Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 191, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 August 1918 — SOLDIERS’ SWORD ARM OF NATION [ARTICLE]

SOLDIERS’ SWORD ARM OF NATION

If We Fail in Our Duty Boys in France Carinot Achieve Victory. LOAN MONEY TO UNCLE SAM ,v I i-■ , j Buying Liberty Bonds an Investment In Lives of Americans “Ovey. There" and an Insurance for Safety of Our Country. By pORRA HARRIS, (Author of "A Circuit Rider's Wife,? "Eve's Second Husband,” Etc.) Daring the Thrift Stamp campaign in July, 1918, a prominent citizen was sent into a backwoods farming community to arouse the people, and if possible sell Thrift Stamps. He was not expected to have much success with the sale of stamps because the people were very poor and illiterate. ‘ The effort was to be chiefly educational.

The speaker found a dingy company of farmers and their wives waiting for him in an old field schoolhouse. He began his address with arguments for the support of the government reduced to the simplest forms.. No one seemed to listen. The men stared straight ahead as if'they had something else op their minds. The women fanned themselves and looked out of the windows. He Changed his manner of speech to an impassioned appeal; no one was moved. He paused perspiring before making a last despairing effort. But before he could go on a tall, gaunt farmer stood up in the back of the house and waved his hand beseechingly: “Mister,” he said, “if you are done talking, give us a chance at them Thrift Stamps so we kin sign up and get back to the field.” . He gave them the “chance.” They bought nineteen hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of stamps, although there was not a man among them who owned property to the amount of two thousand* dollars. “We own thia land,” the farmer said, addressing the prominent citizen grimly as he passed up the last pledge card, “we own all this country. The government at Washington belongs to us; we made it and It is ours. The army < in France is ours, too; they are our sons. We sent sfrxty-two boys there from this district, and I reckon we know it is our duty ’to work for them and take care of them while they are busy whipping them Germans.” This is the best most serviceable and Intelligent definition of patriotism I have heard since this war began. Victory at Any Cost

This is the most expensive war ever known, still beyond our imagination to conceive of. The enormous destruction wrought by the submarines, the terrific sums spent for , war materials, the loans to our allies, none of these things account for the incredible expense. The real explanation is that, civilization demands that it shall cost everything. Never before has any nation spent so much to insure the health of its soldiers, never before have such provisions been made to safeguard a great army morally. More is being spent to equip hospitals, provide ambulances, nurses and doctors, to care for the wounded than whole campaigns cost in former wars. Never in the :hlstory of man has such provision been made to insure widows and orphans and soldiery from the after effects of wounds and poverty. Formerly when a man entered the army to fight for his country, his country took his life, and that was the end of it if he was killed. Now the government pays, and pays enormously, for every man who lives or dies in this struggle. All this is so because as a nation we have developed a sense of justice and honor that regards any and every expense as secondary to the one tremendous obligation to its citizens Our allies were compelled to fight Germany to Reserve their very existence, but we chose to fight her When we might have made a shameful treaty with her that would have Insured a shameful peace, because we are not; a craven grasping nation, but a nation built upon Ideals, and it costs more to preserve an ideal than it ever costs to preserve peace, because you cannot buy them—you must/achieve them. Nothing stands between the world and this catastrophe bqt the American people, their honor, their energy, their fidelity and their wealth. Our troops in France are only the sword arm of the nation. We. the people at home, are th.e body and life of that army. If we fail at all, they must fail entirely. We are about to make another loan of six billion dollars for war expenses. It te net a gift, but an investment we make in the lives of American soldiers and an insurance we take out for the safety of our country.