New Britain herald., 1918-02-23

New York, Feb 23-"Tell the wom- en of America to write letters to their men at the front-and then more letters. It's home-Ietters that hold the front-line trenches"
 This is the message brought back to America by Captain H. H. Pear son, the first Canadian to go to France after war was declared, and the first to see service with Kitchen CTS army. Later he was wounded when a bomb struck the Young Mems Christian association headquarters at Belgian Poperinghe, of which he was in charge. He has seen hundreds of men go over the top, and a lesser number come back again. He has been over the stop and come back again Both from experience and from observation he knows what it is that puts heart into soldiers when they stand near the edge of No Mans Land, with the shells bursting around them.
 For two years, Capt Pearson, as a commissioned officer of the Canadian Army, has supervised the Young Mems Christian Association work along the entire Canadian front in France. He was wounded twice and 'gassed" and has now been sent home by the Canadian Army to tell the folks back home of conditions lover there.''
 So Captain Pearson, 8 big, modest man with as untroubled smile as lt he had never heard of a world war, but with the remembering eyes that all men have when they como back from it, has a good deal to say Of woman's plain duty in war time.
 Write to Him and DO It Often.
 Write to them!" he urges. If you have a relative Or friend at the front. write to him, and do it often. Letters from strangers don't count, of course, but the others-no one can say how much they matter. Why do you suppose that the Young Mems Christian Association spends thou sands of dollars every month for pa per and ink? It isn't so much be-
  folk; they must look out for them selves in time of war. We want those letters written so that the moth CTS and the sisters and the wives and the sweethearts back home may an- swer them as soon as possible. It's the answers we are interested in, be- cause we know how those letters in l the familiar hand writing are going | to help win the battle"
 ! Americans will never see the most | terrible part of the war, Captain Pear son declared.
 ."The most terrible part of the war was the first winter Of it,-the end of 1914, the beginning of 19I5,' he said l During that first winter Of the war l when the enemy marched against us l with machine guns and all the modern l instruments of warfare, and we had | no guns. no ammunition, nothing but sheer strength of will to go on, it was 1 really the letters from home that held 1 the lines for us. We did it because 1 the home-folk expected us to do 1t and said so in their letters.
 | You may say that this is all senti- l ment We'll, this is a war of senti- 1 ment. It's sentiment that took us over ] there to fight, and it is sentiment that ! is taking you Americans.
 l "Anyhow, soldiers are like that. I've | known some of them that haven't got. ! ten a word from home in all the time they have been gone, more than three ] years now. It may have been because their women were slackers, and it maI l have been because their letters hac
 gone aStray. They were a very diff
 ferent lot, as a, rule, from the chap:
 who got letters from home regularly
 and they went into the fight with
 different spirit.
 Sometimes a boy who hadn't heard
 from home for two years or mor
 would get his letters, at last lot o
 them in a bunch. You ought to hav'
 seen his face when he saw his name ol
 tc envelope, and knew that those let
 ters were for him! You ought to hav'
 seen how many times he got those let
 ters out and re-rcad them, when h.
 thought no one was looking! Yo1 1 ought to have seen the vim with whicl
 he went into the next hattlo!"
 Tell Him the News.
 What kind of letters should tn
 home-follz write ito the soldier at tn
 front? Literary quality isn't tn
 thing most needful in chem, of course Perhaps the best of them all are tn
 ones packed full of little homely de l taiIs-accounts of the new nelgnpor | across the street, and of the words tn baby has learned to say, and Of hoN , Jimmy is growing out of all hi clothes, and getting to look more lik \ hi. l.,II INr dow lln ire