Evening capital and Maryland gazette. (Annapolis, Md.) 1910-1922, 1917-08-13
SEC'TY OF NAVY
PRAISES MOTHERS
No Sacrifice So Great As Theirs,
Says Josephus Daniels
NATION MUST MOTHER MEN
Nays Secretary Scores Those Who
Would Neglect the Men and Return
Them Aften the War Like So
MANY Squeezed Oranges

No greater sacrifice is being made
during this present war, says Secre-
tary of the Navy Daniels. than that
made by women.
The sacrifices that are being made
by mothers in the war and the vital
Importance of safeguarding the morale
of the enlisted men are given special
attention by Josephus Daniels. Secre-
tary of the Navy. in the current issue
of the Living Church The article was
written for the Association Men, and
in which Mr. Daniels states that no
man can fully realize what the sacre-
fees mean, but that only mothers
heart can understand.
"Of all the sacrifices that have
been made, that are being made or
that will be made for our country in
this war" Mr.. Daniels says, there is
no sacrifice so heroic, so unselfish, so
terrible as the sacrifice of the mother
who sends her son in his strong, clean
young manhood from the protecting
influences of his home to live, to fight,
to die if needs be. with no one near TO
guide or advise him save his military
superiors."
Continuing, Mr.. Daniels says:
"Of all the responsibilities in these
hours of heavy responsibilities that
are laid upon the civilian heads of the
Army and Navy, there is. after all, no
responsibility more weighty, more sol
emn. more fraught with terrible re-
suits if evaded, than this responsibility
of acting in mothers place toward
these splendid youths on whom this
nation rests its hope of existence.
The young sailor or soldier of today
will form no small part of the nations
very life blood in the times of peace
following. To consider now their
moral as well as their physical we'll
being is not the narrow view of things,
but the broader view, the big, far
sighted view of things l have no
patience with those who sneer at any
attempt to keep our young men as
sound in mind as they are in body, to
send them back as worthy to become
leaders of the nation in times OF peace
as if they had not had the horrible
experience of war, because there is
no view so one-sided, SO utterly UNI
military in the biggest sense of the
word, so ostrichlike, SO entirely OPP
portunistic petty and contemplate as
the attitude which considers these
boys as so much cannon fodder and
then through neglect of their moral
well-being, to be thrown back upon
their country after the war debased in
morals, broken in health, like so many
squeezed oranges, poison in our
body polite, instead of strong, in
MIGRATING new life.
THAT is the policy which those who
are arguing that we should ignore
matters of morality would have us
seriously consider. There is nothing
so important, from a military stand
point, as the morale of men and
morals in the long run are synony-
nous. A sailor or a soldier to be
efficient must be healthy; to be
healthy he must be clean-living. A
man in the military service stricken
by any of the diseases that follow
excess or unclean living is as dead
for military service as if he were
stricken by the enemy's fire. The
sacrifices the mothers are making are
terrific, and no man can fully under
stand what the sacrifice means, only
a mothers heart can understand"