Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 247, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 November 1917 — HELPING TO WIN THE WAR [ARTICLE]

HELPING TO WIN THE WAR

PREPARED FOR THE STATE COUNCIL OF DEFENSE BY GEORGE ADE.

Six months ago the new voters were very much in the background or off at the sides. No man under thirty held a topnotch executive position or had moved to the front row of his ■profession. “SSyTfflm under thirty was likely to be regarded by a' man well past thirty as a bit pin-feathery and somewhat of a squab. The word “half-baked” is much favored by those who begin to feel a stiffening in the joints. Just a few shifting moons and now the whole nation is looking up in reverence and admiration and dread at Our lads still in the twenties! The bank president is a pigmy alongside of the first lieutenant. Elderly persons sit lonesomely in clubs, feeling depressed and unworthy. We have witnessed the transfiguration of the cub. The very qualities which we appraised so lightly or regarded as minor faults are now recognized as the ingredients of heroism. We do not smile tolerantly at the eager enthusiasm, the scorn of danger, the cheerful optimism and the candid patriotism of these coltish youngsters. __We look at them with eyes a bit misty and say, “Boy’s, you’re great.” Many of us are sitting in sheltered corners, away from the first-hand activities of the war, trying to comprehend that thousands of our boys are now in France and thousands more are. going, and we have passed the long preamble of talk and come up against the flinty realities of shrapnel and hand grenades. How easy it is for a man living in a steam-heated apartment, sleeping on a box mattress and just about .3,000 miles beyond the range of the longest guns—how easy it is for him to tell the boys to endure grimly the trench privations and then go over the top like a whirlwind! Are words of any account just now? Shall we advise our soldiers to be brave? Probably the French and English instructors will urge them to be cautious. Shall we tell them to go our and die for their country? That is not the prospectus, at all, at all. The j>lan is for our boys to tame the Germans and then come home alive. If we are to pester them with counsel, let it be to the following effect: “You are going to tackle the big adventure of’ your life, but the chances are that you will come out of it all right—not even nicked by a wound. The Americans are bound to get into action at the front. They will share hard responsibilities with the English and Canadians and the French. It is a grisly thing to check up on a cold-blooded percentage basis, but, from a view of the averages, we believe that nineteen out of every twenty boys going to France will come home again. Every month the heavy artillery spreads a more effective curtain between the advancing infantry and the enemy. You are going into a zone of extreme risk and to say that you will not be in peril would be to take away, in advance, the glory of your performance. But the figures- from Canada (which is a fair example) indicate that you are not going to be trapped at sea and that only a small percentage of your comrades are going to be put away by the Germans and there is no need of assuming that all the breaks of luck are going to be against you instead of for you. Therefore, we count on giving you a welcome home.

“The training camps will put you in readiness to fight. After the fighting is over you will find yourself up against the highly important duty of going back to your own people and resuming the normal home life. Nearly every fighting man will have a wife, or sweetheart waiting for him. When she is countless miles away, don’t overlook the fact that she is pulling for you and hoping for you and longing for your return. When it comes time for you to return to her, don’t be ashamed to meet her. ■ “Another tip, which no young fellow should resent when it is offered by an older man who has traveled in foreign parts. Remember that the ‘Yank’ has the reputation, in Europe, of standing on his hind legs and crowing at the slightest provocation. We are supposed to blow too much about our native land. We are said to be ‘cocky’ and credit ourselves with a slick superiority over the old-fash-ioned Europeans. Possibly some of our citizens have overdeveloped the gift of loose conversation. “The' ‘typical American’ that Europeans have discovered in popular fiction, mdving pictures and standard melodrama, is an effervescent combination of cow-puncher and Bowery boy. Just now the ‘Sammy’ is receiving an -hysterical welcome. One year ago the people who pelt him with flowers were calling; qs pretty hard names. These impulsive affections are apt to be short-lived unless they are encouraged tactfully. Let us sincerely hope tha*t the attentions crowded upon our boys will not cause a rush of blood to the head, enlarging it. / “Every American soldier landing in France or England has a golden opportunity to show his horse sense

by being somewhat of a diplomat. You are going to meet the worn and battered veterans who have stood the brunt of three years’ deadlock. Don’t advertise that you are about to step in and do something which they failed to do. Don’t be too specific in your assurances of what you are going to put over. Wait and put something over and then speak in the past tense. Don’t patronize th men who were being scorched in the fiery furnace while you sat in the drug store at home, consuming ice cream sodas. Up on your toes—yes! But don’t wear your plumes until you have earned them.” Surely no level-headed young soldier will be bored or offended by such gentle reminders as the foregoing. . The future rating of the United States will be determined by the conduct of American soldiers in Europe during 1917 and 1918. The nations that we respect are prejudiced in our favor, for the first time in years. Let us show them the riew kind of American—quiet, decent, well-behaved, philosophical, self-conttolled, good natured and, all the time, set upon doing, without ostentation, the important job assigned to him. k