Jasper County Democrat, Volume 22, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 April 1919 — AN OPEN LETTER TO UNCLE SAM [ARTICLE]

AN OPEN LETTER TO UNCLE SAM

By WILLIAM WALLACE COOK

Dear Uncle Sam: I’m just a plain American whose heart Has thrilled with pride as through this war I’ve done my modest part To help Our Boys on land and sea. I could not tote a gun; My hair is gray, my form is bow’d, my years are nearly run. I could not march befceath the Flag, I could not face the foe— As others faced him overseas—and give him blow for blow. Old Time has worked his will with me; and so it was my fate To have this Armageddon come some fifty years too late. And yet I’ve helped! My dollars fbught, if not my flesh-and-blood; My dollars did their bit to stem the mad Teutonic flood. Anil some I gave the Crimson Cross to bind the wounds that bled; And some I gave the orphaned ones who cried aloud for bread; And some I gave to comfort those who bore the battle’s brunt And, weary, sought a breath of home behind the fighting front. An old man’s pride is here, I trow; an old man’s love, as well; A dollar’s bless’d of heaven when it cheers in war’s red hell; Yet here my duty could not stop; it ran to needs beyond; Of ev’ry loan you issued, Sam, I bought a goodly bond. I made myself this slogan, in the thought of duty done: THE MAN BEHIND THE BOND’S BEHIND THE MAN BEHIND THE GUN I You gave me, Uncle Samuel, what worldly gear I’ve got, For here the chance to work and win Is ev’ry person’s lot; Tn Freedom’s cause our fathers wrought —those men of sterling worth— A heritage of glory for the chosen of the Earth! I fear that sometimes we forget, so keenly we pursue Our individual destinies, the debt we owe to you. No country can be greater than the citizens it holds; No flag no better, brighter, than the faith that flag enfolds. And freemen are not freemen when, the crisis bravely met, They will not, if they must, give all to pay their freedom’s debt And so this loan for Victory I’ll make my proudest boast — I’ll lend my money to this Loan unto the uttermost I. I’ll make another slogan and I’ll fling it wide and far: THE MAN BEHIND THE BOND’S BEHIN% THE PEACE BEHIND THE WAR!