The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-01-04
WAR ECHOES

Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: The scientific and cold-booded way in which war in the western arena is being waged apparently does not offer many opportuni- ties for individual heroism. Reports from the French and German battle fronts tell
 of weary weeks of firing at unseen foes.
 However, the men made of heroic stuff
 will not be kept down by any order of
 events. In proof of this may be cited the
 case of French sergeant, who estab-
 lished an observation post In high tree,
 and remained there, under continual fire,
 for three days, without food and water
 teiephoning valuable information to his
 artillery company. He got for that deed
 the coveted 'medaile militaire,'' and
 deserved it.
 Another story is related of trench,
 well defended by entanglements, which
 was held by a small force of Germans
 against repeated frontal attacks. Two
 French soldiers crawled to opposite ends of the trench. and, lying low, began pick
 ing off one by one the row of men stand HIS III It. HCy hlllcu ci6Ht ol tiC OSi mans and wounded two, and the rest of
 the defenders, puzzled and panicstricken, by the mysterious and deadly fire, surren-
 dered Heroic mettle was found among the Germans when, in French village,
 three French spies were cornered in the
 cellar of building They had to be taken,
 but the German officers hesitated about
 ordering men into that death trap of
 cellar An apple-faced grocer's clerk vol
 unteered to do the job-and he did it: he
 shot all of the Frenchmen and came back unscathed
 There is no means for verifying such tales. But, nasmuch as they were told in dispatches describing rewards of merit bestowed. they are probably not inven- tions One wants to believe them, at any
 rate There is an inhuman quality in the notion that men in the European war are mere fighting machines, with no more initiative and enthusiasm than a field howitzer It is incredible that war can reduce 100000 men to one level of ef- ficiency.
 St. Louis Times: It is not probable that a majority of people living in the United States even partly comprehend the mean | ing of the word mines used in the sense of device of warfare before the European war began. Yet the amazing fact now develops that these deadly in- ventions are scattered over a good part | of the face of the seas, many of them be- 1 ing in places where their presence would never have been suspected a few months | ago.
 | It also appears that when nation is | at war 1t has the right to place these mur- derous engines almost wherever it pleases, despite the fact that neutral vessels are | always in need of open avenues across 1 the waters, if the worlds commerce is not to be injured
 There is a peculiar kind of degree of arrogance indicated by a practice which | involves the scattering of death-dealing devices in the way of vessels which are
 seeking to carry forward the work of
 civilizations; and there is still a stranger commentary upon the lack of universal l sanity in the fact that because a part of l the world is in a condition of anarchy it i Is regarded as matter of course that all the rest of humanity must bear with
 complacency events and practices which are contrary to the basic article of every | religious creed and every ethical profess 1 sion.