Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1917-08-25
4 MOTHERS LETTER.


in the Iowa Newspaper department
Of the Times from the
Grundy Democrat, edited by J. Wander
wicken at Grundy Center:
A young married man from this
county filed an affidavit with the Local
exemption board that he hal no prop
erty and that his wife was entirely de-
pendent on his labor for ner support.
He asked the exemption ga The grounds
of family dependency. The board
looked the young man up and found
that the assessors books showed the
young man to be the owner OF eighty
acres Of good Grundy county land ana
he had several thousand dollars in cash
in the bank. The young man of course
is guilty of perjury and he is a Stacker
and a coward.
Some mother of a conscript wrote
to Editor Vanderwicken from Mar
shalltown. Her letter follows:
Marshalltown, Iowa, Aug. 20, 1917.
l want these few lines to reach the
! man that penned the accompanying
| clipping taken from the Marshalltown
Times Republican.
/ want to say this to him-What
right has any man to tell young man
! to go to give his life so that he him
| self may live in peace and comfort
and then call him coward and Stacker
| if the young man is not anxious to do
so.
am a woman, yet l ask no mother
| to give her son to save me.
We have a boy who has got to go,
but I am brave enough that I would
give my own life if that would save
| his.
To my mind. the most contemplate
coward is the yellow streaked cur who
shirks himself and ridicules the man
who hesitates to forsake wife, home
| and every other thing dear to him.
I understand there is a place in the
| ambulance corps for. any man that is
| willing to give service for his country,
| and ] would suggest that You exert
| some of your patriotism there.
I hope this too might get into the
| hands of the editor of the Tlmes-R Re
| publican-he has your same brand Of
| patriotism.
One of the Mothers.
| Mr.. Vanderwicken enclosed the
| mothers letter with the following ex-
| PLANTATION for himself, addressed to the
| Times Republican:
| Editor Times -Republican, Marshall
town, Iowa.
! My dear sir: l enclose You a letter
| from some party in your town which
l received a few days ago. AS the
| message which the letter contains is
| in part intended for you l am sending
| it. If you should know or learn the
! identity of the write, please inform
| her that am not as much Stacker
| as she believes me to be. You may tell
her that have but one son in whom l
| have as much interest as she has in
| hers. This son is but 10 years old. He
was not drafted 70 fight in the defense
Of his country. nor did I send him;
but he has gone and he is now in
training at Deming, New Mexico. I am
glad that he has gone and l am more
proud of him than I have ever been
before, that he fully appreciates the
| duty that he owes his country.
Very truly yours,
| J. Vanderwicken.
I This mother Of a son whose aching
| heart turns III IeSeUllheil do e''IioI I1'|
two editors she names in her letter is
passing thru the experience both edi-
tors and the mothers of their sons have
endured. The Times-Republican edi-
tor who writes this and who clipped
tha article from the Grundy paper
has but one son, 10 years of age
the day before he enlisted in the coast
artillery and who is now 5000 miles
from his father and mother in the
: service of his country. And this editor
and the mother of his son also gave
their consent and smiled to him as he
waved his farewell from the train
that carried him away but not
out of their lives. They know
full we'll the bitterness of parting.
Yet they are proud that he went. They
know from the beginning that he
would go and waited tense thru the
weeks for, the shock of his decision.
They know Vanderwicken and the
mother of the vanderwicken boy know.
The mother who writes knows more
OF the terrible hurt Of that parting
Than they and the fathers and mothers