The Robesonian. [volume] (Lumberton, N.C.) 1870-current, 1917-11-12
THEIR FIRST CLASH


And Now Comes the Test For
All We Have and Are"
Greensboro Daily News.
The "official casualty list of the
losses of American troops in France
in their first clash with the Germans"
is before the American people this
morning.
General Wood has stated that the
American people will never fully real
ize that they are at war until they be-
gin to read the casualty lists. Well,
we are beginning to read them.
And now, Americans, comes the test
"for all we have and are' The march
ing and counter-m arching, the parad-
es and reviews, the training camps,
even the great lottery, the flag-wav-
ing and hurrahing, vacate the center
| of the stage. They were merely the
overture to the fearful opera. But
the curtain is rising, even now. The
shrek Of the first shell that burst in
American ranks was the first note of
a fearful score. It will presently rise
in a cresendo fit to burst our ear
drums and crush our hearts-such
a discord as only the imagination of
triumphant He'll could conceive, and
of which we have heretofore heard on
ly faint and far-away echoes; but it
must be played to the end.
| From this day on, the story of the
war will be stripped of all its pomp
nd ho
Ito one word, repeated endlessly-
/ blood, blood, blood. With only six
months preparation we are going uI
against system that has been build
ing for AZ years, the most perfect or.
ganization for butchery that the worlc
has ever known. Eventually that sys
, tenn will go down before us, but wha1
the victory is going to cost us ON
niscent God knows, and He alone.
In a base hospital Somewhere il
, France are the first driblets of tn.
dreadful river that is presently go
ing to begin pouring back from thu
battle-line. Presently we shall begin
. to see them on our streets and aroun(
our firesides- poor, pitiful wrecks
CHASTITY specters that once were tn
flower of the nations manhood. The
: will come the women in black, an
d our windows will begin to dis
: play the sign that is already the mos
g horribly significant thing in Paris to
!, ! day: Mourning in twentyfour hours.
Then we shall begin to learn, anew
4 of what sort Of stuff America
9 made. When the nation feels its yer
\. life ebbing away, when its thought
e by day and its dreams by night al
Il of the dreadful red pools in the DO
:, tom Of the trenches, of the crimse
u lips of the hole where a bayonet h;
IS passed, of the still quivering scarf
al fragments that strew the ground a
ter a great shell has exploded-Wh'
IN the reek Of blood is in the very a.
L when the taste of blood is in O
s. mouths, when any postman may bril-
D. news Of the spilling of the deare
es blood on earth, and the sight of t.
=. egraph messenger is like glimpse
'lt the basilisk, shall we then be able
stand true to our ideal? Stand ,
al must, if we are to be nation indie
and not merely a hundred MILL
mouths to be fed, useless to the wol
a. "when armored wrong makes ter
to right" an incumbrance on the cal
when a good fight is to be fought
For after all the long agony is
nv incidental. Of the stalwart you
~ men whose departure means tear
ie- the very heart out of America, o.
". a few, comparatively speaking, v
w fall victims to the monstrous mach
oy- that the German war-lords have f
mo- ricated. The others will shatter
as and scatter it's fragments SO &C
pletely that no potentate nor matt
for howsoever crazy with egotism,
a. dream Of trying to initiate it for g
erations to come-perhaps not fol
the er.
will "a sower went forth to sow
Wer en- tnougn WlnCef Is az Iaiu' ~
red seed-time in the desolate fields
Flanders. What though the first
To- licences of the approaching har'
tof- mean the springing up on innun
sar- able hills and valleys of sad cro]
G little white crosses? They are
i. the fruit of our labor and sacri.
Tx Long years after the grass has co
ed the crater and shell hole, and
little white crosses have mould
into dust, when the plowshare
ided leveled glacis and parapet, and
, of rubbish-heaps have become will
rou- again, the world will still be rea
,dav from Americas sowing In these
1iers tured fields. And the fruits of
that harvest will be peace that rest
can Righteousness, not on Might, al
sken world safe for democracy because
Lrted nation IN IL put knows ClaI = g
the is hlgher ana nollef IIan any
wo- and Right than any king.