Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-06-16

~ hSkeu DoClOr NICE aDTe, VINO !
had been looking at his nephew with a
grieved expression, II he had read Alan
seeger's poems.
Yes, and am going TO read his diary |
end letters, too." he said Now there was !
young man whom I admire. He en-.
listed in the French Foreign Legion at
the beginning OF the war, because he
loved France and because he was willing
to die in her fight to protect herself You
Know the Foreign Legion is not a nice
body of troops. It is made up of ad-
venturers, criminals, men who have
changed their names to escape punish
ment for their misdeeds. seeger and a
lot more youpg Americans who were in
Paris in August 1914, enlisted in the
legion because It was the only place in
which they could enlist Many OF them
were killed, Seeger7 among them. In spite
of his faults, he was a fine spirit"
''They did not think much Of him In
Harvard" said Ames. HE did nothing
but dig away in the library. And he was
conceited duffer, posing all the time"
Perhaps 1t was because he was young"
said. HE got over his pose after he
left college I think It would do you
good, Ames, to read his letters to his
mother that have been included in a
volume with his diary, found in France
after he was killed. You will discover
there splendid evidence that heroic ideal
Ism is still to be found on the earth. We
all have our ideals, but Doctor McFabre
knows how difficult It is to live up to
them. seeger put his into practice when
he was walked up by the war. Let me
read you a sentence from a. letter to his
mother, written soon after he enlisteS
He says:
I hope you SEQ the thing as do and
think that have done well, being with
out responsibilities and with no ono to
suner materially by my decision. in taking
upon my shoulders too, the burden that
so much of humanity is suffering under
and, rather than stand ingloriously aside
when the opportunity was given me, doing
my share for the side that think right
IT do not think the mother Of a son
who could feel like this about the justice
of the cause of France at the beginning
of the war would have had any doubts
about the duty of her son when It was
his own country that needed his services
Neither do l." said Dorothy with fer
vor.
"Seeger may have been an erratic, Wis
ionary dreamer before the war; wen
on, "but when he was confronted with ;
great opportunity the real stuff of his sou
came to the surface and dominated him
He wrote in his diary that nothing bu
good could befall a soldier, provided h
plays his part well. If he comes out o
the ordeal safe he has had an experienc
in the light of which all life hereafte
will be three times richer and more beat
tiful; If he is wounded he will have tn
esteem Of others and the appreciation c
his own conscience. and If he is kille
he, more than any other man, can fac
the unknown without misgivng, pre-
vided death comes upon him in a momer
of courage and not of faltering or Of fea
He tells his mother that If he should nc
come back she must be proud, like
Spartan mother, and feel that 1t is he
contribution to the triumph of righteou
cause. He was killed in battle on tn
Somme on July 4, 1916. In letter I
his mother, written year and a day b
fore this memorable date he said:
It is the shirkers and slackers alone ir
this war who are TO be lamented. The
tears for those who take part in II and
| who do not return should be sweeteened
by the sense that their death was the
| death beyond all others they would have
chosen for themselves, that they went tC
| It smiling and without regret, feeling thai
| whatever value their continued presence
IN the world might be to humanity, 1
could not be greater than the example and
inspiration they were to It in so departing
His letters are full of this feeling thu
the individual is OF little consequence
comparison with the cause When Il
French attempts to drive the German
back failed time after time, and he feart
they might never succeed, he, console
himself with the thought that he had r
sponded to the call Of his spirit to ser7
the nation that he loved"
HE makes me think of Byron fightir
for the freedom Of Greece" Dorothy 7
marked with a faraway look. IT wis
women could do things like that"
Doctor McFabre looked at the girl wit
a great tenderness in his eyes.
"They do harder things than that, Dor
thy" he said. "They fight vicarious
through their husbands, sons al
brothers, and in addition they suffer
imagination all the hardships the me
experience and thousand more whiC
they fear may befall them. And then,