The record-union., 1898-03-13
SCHE RAMBLING THOUGHTS.
Ely Memo"
Copyrighted by Dave & Tabor,

L
at the word of command the men are
on their feet; a moment later they are
our beyond all protection, and away
they SO across the cruel zone of death
some pallid with the pr escience of the
end. some laughing with hysteria.
stumbling, shouting, cursing. they
sweep forward, thinning as they 50,
With groans that are unheeded in the
noise. many OF them drop in their
tracks. their bones shattered, their "a
tails pierced \ few are blessedly re-
ileVed from pain at once, others hnger
for the cruel kindness of the surgeon
and the long death in the crowded hos
pital. Imagine that out there on the
! bloody field is your son. a mangled
mass Of flesh and blood What can yoa
utter of rejoicing when his regiment
marches home again lacking the one
man in il that made it something n
Very deco more than a mere mineral 10
you?
Look out again with dry. Mortified
eyes at the reaping place of Death. Ii
Is trodden back and forth by friend and
foe; and at every maneuver the son is
being ground more and more out of all
recognition Us the bright-eyed. bonny
babe that kneaded your breasts with his
chubby fists He cannot move towards
YOU; you cannot fly to him There is
a great hollow. aching within. Nicat
now falls and there ne stin lies: sight
gone, comeHness gone. life gone. with
none TO covers his horrors from the cold
glitter of the stars. and none To drive
from him the ghouls who make sport
OF life by robbing the dead With Il
shudder you think of the chill. en-
shrouding mist and the gloom Of that
dreadful night. With deeper shudder
YOU think Of the heat and fostering OF
the pltiless sun as 1t rises to summon
10 their vile duty the buzzard and the
Nuiture. What of thrill is left for yod
when the triumph comes. and the blind
populace who have not suffered think
only of the living but have no feeling
for your dead? In every corpse lying
there is tragedy as deep as yours.
This Is the sane view TO take of this
harvest whose gleanings are sorrows.
ana whose stubble pierces to the quick
Loving and long suffering mothers of
men, 1t is you who most suffer when
red war makes its demands 1t is You
who have the dread waiting TO do: the.
living death of anxious uncertainty to
face. Your signing should be louder in
the public ear than all the clamor and
ooastful mouthinSs of hot-headed men
Let your plant be this: If war must
be, let it be one Of Justice. or our great
sacrifice viii be hard, indeed"
And this is one further dread feature
of war feature that makes It more
dreadful and more heinous: on GpDos-
ing sides the men-childreu of the yearn-
ing bowels CT hereft mothers fight not
because they have any feeling of in
dividual enlnity. They haven fact
no knowledge Of one another; they have
no words OF anger to rouse the blood
to boiling point: they never met before,
until the sharp call of the officers
brought them face to face. Yet there
they are aiming, firing. manning. kill
ing in perfect frenzy of subordinatad
will. Beyond all this. they grow 50
wild with the horrible gloating ard gIut
OF bloodshed that death alone is not
enough for the dead enemy but he
needs must be outraged. insulted,
Knocked when he is dead Yet all this
is spoken of as glory; it is made so by
drawing a cloak over its horror, and
by being needless of the dead and heed.
full only of the survivors, 1t is the
theme of the descriptive writer. a
source Of profit to the contractors. and
summons to irSensate rejoicing on
the part of all those human parasites
who will gladly reap from others sor-
rows, where they themselves have
neither sown nor known of sorrow or
of loss