Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 179, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 July 1915 — Americans Are Men. [ARTICLE]

Americans Are Men.

“One of the popular songs of the day is: ‘I Didn’t aise My Boy to Be a Soldier,’ ” writes Colonel Bryan in The Commoner, and adds: “It expresses a sentiment embedded in the heart of every American mother.” Colonel Bryan isn’t very familiar with the average American mother if he thinks that whining song expresses what is in her heart. If the mothers of America had been “peace at any price” folk, their mollycoddle sons would never have achieved the independence of the repubilc, or maintained its integrity since. Imagine Mary, the Spartan mother of George Washington, rocking the cradle of that future soldier of liberty to that dismal ditty, “I Did Not Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier!” The real American mother raises her boys to be men, and if being a soldier under the circumstances which create the necessity for soldiers in this country, is a part of that job, the real American mother does not want her boy sneaking down the back alleys to escape the mustering officers while his fellows take up arms in defense of their country. Nancy Hanks did not raise her boy, Abraham Lincoln, to be assassinated, but if she had known that this was to be his fate, being a woman of whom such a man could be bom, it is not probable that she would have prayed that he be saved that end in order to die of gout or old age instead. The trouble mith the ultra pacifists is that they are endeavoring to perpert the wholesome American opposition to aggressive, domineering militarist of non-resistence against that very evil.' They forget that as it takes two to make a quarrel, it takes two to make a peace. They are preaching the doubtful virtue of illanimity. Before exposing their country to the dangers of unpreparedness, why do they not first test out their doctrine by undertaking to cure burglary by taking the locks off their doors? —National Republican.