The Washington herald., 1918-02-24

AND LILLIAN CHESTER.


pressed passion, his views Of peace
as expressed above.
He means 1t, because in two weeks
his arm will be well and he Is going
back to the war, where HE DOES
NOT INTEND TO TAKE ANY
PRISONERS.
He would feel Inundated and dis
graced IL any peace which It would
be possible to arrange now should
prevent him from going back into the
fight in which he has been twice
wounded.
The face OF his plump and motherly
wife had become set like wax, and
her arched eyebrows had jumped into
a straight line.
The hollow-chested woman, Renee,
stood rigidly, and we have never be-
fore seen a tint OF actual green
spread beneath a clear skin as 1t did
beneath the skin OF her face: and her
wide eyes widened. and the lines deep
ened In her forehead, and the tightly
compressed lips became colorless.
The dull young woman came in with
the coffee cups in time to hear.
She held the cups motionlessly for a
moment, then set them down and
went out, DULY, heavily, without hav-
ing looked up.
The young woman had been one OF
the daughters in that eighteen months
of German occupation, and the hollow
chested Renee Is her mother, the sis
ter of Andre.
She had not been q heavy woman
in the first place, not even what might
be called a plump one, but she had
lost fifty pounds Of weight in that
year and a half Of agonizing slavery.
The other daughter died since their
release. died of her abuse and her
degradation.
1t is rather shocking to see q one
eyed man cry! Andre has a brother,
Michel. who was a prisoner of the
Germans, and who escaped after un-
told suffering and privation; and
Michel, who might as well have died
for all the use he will be in the world
from now on cannot properly tell
about the hideous permanent injuries
r received or the unbelievably inhu-
man treatment which he endured, be-
cause HIS TONGUE WAS CUT OUT.
They did this to him because he
asked for a drink OF water in French,
in place of German!
There is no willingness in this fam
lily to conclude a useless peace, and
live placidly in a world where the
Prussian may prepare again to do his
ghastly will.
There is no possibility in this fam
lily of a broad and generous charity
which can acknowledge a brotherhood
nf hnp01 nitU with ha
war.
They hate, and they will hate as long
as they live, and they have a right
to hate.
No. more than a right, a duty.
As you look into the faces Of these
people who have gone through such
awful horror. as you meet one after
the other of them, and acquire an
actual knowledge of what the Boche
has meant by his boldly proclaimed
intention of Pan-Germanizing the
world. something more than a mere
logical knowledge that such things
must not be permitted surges up in
you, and grips the heart, and sends
the darker blood tingling in the
checks and into the eyes.
Passion comes, as it must come!
We of America went into this war
as a matter Of principle: TO make
the world safe for democracy" we
said.
1t was like following a precept from
a copy book. such as Now is the
time for all good men to come to the
aid of the party" or ITO the stars
through labor" or Virtue is its own
reward" or some other high-sounding
Spencerian- principle.
We have met hundreds of fine, good
American soldiers, volunteers, who
have explained as their reason for
coming into the war that they did so
because every man should be willing
to offer his life to preserve liberty
and freedom" or because Prussian
militarism threatened the world"
1t Is rather miraculous that we have
done so much inspired by cold ethics.
and 1t is a tremendous tribute to the
high morality of the American char
acter that this is so.
Here is a big and a worthy thing
to be accomplished. you have said,
and everybody must help: so you at
home, almost unanimously, save your
food, and buy liberty bonds and send
for the cause of justice.
There is something majestic in
that, something ecstatically uplift-
ing in the spectacle of a great ma
tion, far from the scene of this CO.
lossal emotional tragedy, rising en-
masse in response to the sacred call
of duty, answering an appeal to the
highest and best promptings of the
human soul.
But by and by, when the facts
that you know with your MIND be-
come truths burned on your heart,
when you learn more and more
through the loved ones whom you
have sent here to represent you in
this titanic struggle between the God
Of right. and the Devil of might.
when they tell you of the awful
things, the impossible things, the
atrocious, inhuman, british things
of which the hell-spawned Hun is
capable, you will have something
deeper than duty in your more and
more passionate support of our boys
in France.
You will have hatred, and 1t will
be a Just hatred!
You will understand why the French
nation, enduring so much with a
calm and steadfast courage which has
been the marvel of the world, keeps
its face turned sternly toward the
west, and its determination set on
but one end to this demoniac strug-
gle; that end, a permanent peace,
the peace which can only be secured
oy exhausting the German empire,
beating it to its knees, encompass
ing the complete and entire defeat
OF the Boche; an end which must be
ours. too, il it takes every last dol
lar In our pockets, every last ounce
OF our resources, every last drop
of our blood,
As for ourselves, we who write