The Birmingham age-herald., 1918-02-20
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

I confess am a bit weary of war oratory, and that when a new speaker lands in the city, it is not with un- fegned pleasure that l realize I must hear him.
 Even as great star as Charles Ed ward Russell failed to stir me out of my apathy, and the announcement of his coming left me cold, and even after he arrived I was indifferent about hear ing him.
 To be perfectly truthful, after hearing him on Saturday night at the Jefferson I was disappointed. It seemed to me he brought no new message, and that it only differed from the others by being more funereal. I put him down as a twentieth century Jeremiah, a prophet of woe.
 I said that Colonel Applin, the splendid English officer, set good precedent by speaking without opening with a joke; but Dr. Russell went him one better, uS WdSttu llO t1iHc III COIuplitHGHlSs lS passed by any reference to Birmingham and plunged at once into his admonitory message.
 I found after hearing him speak seven times, twice in churches, three times in theatres and once at dinner at the Tutwiler to the Howard college work ers that he was no Jeremiah uttering jeremiads because he loved to move in an atmosphere of gloom, but he was painting a dark picture to be true to the facts.
 There was method in his cloak of pes- simism. It was needed foil to the silly fol de rol of the optimists who sing that all is well and that we have nothing to fear, and raise a cheer by simply an- nouncing that i've are going to lick the Germans without troubling to tell us how. It is all well to be buoyed up with something more substantial than mere wishes.
 It is easy to be cheerful three thousand miles away from the battle line. It isn't hard to be contented with three meals a day, roof over ones head, and busi- ness running as usual. It is possible to be comfortable with schools and churches and places of amusement open. It Is even pleasant to be able to walk without fear upon the streets. It gives a gentle thrill to sit quietly at night ana France"
 Then comes along gallant soldier, Colonel Applin, who has put in two years in the trenches and been decorated for bravery and he dares to tell us that we are living in a foofs paradise and as yet are only playing that America is at war. Oh, how his gentle Sarcasm went deep home to me as he said, "I picked up one of your papers, and 'pon my word, there stretched across the whole front page in screaming letters was the statement that two Americans had been killed but way down in a paragraph with a modest head over it the reader was told that the casualty for the Brit ish for the week was over 72,oo0.'
 Then follows student, pubicist, and traveller fresh from the heart of Russia, Charles Edward Russell, and who has been behind the scenes in Lon don and Paris, and who with his own eyes has seen devastated Belgium and with his own ears heard from the lips of broken fathers and dazed mothers ters and the death of their sons-and yet some complain that his message was shot through with a note of despair and suffering
 It is said that when Dante used to walk the streets of Florence the children looking into his sad face whispered in frightened tones to one another, There goes the man who has been in hell''- and for few days man walked the streets of Birmingham and no one saw him smile or ever heard him drop the
 
 could he, when he had come fresh from scenes more awful than any pictured with the Dantean pen?
 
 I admitted that I was disappointed the first time I heard Charles Edward Rus sell, but the man and his earnest mes- sage grew on me, and before he left he had gripped me with his strong but quiet personality and fascinated me with his repressed oratory and his graphic power to make me see and feel the things he had both seen and heard. havo never met one who seemed more possessed that it was his mission to wake up his countrymen to the tremen- dous task before them and the poten- tiality of the issues which were battling for supremacy.
 He was full of facts, he named places, gave dates, and called names, for he was familiar with the diplomatic game before the war began and had been be- hind the curtain since the war cabinets had got to work. He never for one mo- ment got his feet off the ground, but all the while his head was above the clouds of battle in the region where God reigned and the eternal principles of might and right were being weighed in the balance, held by the hands of tho Ruler of the heavens and the earth.
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