The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1914-12-17
WAR PARAGRAPHS
By Book Worm

tie, have for a long time been
conspicuous in the limelight of
popularity; they have been chosen
as the heroes of our fiction and the
heroes of our facts. Richard Car
VEL" of Winston Churchill's con-
ception, was one of the great battle
charred heroes of the war of the
Revolution, while Putnam, Wolff
and Arnold, stand pre- eminently the
heroes of the same war in the realm
of facts. The Civil War has given
us many heroes in fiction; such as
Van Reval," 'Harkless," and an
other of Churchill's heroes in The
Crisis" and fourscore and ten others
that we could never for lack of
memory name, we also had our
heroes in reality of the same war,
Grant, Lee and Sherman. Thus it
has been in all times past, the man
who has faced the smoke of battle
who has laid himself bare before
trust in fate or in God, and has
escaped the tremendous avalanche
of shot and shell, the percussion.
the nerve-racking, soul-distroying
shrek of cannon and the pleading
cry and prayer of the wounded-has
returneG-has come back to the
peaceful world once more, to be
made the hero, the heroes of our
fiction and our facts.
Have, you ever stopped to consider
what it must mean to a man to es-
cape with his life, bearing wounds,
shattered nerves and hideous men,
cries, from a field of battle? Did
you ever stop to consider what a
condition man must be in, mentally
and physically, who has undergone
such horrible nightmare as a field
of battle really is? His condition
could surely not be that of stalwart
manhood; that which is essential in
the perfectibility and perpetuation
of our race 1t surely must be en-
tirely vice versa; a condition that
will withhold. if not absolutely lose
our opportunities of perfecting and
perpetuating our race.
Liquors. drugs and debauchery,
breed degenerates; so also, do these
heroes of dust's of conflict, breed
near degeneracy. While it is nee
essary for us to have our heroes of
facts, let us hope the writer's of
fictions will eventually come to re-
alize, that it takes more than a
Richard Carvel" or Great Hank
less" to return to the only girl"
in the rose-bower, and thence live
happily ever after.
Five million homeless, pennlless
and straving in the devastated coun-
tries of Europe. Five million near
homeless, penniless and starving in
our metropolitan tenement districts. :"
That is the way heading appears
in newspaper. or rather in a pub
LEGATION of agitation, today. This
publication seems to consider that it
is a crime, for us, the prosperous
citizens of this land of milk and
honey, to neglect our own country's
poor ang rush to the aid of Europe's
helplessness.
Considering that this publication,
is published IN one of our large
metropolitan cities, perhaps that &C.
counts for it's press blunders; for it's
inability to scope with the facts re-
lative as to just who, Americas five
million penniless, homeless and starv-
ing are. They are, if you care to
know, no others then five million
aliens, Europeans, who at sometime
in their lives have received what we
Americans call cold feet" and de-
serted their Fatherlands; neglected
to stay with-help prosper and
assist in the. fight of their own peo-
pie. They are the class who lacked
the persistence, the ability and the
perseverance, to make their own
countries great and free Federal
Unions, like ours is today. They
came to America because our fore
fathers, the ones who possessed the
persistence. the ability and the per-
severance had paved the way; they
expected to Immediately fall heirs
to an everlasting existence of milk
and honey. But alas, they had been
deceived; they could not lay hold of
such an existence without using
energy, and energy they did not
possess. 50 consequently nothing re-
NAMED for them but the tenement
districts and poverty.
Now we like good Americans, are
responding to Europe's appeal of
helplessness. Why? Simply be-
cause we are good, true patriotic
Americans people who can see that