Evening star., 1916-08-13
ZEN Thousand Americans Fighting in French A,

language, get themselves incorporated
No, the easy step was Canada. 1t is
among the Canadian constituents that
we must seek our fellow citizens
Have you list" ! asked
There is no list" said Rockwell
There are only beginnings of lists
simply moved down With them /
estimate 1000 Americans perished. The
commissioned officers of Canadian regi-
ments are very particular to notify
parents when they have the names and
addresses, but the mass of Americans
you see, have always enlisted as
Canadians"
Giving false names and addresses"
1 said.
Yes. it was easier 1t avoided diff
culties and formalities. When camped
in England the Americans sat tight
Perhaps they had an idea even, that
they might be sent back. | remember
once in the early days when d news
paper inquiry was being made the
rorters asked a certain bunch: Why,
you're Americans - Nav we're
Canadians. replied their spokesman,
and five minutes later heard him call:
Say. Bert where is that Cleveland
paper?"
Since those days. he says. the boys
have grown less suspicious" but unof-
fical inquiry meets all sorts Of difficult
ties in British military red tape. The
only means of Rockwell and his friends
TO build approximate lists is to obtain
estimstes-and names when possible
from known Americans in Canadian
regiments and few well disposed
Canadian officers when they can give
the time to it amid the clang of battle
Then add the totals.
/ calculate 10000 enlisted Americans
from the beginning sums up Rock
well. Some day, five years. ten years
from now. by process of elimination, a
comparatively exact estimate of mere
numbers will surely be arrived at By
going over the Canadian lists at home
fake names and addresses will appear
in many cases, but not all. AS to sur
vivors. their names and numbers will
doubtless come out, more or less But
who can know the details of the fallen?
Their families may, or may not, have
received confidential letters from the
front. Then one day the letters ceased
arriving. All such letters should be re-
ligiousIy preserved by relatives in view
Of making future lists. But America is
wide and they are scattered over forty
states 1t is a pity, for France wants
to know them.
Meanwhile the poem of Magali-
Boisnard, The American Volunteers
Dead for France" has literally gone all
over the French cities. In Paris IL was
recited by Mile Leconte of the Theatre
Francais at the decoration day cere-
mony in their honor around Bartholdi's
statue Of washington and Lafayette"
in the Place des Etats-Unis. / can give
only a rough translation of it's first
verse:
Since In the furnace where pathetic fury RACES,
We cannot visit your heroic tombs.
Friends from across the seas.
To the rhyme of verdun's roaring
Flowers Of France with own souls we're
strewing,
And Paris. simply, puts them at your knees
The knees were the knees of Wash
ington and Lafayette-their marble
statues we're packed half way up with
flowers, but the honor was to the
unknown dead of our 10000.
So almost daily anecdotes from the
front concerning IAN American runs
through the entire French press-"an
American, regularly, without name,
because we are anonymous.
When they get hold of a name, like
that of Victor Chapman, they feature it.
The French press has. naturally. been
full of Chapman, but the striking thing
is that few of the stories deal with his
brilliant feats as aviator. but rather