The Bourbon news. [volume] (Paris, Ky.) 1895-19??, 1918-09-20
FOR THE FATHERLESS chill
DREN OF FRANCE.

O4s4IXN We Z QANOCl.
The Bulletin of the Fatherless Chill
dren OF France, which is the official
organ OF the executive committee of
this work, in its August issue con-
talns list of the seventy committees
that have been added to the organiza-
tlon since Jan. l of this year.
Paris, kentucky is among them,
and interest in the work continues
through the Chairman, Mrs. Arthur
b. Hancock, who is DESTROYS of ad-
ding more names to the list of those
who have already adopted French
orphans.
The Bulletin contains a number of
bright letters from boys and girls
who have been adopted" by Ameri-
cans, and also several pictures show
ing the little ones to be very attrac-
tive and interesting in appearance.
We quote the following paragraph
from the Bulletin written by John
Kendrick Bangs, well-known Amer
lean who is travelling in France:
"One of the things that impressed
me most in France was American
solicitude for the welfare of the little
children there whose homes have been
destroyed, whose fathers have either
been killed or swallowed up by the
prisons of Germany, and whose
mothers have been so impoverished
by war as to be unable to care for
them. 1t is beautiful to see the
spirit in which American agencies
have fastened to their succor, but it
is the sad fact that, generous as has
been our response to the needs of
these little ones overseas, their neces-
stiles are still far and away beyond
any measures yet taken to relieve and
hold them safe. Their condition is
pitiable, for in addition to their suf-
fering they cannot understand the
why and wherefore of that condition,
and on their woe is piled a heart
rending bewilderment as to why this
soul-searing devastation should be
visited upon them. Vast numbers of
them who have been taught that only
good can come out of the blue above
where Angels live, have had their faith
in Heaven shattered by the, to them,
all too obvious fact that death has
rained down upon them out of once
lovely skies; and / have seen some
who were actually afraid to look up
because it was from those upper
reaches that the Hun sent the instru-
ments of destruction that killed their
parents and in many cases their own
little playmates. Not few of them
have themselves been forever manned
by the enginery of destruction in the
hands of an invisible and cruel enemy.
/ have seen little boys with their legs
and hands blown away either by shells
or by innocent-looking objects they
have picked up in the street have
seen them by the dozens with peaked
little faces betokening long period
of starvation, some of them covered
with eczema because of the impover-
ishment of their blood as result of
undertaking, many of them in a con-
dition of general health that only
the most careful nursing and tender
flowing" can transform into anything
even remotely resembling strength.
Their little minds are filled with a
background of tragedy that has we'll
nigh obliterated the pictures of hap
pier days, and their outlook is one
that in the very nature of things is
filled with uncertainty. Their capac-
ity for play, their tendency to sing,
their wish to laugh, have all been
cowed out of them, and countless
numbers of them feel themselves con-
stantly face to face with that Thing
In The Dark which has struck terror
to the heart of many an imaginative
child in days of peace.
Their condition unrealized by the
generous heart of America would con-
stitute German victory, for it is
part and parcel of the Hun campaign
to destroy not only the France of to-
day, but the France of tomorrow, to
so terrorize where they cannot kill
and main that in possible later on
slaught there will be no gallant sons
and daughters of France to Illustrate
their vile ambition; to so break the
spirit of the children of France that
in future conflicts there shall be no
reserves in Spartan courage to inter-
pose q wall of steeled hearts against
their fell designs, such as they found
in the men of Verdun. Our BOYS are
fighting CALAMITY for present victory
on the field of honor to-day.
We, by coming to the aid of the
fatherless children of France NOW,
can do our bit as well on behalf of
the victory of the future. We can
lift these little children up out of
He'll and enable them to look God
in the face once more. We can place
them once more in the land of the
living and add to the security of our
own little ones in the years to come
by leading them up out of the Valley
of Despair to the heights of renewed
courage and faith in the right"