business.
Nations ought to be business corporations,
instead of racial units. Every state should
be a section of the great business concern
of the world, engaged in promoting the
prosperity of its population.
Race units are hotbeds of hate and preju
dice. They have always fought since the
beginning of history.
Business units would not fight. They
would trade.
In good business every transaction benefits
both parties. The world, as a business or
ganization, would come nearer meaning equal
ity than in any other way.
Curses have been hurled at the wage sys
tem, but. after all, the best and most just
way to get work done is to pay for it
Americans have been sneered at as wor
shipping the almighty dollar, but the dollar
is the best mark of equality between man and
man. We are all frankly after the dollar,
but we want to give for it a quid pro quo.
Nations that profess to despise the dollar
have their privileged classes, their lan led
proprietors, their huge endowments and other
devices by which they make the whole social
struggle unfair and uneven.
The business world is founded upon hones
ty and service. The world, as a business or
ganization, would do away with wars and the
vast productions of destructive machinery.
Its whole energy would be devoted to work,
and work is the most wholesome thing for
mankind, and provides the best soil in which
art and idealism can grow. There can be no
eventual Democracy woven from the faded
and moth-eaten tatters of royal pride and
national chauvinism.
The world can never be made safe for
Democracy except as a business organization.
It can never be a world of fair play and
ultimate justice until Its motto shall become
“To every man his penny.”
(Copyright, 1918, by Frank Crane.)
Even if the Germans really tried to be de
cent, they would be accused of spreading
propaganda. Thus is sin punished.
Some guilty consciences need something
more strenuous than an accuser.
More than one editor can recall the fore
cast he made that Germany would fall.
THE AMERICAN DEAD—By Frederic J. Haskin
WASHINGTON, D. C., December 9.—Shall
the American dead in France be dis
interred and brought back to America,
or shall their bones be allowed to remain*
permanently in the soil of the country where
they fell?
This question, which is supposed to have
been settled some months ago by an official
order of the secretary of war, remains in fact
a subject involving some difference of opinion
and a great deal of practical difficulty.
The order of the secretary of war, issued
last July, states that “the remains of all of-}
ficers, enlisted men and civilian employes of!
the army, navy and marine corps, who have
died or may hereafter die in France, shall be
buried in France until the end of the war.
when the remains shall be brought back to
the United States for final interment.”
This order suggests in itself that it must
have been issued without a careful prelimi
nary consideration of what it might involve.
It is known to have been issued in response
to a popular demand for the return of the
remains of the slain to this country. This
demand was evidenced by letters to the war
department. Many of them were from
wealthy persons who desired to go in person
and bring back the bodies of their dead from
France. It was found impossible to grant
these requests because of the shortage of
transportation, and it was further considered
unjust to allow the wealthy to bring back
their dead, while the poor were unable to
do so. It was concluded that the only just
and satisfactory arrangement wouid be for
all the dead to be brought back ac govern
ment expense.
Since the issuance of the order, however,
a strong sentiment has sprung up in favor
of leaving the fallen Americans where they
are. Qolonel Roosevelt’s letter to the secre
tary of war, expressing the earnest wish that
the remains of his son Quentin be not dis
turbed, has been widely published in the
newspapers. The feeling expressed by Colonel
Roosevelt is known to be widely shared and
to have been communicated to the war de
partment by many other fathers of fallen
sons.
While the government presumably stands
pledged to bring back the remains o f the
American soldiers to this country, it can
safely be stated that for various reasons the
growth of this sentiment is a thing to be
desired.
For one thing, there are great practical
difficulties in the way of bringing back the
remains of the slain. For another, they are
not buried here and there in France in scat
tered and untended graves, as many persons
seem to imagine.
The Grave Registration Service of the
American Expeditionary Force is a special
service which has been organized for the pur
pose of gathering the American dead and
interring them in cemeteries set aside by the
French government for the purpose. Those
temporarily buried on or near the field of tat
tle are disinterred and removed to these
cemeteries later. The cemeteries may be con
sidered as American soil, since they have been
given by France to the United States for the
purpose which they serve. Some American
soldiers have been buried in French and
British military cemeteries. Nor?, except
those listed as missing, are interred outside
of military cemeteries, and few of these could
be identified for return to this country in
any case.
Photographs of these military cemeteries
have reached this country. They show long
rows of carefully tended graves, with flowers
THE NEED FOR A LEAGUE OF NATIONS |
(By Ex-President William H. Taft in Phila
delphia Public Ledger)
Senator Knox’s resolution, introduced in
the senate, proposes that the Versailles con
ference with reference to the treaty should be
divided into its work; that it should first
make the treaty of peace, so that may be pro
claimed promptly, and then that there should
be a second conference to form a league of
nations in a second treaty, in which there
would be more time and opportunity for de
liberation. The wisdom of bringing about a
formal peace at as early a date as possible
is manifest; but the slightest analysis of the
task before the conferees makes clear that
the web and woof of the treaty must include
a league of nations for half of the world at
least.
The armistice was signed on condition that
the treaty should cover subject matters and
general results outlined in the president’s
message of January 8, as modified by the al
lies prior to the armistice. We have a right,
therefore, to expect, as all the parties to the
conference have, that the treaty will set up
from eight to one dozen independent republics
and carve them out of the old dominions of
the five empires of Germany, Austria, Russia,
Bulgaria and Turkey. The peoples thus con
stituting self-governing communities have
never had any experience in the responsibil
ity of popular sovereignty. They have not
been trained in that self-restraint which is in
dispensable to the success of self-government.
They will need the same kind of assistance
that we gave to Cuba in the early days of her
independence, and they will need a very close
watch by the league of nations now making
and controlling this eace, otherwise the
necessary friction between them and the do
minions out of which they are carved, with
the jealousies, ambitions and suspicions en
gendered by the change, will make a perma
nent state of war rather than a permanent
state of peace.
SHADOW HUNS AND OTHERS
The German propaganda, instituted by Dr.
Bernhard Dernburg and secretly directed by
an American ex-clergyman in the pay of the
kaiser, aimed to achieve certain specific re
sults. The purpose was to deflect the blame
of starting the great war from Germany by
ascribing the causes to certain historic
wrongs—the isolation of Germany by Rus
sia, France and Great Britain and efforts to
hinder the economic development of the
Fatherland, chiefly by Great Britain; to pre
vent the shipment of arms and ammunition
to the allies, to the military advantage of
Germany; to prevent America from going to
war with Germany over the U-boat issue.
Once war had been declared, Germany’s
chief concern was to render our part negligi
ble by creation of anti-war sentiment, by pro
moting resistance to the draft, by social and
labor unrest with fomenting strikes in mines,
munition plants and other war industries. In
this the Socialist party, the I. W. W. and
mushroom pacifist organizations were
utilized.
As the war continued and German pros
pects of victory waned, Germany’s chief
hope of obtaining a satisfactory peace lay in
creating, if possible, disunity among the al
lies. Nothing would have better served Ger
many’s sinister purposes than the destruc
tion of international morale, of full co-opera
tion and mutual confidence between the gov
ernment of the United States and the gov
ernments. Os course, in such pro-German
propaganda no loyal Americans could have
taken part. In propaganda designed to de
stroy amity between us and the nations as
sociated with us in the war few level-headed
Americans could have been deceived. Any
effort to create suspicion of the allies, to sow
seeds cf distrust, to impose the belief that
the allied governments were in the hands of
hypocrites, liars and intriguers would have
seemed patent shadow-Hun propaganda. But
were not some Americans deceived into be-
growing about them, and each marked by a
wooden board or cross. Those graces which
are left undisturbed in France will be marked
by the United States government with stones.
Following the issuance of the secretary’s
order last summer, the Grave Registration
Service of the quartermaster’s corps was or
ganized. A unit of this service includes
about fifty men, three of whom are skilled
undertakers and embalmers, and seven of
whom are undertakers’ apprentices. There
are fifteen such units with the Expeditionary
Force. ,
As is shown by the above account of it"
work, this service has been most successful
in identifying the American dead, and in ob- ‘
taining proper interment. Each man in the
Expeditionary Force wears upon his person
identification tags, giving his name, rank,
company and regiment. If the individual
desires, this tag is further stamped H, C or
P, the letters standing respectively for He
brew, Catholic and Protestant. A Hebrew,
if he has thus declared himself one, is never
buried under a cross.
It was pretty plainly tne original Intention
of the war department that this Grave Reg
istration Service should embalm the bodies
of the dead, and bury them in caskets. The
inclusion of the undertakers in the personnel
indicates this. It is also known that several
thousand caskets were shipped to France for
this purpose. It was evidently intended that
each fallen soldier should be embalmed and
buried in a casket so that his disinterment
and removal would be an easy matter.
It was soon found that both embalming. f
and the use of caskets were impracticable. ’
Caskets and coffins could not be shipped to
France because there was not enough ship
ping to bear the soldiers and the food which
were needed to win the war. Neither was
embalming practicable. Not only did limita
tions of time often make this impossible, but
the condition of the bodies, some of which
were badly mangled and some of which were
not discovered for days after death, added
to the difficulty. All attempt either to em
balm the American dead or to bury them in
caskets was presently abandoned, except in
the case of a few who died in hospitals where
ample facilities for interment happened to
be at hand.
Most of the American dead were buried as
soldiers have long been buried—wrapped in
their blankets and tents.
It is estimated that the total number of
Americans who were killed or died of wounds
in France is In the neighborhood of 75,000.
The task which the government would
face then, if it brought all of the dead back
to American soil, would be the disinterment
of this number of bodies, buried without Y
embalming or caskets; their placement in
hermetically sealed caskets; transportation
across the ocean, and distribution to all parts
of the United States. The cost of the metal
lined, hermetically-sealed caskets, which are
required by our Interstate Commerce laws,
alone would be an enormous item. With
all precautions, the task would be an in
sanitary and gruesome one. It would cause
an unnecessary recrudescence of all of the
most bitter feelings connected with the war.
Its total cost has been estimated at not less
than $50,000,000.
All of these facts have been advanced as
reasons why the relatives of American sol
diers who fell in France should be content to
allow their remains to stay in the soil of
the country foi which, as well as for their
own, they died.
A treaty of peace, therefore, cannot be
signed and be counted on as a treaty of peace
unless it contains the machinery for main
taining peace with the new governments
created in central and eastern Europe and in
Asia Minor. A court must be created to in
terpret the provisions of the treaty and apply
them to detailed conditions that could not be
anticipated in the making of the treaty and
could not be specifically provided for. There
must be a commission of conciliation to set
tle questions of policy as between these coun
tries which could not be determined on the
basis of law and equity.
The allies as a league of nations must main
tain a combined military and naval force as
a police force, to restrain these children in
self-government from violence and to protect
them from possible bullying by the suc
cessors of the old imperial governments. They
must maintain a police force to stamp out
that enemy of mankind, Bolshevism, which
now runs rampant in Russia and is a sad
commentary on the policy pursued by this
government and the allies in sending a boy
for a man’s job.
The conference in dealing with new situa
tions is bound to lay down and elaborate prin
ciples of International law never before defi
nitely agreed upon. In other words the
treaty of course itself must have a league of
nations to enforce peace for half the world,
with a court, a council of conciliation, a po
lice force and a quasi legislative body to enact
international law. • 1
These are the principles of the league to
enforce peace proejeted for the world. If
they must be applied to half the world, why
not to all? Why not to the allies who make
this treaty inter se, as well as to the many
nations for whose peace they now become
responsible, in view of the ambitious plans
for settlement which they have announced
and to which by the terms of the armistice
they have committed themselves?
lieving this? Were not certain highly in
tellectual "molders of public opinion” some
how inveigled into becoming instruments of
this very propaganda?
With victory achieved and German mili
tarism crushed, what interpretation shall be
put upon the efforts of men of supposedly su
perior minds to bring about a peace of nego
tiation and compromise, upon endeavors cal
culated to estrange America from the allied
nations on part of men representing them
selves as speaking for those high In the gov
ernment? What explanation is there for
any systematic campaign designed to cast
doubt upon the motives and ideals of the na
tions which for four years spent their blood
and substance in resisting Germany?—Na
tional Civic Federation.
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES
"Does the war make much difference to
you?” asked the new servant.
"The missus says we’ve got to conomize,
so we’re to ’ave margarine with meals in the
kitchen," replied the old cook.
“Doesn’t she have it, then?”
"Not her! She says as ’ow It doesn’t suit
her digestion. But there ain’t nothin’ wrong
with her digestion. We know that, for we
often sends ’er up margarine and Jave butter
ourselves.”
An enthusiastic fisherman, who was at the
same time a stanch teetotaler, engaged an
experienced boatman to take him fishing.
Although he had a good stretch of water to
fish in, night after night he came back with
an empty creel, and at last departed in dis
gust. After he had gone some one asked the
boatman how it was that a fairly expert fish
erman had such a run of ill luck.
"Awell,” was the reply, "he had nae
w’huskie, and I took him where there was nae
fish.” . _, .