The Meeker herald. [volume] (Meeker, Colo.) 1885-current, 1917-08-11
Senseless Exaggeration

tary of Colorado's war council, in his
Fourth Of July speech here, dis
tinctly disclaimed any intention of
"throwing a scare into the people
by his presentation Of the seriousness
of the war situation, he made one
statement that was, to say the least,
unfortunate. Thirty thousand troops,
he said, had already landed in
France. OF these, he said, scarcely
1900 would probably come back.
The rest would find their graves
across the water, and he plainly in
timated that this might be the fate
Of succeeding contingents.
1.-THE speech of Mr.. Cornell on the
whole was so excellent and so full of
patriotic fervor that this appalling
misstatement stands out in unpleas-
ant relief. We scarcely need to have
the seriousness of the war situation
presented to us in this manner, and
il the gentleman only could have
realized that his remark has simply
caused much agonizing heart ache
and needless pain he would have re-
Trained from Incorporating it in his
address.
"The most serious indictment
against it is that it is not so.
"In the first place nobody outside
of official circles in Washington
knows how many troops went to
France in the first contingent. But
that makes no particular difference.
The mistake made by Mr.. Cornell
was in fixing such All utterly pre-
posterous pecentage of loss AS 80 per
cent. as the probable death list. If
such misstatements as that were to
gain general currency the recruiting
stations might as well be closed and
the selective draft be turned into II
public funeral.
las a matter of fact. war conditions
on the western front are altogether
different from what they were when
Germany made her first tiger spring
on Belgium and the northern prov
inces of France. AT that time she
simply overwhelmed the Belgians,
British and French by sheer weight
of her artillery and the numerical
superiority of her infantry. The re-
sistance of the allied armiys delayed
the invasion; it did not halt it. These
gallant armies of Belgium, Great
Britain and France were practically
compelled to sacrifice themselves
while Joffre was preparing for his
magnificent coup at the Marine. That
was why the casualty lists were so
terrific in those first fateful days. The
world until then did not know how
Germany makes war. 1t was not re-
allied how tremendous her artillery
WAS, how effective were the new de-
vices which she brought into the con-
flict. 1t is quite true that of the army
1 that England rushed across the chan
mel in those early days-a scant 49,
600 men-but few remain. Even after
the German retreat and when the
trench war began the Germans con-
tinued to hold the superiority of guns
and numbers, and it will never be
known how costly was the price paid
by the British in holding back the
German army in that now historic
drive on Calais that failed SO utterly
because of the stubbornness and gal
Iantry of the defense.
THE first Canadian casualty lists
were appalling because some of her
most famous regiments were nearly
annihilated by the German gas at
tacks. nnOvel and unexpected weapon
that had been specifically forbidden
therefore, no provision had been
made.
ut must not be forgotten, too, that
many companies of both French and
British persisted by reason of fragrant
abuses of the Red Cross insignia and
the flag of truce.
"Now all is changed. The war has
taken on an entirely different phase.
The soldiers of America are not being
sent to France to be slaughtered like
sheep in the trenches, overwhelmed
by fiendish gas attacks or PREACHER
ously murdered because they would
respect the ordinary usages Of civil
lied war. The weight of artillery is
now with the allies. The devices for
protection are ample and satisfactory.
1t is the enemy who is being over
whelmed by the tremendously SUI
perior artillery. 1t is the German ar
mjes which suffer from the hellish
devices which they themselves intro
duced. They contrived frightful gas
machines. The allies contrived even
more frightful. They used armored