Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 100, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 March 1919 — The Debt [ARTICLE]

The Debt

By RANDALL PARRISH.

A young fellow came back to our town the other day, struggling along on crutches; he hnd left one leg In France. A friend met him, and said sympathetically: “I’m mighty sorry, Fred, you lost your leg.” The lad looked at him and smiled. "I didn’t lose my leg, Charlie,” he replied quietly. “I gave It.” That is just what they have been doing, those splendid lads of ours. They have been giving their legs, their arms, their eyes, their very lives, that we might hAve our homes, our shops, our farms; that we might live in peace, In prosperity, In freedom of thought and action. Don’t we owe them anything! Haven’t we a debt unpaid to the dead In France, to the maimed and crippled, who are coming home from the battle front?

That Is the appeal of the forthcoming Victory Liberty loan. It is a debt we owe —to the aviator, who went crashing down in flame*; to the doughboy, who went cheering over the top through a rain of shrapnel; to the gunner, who fell with the lanyard in his hand. We can never pay it —no! Money does not work that mirade. Just down the street from here a flag hangs in the window of a little cottage containing two golden stars. What is my money, or yours, balanced against the priceless gift of the heart-broken father and mother there? If every man In this town should throw his dollar* into the scale, those lives would weigh the most. Cheer and welcome those who return; honor their manhood, and thus pay to them, in a small measure, the debt you owe their service. z But do not forget those others, who will not return —the voiceless dead. You owe a greater debt to them. They died with faith In you.

HELP “FINISH THE JOB"

The war in its larger sense is not over, and our duty to support our soldiers is not over until they are all home. The Victory Liberty Loan is to be used for the purpose of maintaining them overseas as an army of occupation and bringing them back. The Germans, not the Americans, were the quitters, but our work is not finished until we have brought tlie victors home. Let’s finish the Job by oversubscribing the Victory Liberty Loan as we did all its predecessors. We may speak of the Victory Liberty Loan as a.peace loan or a victory loan, but in a sense it is a memorial loan to our soldiers who died on the field of battle. Buy Victory Liberty Loan Bonds and help finish the job-it took 10,000,000 lives to start.