Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1918-08-02
WAR MAP SHOWS
YANKEES FIRM
Drafted Men Raise No Voice
of Complaint in United
States Plan

Washington.-The war man with
its trench lines struggling athwart
international boundaries shows
American fighting men holding their
footing on strangely alien soils. As
1t now stands army units of the
United States are at their grim work
IN six countries, France, Germany,
Russia, Austria, Italy and Belgium.
The swelling volume of their
movement overseas has been so nee
essary a response to the emergency
OF the nations responsibility, so
thoroughly implied by the original
war declaration, and so entirely ma
turai picture to a people prepared
by three years observation of world
war, that it may take a historians
perspective to visualize completely
the departure from traditions and
the smashing of precedents that the
movement involved.
Checking the six, American ar
tillery has been reported on tho
french line opposite Mulhausen. sew
eral miles inside the border of the
German empire. In Austria, the
olVe-drab uniform supports Italian
sectors which swing round the toe
or Lake Garda, and American fliers
nave maneuvered over the Venetian
lowlands where the Austrian drive
was forced back this spring. In Bel
gum, they have gone over the top
with Australians and in France their
forces in action now can be counted
py army corps. In Russia, at Vladi-
Vostock and now on the frozen
reaches of the Murman coast they
are putting disciplined forces be-
hlnd the manifold manifestations of
national purpose. Likewise, in Eng
land, Scotland and Ireland, they NIL
up the school camps and prepare
themselves for action.
These men, drafted nearly ALL are
the agents in the far-fiung Journey
lngs OF nation whose military his.
tory has shown more than one in
stance in which volunteers, ordered
TO cross boundary, have sat down.
private and officers alike, to debate
the constitutionality of a warlike ex-
pedition to foreign soil, and still
more instances where militia organi-
cations have successfully opposed
national attempts to send them be-
yond their own state lines.
Yet to-day, under. the urge of tho
war resolution, which directed the
administration ito exert all of its
power and employ all of its resources
w NoiiS Oll war against lnG lmDer-
ial German government and to bring
the conflict to q successful conclu-
sion,"' drafted men and volunteers
have not raised a single protest of
serious import.
1t was not until January of the
present year that the Supreme Court
formerly construed the Constitution
to allow any sort of war operation
the nation desired to carry on. The
court said of contentious opposing
that view that they were too frivo-
lous for notice."
Yet long before the decision the
first drafted American had fallen in
battlS overseas and legions more
had streamed after him to every
quarter, almost, of the Eurasian con-
tinent.
Thus the historian has been given
large and interesting mile-post to
build in the future, but for the aver
age American, the news of the day
shows that this interest is purely alb
stract. 1t having been definitely de-
cided, upon due and formal consider
alton, that a complete defeat of
Germany was necessary to democ-
racy in the world, the nation has not
even remembered precedents of his
tory or traditions of the past.