Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 June 1918 — LENDING AND GIVING [ARTICLE]

LENDING AND GIVING

It will be well lor otir p- ; > Tfr get a correct line on lie tark-:-calls that are being, and *l3l - made on their par.-es :>efo:e tx-s titanic struggle is fought t; i finish. We must get thr distinct ox :«e----tween giving and lending. In the first place, we might ‘st.htthat our government lias not a?i- : and will not ask for one cent of gift money. The extent 'of its :a 1? is for ioansL—and for loans on wLI h it proposes to pay fair rates of 'interest. The man or womax »i: buys government bonds does NOT sacrifice for the cause, in the s-exse in which we usually employ tie word. At the most, his action entails but a temporary inoonvexience, in diverting his means I© different channels from those in which he is accustomed to employ acesa. In the end he has the full worth of his .money in the soundest securities on earth—the promise of the U. S. government to pay. But there are calls being mt is that entail direct giving. -Tintivities of the Red Cross, the T. M. C. A., the Knights of Cedumbusetc., are for money from vhiex there will be no financial rettem. Yet these calls must be met, and met fully and cheerfully.

Why should we support these great causes? Because they 00-nso-tu.te the great humanizing agentuts in the grim machinery -of wscr. Their work is to rAiedy the physaeal hurt and undo the moral hurt that must inevitably result froa* this war. An army without the Red Cross would be unthinkable in this humanitarian twentieth tury. The horrors of war. at its best, are great, but without the ministrations of the Red Cross t»ar armies could not endure. Likewise without the civilizing fluences of the religious and social organizations the morals of our troops, would suffer deeply. Their i minds must be diverted from the grim duties of slaughter, and they! be brought always to see behind the dark clouds of war. the silver lining embodied in the ideal peace conditions for which they contend It doesn't necessarily require great patriotism to buy government *oxss- - support of these comjsanion agencies must come from tie sreaUL generous hearts of bur pet.: le. And thanks be to a God of merey, it is coming in a never-en.dSng stream.