Ladysmith news-budget. [volume] (Ladysmith, Rusk County, Wis.) 1907-1927, 1914-11-20
FAMOUS AUTHOR DRAWS VIVID
PICTURE OF WAR
Cyrus Townsend Brady Makes 1t
Clear to Boys What Every
t Battle Means

Brady, the famous author, in an ar
ticle on what War Is-Just One
Battle" in the war number of Boys
Life, the Boy Scouts official maya
zine. 1t was DR.. Brady's desire to
understand the true nature of war
and it's consequences. His graphic
pen has given a picture startlingly
vivid-one that adults will read with
as much interest as boys.
In the course of his Illuminating
story DR.. Brady says:
War affects first the land or coun-
try in which it is carried ON sec
ond, the non-combatants who reside
there, the women and children; third,
the soldiers themselves. Let us con-
slider for a moment a country over
which contending armies have al
ready marched or fought and where
they are to fight again. 1t will be
a devastated land, cities will be
burned, towns depopulated, villages
RACED, forests cut down, crops de-
stroyed, industries wrecked.
Bringing it Home to Him
Every boy lives in house; let
him think of the results of the ex-
plosion of a shell in the center of
it. The jewellers are either in flight,
or if at home, killed; the explosion
has torn the house to pieces, all the
furniture and household belongings,
the hallowed family treasures that
have not been shattered have been
destroyed by the resulting fire. If
the house has a garden it has been
up-rooted; the dog is dead, shot or
stabbed; the whole place is ruined.
If there is a farm attached, the
standing crops have been destroyed
by being trampled under foot. The
trees under which he played have
been cut down to make palisades, or
to delay movements, or to destroy
cover; the limpid brook has become
a muddy morass where men and
horses have passed. Broken wagons,
smashed i'm elements, shattered cars,
abandoned cannon abound on all
sides. The once smiling land is a
desert. And there is death every
where-dead cattle, dead horses, dead
soldiers, dead women, dead children.
How the Innocent Suffer
Before the battle, highways are
crowded with people; old men and
women, mothers carrying little ba-
bies, children clinging to grandsires'
hands, all fleeing from the army of
the enemy. No bands play, there
are no brilliant uniforms to be seen,
there is nothing to eat, no water to
drink, the roads are thick with dust.
1t is summer and fearfully hot, yet
there are clouds in the sky-clouds
of smoke from burning buildings,
houses, factories, towns.
Shells aimed across the valley at
the defenders fall short and explode
among the fugitives They make
great gaps in the flying crowds, but
they close up and press on; they
must get out of the valley away from
the line of fire of the contending ar
mics at any cost. The dead are
thrust aside, the wounded are left
to suffer, the weak fall by the way.
Children are born by the wayside;
their wailing mingles with the groan-
ing and clamor while the great mass
struggles painfully on.
These are all innocent people.
They have done nothing to provoke
this. They can do no fighting. They
are leaving behind them all that they
have gained in a lifetime of toll,
and going they know not where, to
What sadder fate they cannot tell.
And who are driving them from
their homes, who are killing them on
the way, not wilfully perhaps, but
unavoidably? The soldiers. Truly
pleasant trade. 1t is the business of
the soldier to kill and destroy; that
really is his only business, that is
what all his training is for, just that
and nothing else. Dress-parading is
a side issue.
Figures You Can Comprehend
How can l make the boys of Am
erica realize the number lost in this
comparatively insignificant engage
ment in modern warfare which hard
ly has name? The other day I
saw the New York Giants and Bos-
ton Braves play ball at the Polo
Grounds in New York. The lower
grand stand was filled with 10000
people. That many, and it may be
half again as many, men are lying
on that field dead or helplessly
wounded, Most of my Boy Scout
readers go to church. 1t is a large
congregation that numbers 500. Ev-
cry regiment has lost that many per-
sons killed and wounded on an ay-