Arizona republican., 1918-09-11
Where the People
 May Have Hearing
Obiter Dicta
Dear Mr. Editor:

Had you noted the passing of Sam my?" Sh, Speak softly. We would not hinder it's exit. Time was not many moons ago twas The Samnies' thls, | and The Sammies" that. Now It's simply The Americans,
 Governmental approval spread 'Saln- my" over newspaper headlines, movie | screens, war reports. training camps | and trenches. But the public is sur | feited on Sammy and the sobriquet has | vanished. As it stood not on the man. ner of it's going but faded so quietly | after it's one official "cloSe-up' let ts | lay our robins leaf gently on it's bier
 Queer word that sammy Queerel | still it's birth sammy grew not out | of a peoples affection during Ions | years of warning campaigns, as did the | English Tommy Atkins" but sprane | Athena-like, full-lettered. ready 10 ! George Creels hand, out or the fertile brain of some high seated Cust now high we do not know) commander al Washington. Possibly, MT. Editor, you may have heard that it's conception was not immaculate That is. those persons twhat dye call 'em? Yellow | Dcgs?) who scrutinize too closely as to where politics leaves off and patriot i ism begins, well, those persons look on ! this pragmatic (neW philosophy sane | tion of an attempt to grab a psycho- l logical suggestion off poor old Unele Sam's terminology a s a sort of backfire 1 lighted to kill a once popular demand for the word "Teddies, which the French, with their sense of the eternal fitness of things had promptly clapped on our fighting lads
 Far be it from us to criticise. Per | haps the general public has already re- | bI1l ,aI- h. .Ii ha1 peare say, What's in a name?" Mebbe so. But you and l and every father, mother, brother sister watching those fine strapping fellows as they swung ! along. half bravado. half crusader, really resented the silly name of sam mics" Ugh, S-a-am my, The Very call for a scold or a tormentor to use.
 Denominate boy William and the struggle of his young life is to lick any feller who wont hail him as Bill" Willie" is his kids nemesis; tanta-
 hzing sisters favOrite pastne. Then think of our boys having to march and
 fight (and how they do fight.) under the name of "Sammies." And here let
 us remember that the soldiers of Great
 Britain are rarely referred to as Tom
 mis- They speak rather of a sort of sentimental mascot called Tommy At
 kins collective spirit of regi-
 ment, or the whole army, not about
 bunch of individuals like our sam
 mics was copy-cot-ed to cover. Even
 the Germans knew better. The first
 clash with our marines and they
 picked live one. "TeufelHunden" is
 a heap bigger sounding mouthful han
 prissy little Jew-clerk "Sammie"
 Uncle Sam" is fine old nomencla-
 ture for the kindly, shrewd. much loved | no 1ta-rr, ~f
 Sam" has an honest, four square,
 slightly Puritanical smack. like Zske and Dan, but withal very good up-
 standing name is Sam. We even say.
 to add force and dignity, Your Uncle Samuel" But honest now, who in this
 United States would ever have thought
 of Sam mics" save a swivel chair
 sissy, an intellectual. old maid raised. sister bossed, pre-war pacifist?
 However Sammy was unloaded on
 an unsuspecting and much dazed Dear
 Peepul, along with all the government S
 other promulgations. The body polite
 yielded half -shamefacedly fearing tu
 retard the progress of the war If .he
 boys had to be called "Sammies" to ! make the world safe for democracy, ve swallowed hard with that same empty feeling left by the missing sugar and ! wheat, and the cold coal orders But
 when time came to prick up enthus.
 iasm. sell bonds and saving stamps ane
 make red-blooded appeals for Y. NJ. C. l A. and Red Cross, you bet Sammy X was automatically erased from every : ones vocabulary. Posters war songs society-g girls. no "S-a-am= my for them
 Well, anyhow. Mr. Editor, the Res y Publica" had illustrious precedent foi l sloughing off from it's children tn. s emasculated epithet Do not the church. n ly records of that little Virginia chape ',d show. how at the christening. there : was written THOMAS Woodrow Wil. s son? Now. Tom is good enougl z name for an ordinary hard working e voter. but, imagine calling the intellec-
 tual and literary leader of the Allies : the author of "The Fourteen Con. t mandents of Humanity" the human J being who penned The Decalog of thu
 Twentieth Century," yea. that one
 whom Senator Ashurst has declared t J be greater than Washington. Ereare l than Lincoln, pause. my dear sir, CT, ! we commit the sacrlege of calling ou J marvellous President. that Aristocrat c n democrats, "Tommie'.
 Y Small wonder Mir. Wilson lppt O. ' such a commonplace handle in earl. U school days.
 And so immortal Shakespeare. w IT cannot call our heroes "Sammies. J. Slowly, unconsciously it may be. Amer , ica has come to see through anothe .. obsession. Another idol is dust. Gener ally. this happens, Mir. Editor. give u
 time.