Arizona republican., 1917-12-26

to the Alps, which divides Europe to- day. It was a great exploit. It was an exploit which no nation in modern times has ever equalled. It was an exploit the heroism of which it is impossible to overstate, but it was an exploit which cost France fearfully dear.
 In the first place. there was the cost of territory. The German invasion swept over the richest part of France, or one of the richest parts of France, perhaps the very richest, certainly part of France which because of it's manufactures. because of it's mines, because of the character of it's in- habitants, made up a very large part of the national wealth of the country Consider how we should be here in New England if a foreign enemy had swept aross Massachusetts from the west very nearly to a line running through the city of Worcester. That is as near as the Germans are today to the heart of France. to Paris. It is less than a days ride by automo- bile, it is not more than between sixty and eighty miles. before you come to the German lines, to that black cloud of invaders which hangs over the tuSG OI TIdItt, WHICH IIleIT 1IleI IldN e been struggling desperately for the | last two years to push back. That | means that the inhabitants of those | territories have practically all been uprooted from their homes, some of | them carried captives to Germany, others swept back into France. Some | of the captives in Germany are slowly | Altering back through neutral nations | n Ganlg of fo mother country. How many of those refugees, how many of those re-pa- | triated ones as they call them, there are, it is impossible to say, some where I fancy between a quarter and | half a million, from their 1 homes, deprived of all their property cast as objects of charity on the rest of the country. That economic burden | the French are carrying today. That | alone would be a tremendous addition | to what any nation has to carry.
 The Roll of Honor in France
 Then, too, there is the loss of men | How many men the French have lost nobody knows. They don't give out their losses: we can only estimate | what they are. We can only gather indirectly from what one sees in the country and from the character of tn, fighting that has gone on how terrible | those losses have been. I heard fig. ures, but l heard no figures on whicl I dare rely. I can only say that have many French friends, and tha don't know a single family among them which has not lost at least on, man in this war. 1 can only say tha every organization which I cam, across had it's long tale of deatl posted on it's walls in sign of honor The roll of honor in France is no what we call roll of honor here. tn, men who have enlisted; it is the mel who have died at the front. WheI you go into the hall of the Palace O Justice you find the list of lawyer who are dead. When you go into tn room of any ministry in Paris vol find the list of employees who ar dead. If you go into any club il France you find posted on its wall the proportion of the members wh
 have died in battle. In one little clu
 which I visited, a club made up. it i true, of young men and of sportsmer . who would naturally be first in tn fighting, out of four hundred an
 twenty members one hundred and te, had paid for their patriotism the pric of their lives.-one hundred and te
 out of four hundred and twenty. Con sider what. that means in three year of fighting
 You see the signs of death on ever
 side. You see them above all i
 the numbers of women in mournin
 that you meet in the streets. Thos
 black figures are everywhere. Tn ever public conveyance in which you rid l you see half a dozen women in blacl
 Every time you look down the stree
 those sombre figures meet your eye.
 Every time you go into a shop ther
 is one chance in four that the woma
 behind the counter-and there are n men behind counters any more Francois clad in black in sign (
 mourning for some son, some brothe
 or some husband.
 Literally in France today the cour
 try is swept of it's men. Literally yo
 don't see any young men. except
 few. feeble and evidently in ill neaitl
 who are not uniform. Every man i
 France between eighteen and forty
 eight is in the army. not necessaril
 perhaps at the front, for they haN
 learned that the older men are not
 useful at the front. A man of forty
 eight won't be in the trenches. he wi
 be perhaps currying horses in son
 artillery camp. or emptying slops
 some hospital. or mending roads bad of the line, or digging graves for u
 more fortunate men to whom it