The Pascagoula chronicle. (Pascagoula, Miss.) 1905-1920, 1918-12-21
PEOPLE WHO ARE LEFT
OUT OF THE ROLL CALL
Population Of the United States
Asked to Stand Up and
Be Counted.
BY GERALD STANLEY LEE.

/
had friend once named Old Bill
Spear, who was the curator and found
er Of the John Quincy Adams Memorial
in Quincy, Mass. He conceived tho
idea Of making the house into mo.
mortal and, with his genius as I col
hector of old furniture, filed It with
things to see.
People came from everywhere, and
at twenty-five cents apiece they went
about to see the things Bill had col
lected and hear Bill talk.
Bill felt very superior to most col
lectors. "Just collectors" Bill said,
"collect anything"
Bill usually could size people up when
they came in the door, but when he
wasn't quite sure about people, and sus-
pected he didn't want to bother with
them very long, he used to take them up
to the attic to size them up quick. He
would show them bushel basketful of
something they couldn't quite see. and
then he would wave his hand with a
flourish and say in an impressive tone
the Largest Collection Of Burnt Matches
in the Worldw
Hundreds Of collectors didn't break q
smile. Bill said, and just looked awed.
Then Bill knew, of course, that he
needn't bother to show them his best
things.
Some Of the people who are proposing
to go out into the streets Red Cross
Christmas Roll Call Week and gather up
everybody to join tho Red Cross, seem
to think that the main thing there is
to- tell people about the Red Cross is
that If they pay dollar to belong they
will belong to the Largest Collection OF
People Who Have Paid One Dollar in the
World.
l felt little superior to this at first
and began thinking how I wouldn't do 1t.
But when I began thinking what the
biggest Collection Of People in the World
could do by just being the biggest and
by all wanting the same thing with
different one dollar, it became impress
sive.
1t would even be impressive II forty
million people in America all wanted the
same thing with the same Dollar!
All wanting the same thing would be
nation praying-all the grown-up people
Of a nation with their little half con-
scous children round them-praying!
not be a mere one dollar. The dollar
would be receipt to every man in
America that 39,999,9s other men or
women belonged to him, and that he be-
longed to them in getting what he want
ed for three million soldier boys and for
their children at home.
Forty million people-all the grown-up
people In this country pick out three
--f1I. - 1tn,1
men they have picked out, You go and
die for us, you go and be saviors OF the
world and die on our crosses for us!'
Then what do the forty million do?
It would be be something II we would
all line up-the whole forty million OF
us to a man. with our little pallid insipid
speechess dollar bills in o2r hands from
Maine to California Christmas Week and
use our two dollar bills a year as ballots,
stand up in line and be counted and
cable to the men across the seas that
we vote one carfare once in two weeks
to stand by them, to stand by the souls
and bodies of the children Of the men
who have made q standing offer to die
on our crosses for us
Who wants to be left out Of this limo
by Christmas Eve?
What man would want to be stood up
in row of those who are left out while
all of the children Of the world file by
and look at him. while the little children
OF nine hundred thousand dead men In
England file by and look at him, or the
children Of the soldiers Of France giving
their lives to protect the sa<yscrapers OF
New York?
For that matter 1t need not take 80
many children. What man who let him
self be left out would feel safe in his
own house with his own children climbing
up into his lap believing In hin-safe
with his own baby pulling on his face.
jabbing his small trustful fists in hiu
eyes-if he let himself be left out?
OF course, 1t seems little like a
mocker-r to cable over to France Christ
mas Eve that we give one carfare once
In two weeks to the children Of the men
we pick I'd out to die for us, but 1t would
be a start.
Nobody needs to think 1t would be a
big thing just to belong to the Red Cross
but it is going to be big thing to be
left out.