Jasper County Democrat, Volume 23, Number 56, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1920 — MOTHER, WHERE ARE YOU? [ARTICLE]

MOTHER, WHERE ARE YOU?

The little child in fright or pain calls out, “Mother, where are you ?” ( It is mother's voice that, reassures him. It i? mother’s presence thatsnakes him bold In the darks It is mother who wipes away the tears “kisses the hurt 'to make dt. well.” It is mother who SdVes him; from all barm. It , whq 1

shares his joy and troubles. It is mother who prays daily for his protection. Mother is the guard that never sleeps when he is in danger. How safe he feels in the arms of mother! Home and God and mop>er are all the same to him, / Would mother fail to dp all possible to protect him tfom the dread diseases of fever and plague and war 7 Will mother vote to continue a system that some time —and it may be soon —will destroy his life, or blind his eyes, or mangle his limbs, or eat up his lungs by poison gases? Mother, where are you? Ask the little child. He will tell you. Your son has reached manhood. He is stricken with a disease that under the old method of treatment has always proved fatal. But a new remedy has been discovered that will cure in nine cases out of ten. How long would you tolerate a physician that insisted on sticking to thp old sure death methods and refused to give the new lifesaving remedy a trial? Mothers of America,—4l nations have adopted a remedy that will prevent the sacrifice of their sons in war. Are you unwilling that a trial be given this remedy to save your sons? Let us assume that our country refuses to give the remedy a trial. Without the league of nations, the laws relating to the coming of wars are as unchanging as were the laws of the Medes and Persians. Let us look ahead a few years to the coming war. It is inevitable under the old system. Your son on battlefield, or in muddy trench, or in fever-stricken camp or hospital* suffering from body wounds, orjmutilated limbs, or struggling for the breath of life through bleeding, poisoned lungs, crios out in his delirium, just as he did as a child when no one else could save him, “Mother, where are you?” Can mother save him then? Will mother save him now? ' Need we ask.

Mother that has Just come out of the valley of the shadow of death with the wee bit of helpless humanity; mother of the sweetest, dimpling, cooing babe that ever crowed for kisses; mother of the laughing, prattling, inquisitive toddler; mother of the little man of six ready for school; mothers of the boys and youths of America; mothers of the men of the greatest nation on earth; mother, “the holiest thing alive,” we thank God that you are to participate in the settling of this great moral, life-saving question. It is the greatest issue of the age. But beware! । The reactionaries and opponents of the league are employing their cleverest brains to distort the meaning of the covenant, to misrepresent its principles and belittle its importance. They are telling you of its evils, mostly imaginary and based on the absurd assumption that nations will । habitually violate their agreements. They never tell you of the great ' good It will accomplish; nor that its defects can better be discovered by a fair trial; nor that it can be amended; nor that we can withdraw if we don’t like it. Was there ever an attitude more depraved and uncompromising that is determined, through prevarication, distortion and misrepresentation to prevent the trial of a method that promises to

save to you in the future the lives of your sons. Be not deceived.' 'We had no league, and mor# than 100,000 of our, best men have just been sacrifleed. The league is to prevent a repetition of this, and greater sacrifices. It is not believed that the mdthers will be diverted from the path of righteousness by the misrepresentations and efforts to confuse and deceive her. Mothers see and know the right intuitively. Queen of the world, “the mother holds the key of the soul, and makek the being who would be savage a Christian man.” Through her prayers and her votes she will force the nations to discard the age-old, man-savage way of settling their disputes. In its stead they will have the civilized, Christian way of the covenant. Civ illzatlon and other nations in despair are crying, “Mothers of America, where are you?" The hope of the world lies in the motherhood of America. Mother will keep the faith with the sons who have gone before and the sons of the coming generation. Her Influence through the vote will put civilization a thousand years ahead. And “her children will rise up and call her blessed.” Mother, where are you?—Warren Daniel, in Indianapolis News.