Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1917-04-18

Hackett, but more like Faversham,
wearing about his brow a slightly
blood-spotted bandage.
1 saw the actual fact in stables
crawling with vermin and heaped
with the accumulated filth of months
and with the unutterable odors of the
living flesh that rotted on the dead
bones. l saw noble women, tired
and bedraggled, and worn and weary,
| doing the most nauseous, the most
self-sacrificing, the most noble things
any human being could be called
upon to perform. I never knew that
a slop Jar could be as sacred as an
altar vessel until I saw it carried from
| the side of a dying soldier by tired,
weary woman.
/ saw in one hospital at the front,
three women engaged in a common
service, and one, they told me, was
countess, a nobly-born woman. no
longer young, and plainly not strong,
but to the best of her ability and 10
the limit of her strength doing what
ever service she might be called upon
to do. The second member of the
trio, and the head of the force, was a
professional trained nurse, and to her,
suppose, this was part of the routine
of her avocation, although she was
bringing to it full measure of mercy
fragm ments of humanity lying there.
And the third was prostitute from
the city sidewalks, whose lover was at
the front, and she, too, had Nolun-
teered, and, wearing, the same uni
form and sharing the same fortune,
for the time being, as her more IA
vored sisters, on the same social level
with the others, she was doing with
them those beautiful services for the
afflicted.
And the old doctor looked at that
woman, and said to me, My son. in
this war every day somewhere, over
and over again, the story of Mary
Magdalene is repeated"
Must Expect Some Losses
Personally, / confess | have not
much sympathy with the people who
believe-and there are many or us
who do believe it-that we can go TO
war against another nation and not
have war made on us in return. III
you knew something of the spirit be-
hind all wars, and particularly the
spirit behind Germany in this war,
you would know that that cannot be.
We have got to give measure OF
our manhood to die on the neld'
without the shedding of blood there
is no remission of sins. And every
one here, and every man ana every
woman and every child in America is
give, and keep on giving. 1 have no
doubt that there are mothers In TINS
audience who will give their sons 10
die for their country, and sisters VINO
will send their brothers to death, ana
every one of us who does not go 10
the front must serve behind the INES
either in money or in the work of our
hands, or in that which means more
to a nation in peril than any material
force, in whole-hearted loyalty to our
flag, our President, our soldiers and
our country.
It was because did see what war
meant in Europe and some Things SO
unutterably horrible that l dare not
try to tell them, and because / realized
then as l never had realized before
that given similar conditions and
similar foe to fight, our soldiers might
suffer what | had seen the soldiers OF
Belgium and France suffering, ana
our own American people, mlght pc
visited by the same attlictlons whlch
lie so heavily on poor little Belgium
that I, who am the son OF soluler
and the grandson of a soldier, and
had been brought up to believe mill
tary service might be beautiful and
noble and glorious thing, came home
cured forever of that deluslon, ana
because I did come home cured ana
because I realized that the country
which puts itself into the state OF
large ripe, rich flabby oyster without
a she'll. is only inviting qu'"S destruc-
ton, and because / realized that the
hest life insurance ever conceived was
state of complete preparedness
against the other contingency, I'M
bued with the idea that our country,
not to make war, but to keep 1t away,
should have the best army, the best
navy, the strongest coast defenses
lAII
American manhood could man.
Conduct Efficient Warfare
And still another thing we must re-
member is this: We must remember
that to the German have no word
of reproach for the German soldier;
| 80 per cent. of the German soldiers
saw at the front struck me as being
courageous, manly men, and by the
same token 80 per cent. of their Of
fcers were what we call rotters-but
we have got to remember that, train
ed as they are in the system in which
they are trained, war to them is not a
| time for mushy hysteria, not Tor waV-
| ing the flag, but conducting warfare
after the most efficient and incidental
| ly the most barbarous and the most
thorough-going fashion ever devised.
! And should the Germans succeed in
| invading our country. as they might,
| can imagine a picture like thls-ano
| II Is not beyond the bounds of imag-
| ination to conceive it; it is shown by
the facts of what has been done ii
EUROPE can see the mayor or the
congressman or the leading citizens
the principal clergymen of some
Pennsylvania town held as hostages
to be shot against the wall should an:
other John Burns get out his gun ano
fight for his home and tireside; anc
did another Barbara Frietchie lear
from the easement and wave the flag
| IN, ha nf h &