The citizen-Republican. (Scotland, Bon Homme County, S.D.) 1???-19??, 1918-08-29
AMERICAN SOLDIERS $
IN MANY COUNTRIES
World War Brought Smashing
OF Cherished Traditions 81
Uncle Sans People.

Washington, d. C.-The war man.
with It's trench lines struggling athwart
international boundaries. shows Amer
lean fighting men holding their footing
on strangely alien soils. AS it; now
stands. army units of the United States
are at their grim work in six countries:
France, Germany, Russia, Austria. It
ally. and Belgium.
The swelling volume of their move
ment overseas has been SO necessary q
response to the emergency of the ma
tons responsibility, so thoroughly i'm
piled by the original war declaration.
and so entirely natural a picture to a
people prepared by three years OBJ
take a historians perspective to visu-
alize completely the departure from
traditions and the smashing Of prece-
dents that the movement involved.
Checking the six: American artillery
has been reported on the French line
opposite Mulhausen, several miles in
side the border Of the German empire.
In Austria the olive drab uniform sup
ports Italian sectors which swing
around the toe of Lake Garda. and
American filters have Unanswered over
the Venetian lowlands where the Aus
trian drive was forced back this spring.
In Belgium they have gone over the
top with Australians, and in France
their forces in action now can be
counted by army.corps. In Russia, at
Vladivostok and now on the frozen
reaches Of the Thurman coast, they are
putting disciplined force behind the
manifold manifestations of national
purpose. Likewise, in England, Scot
land and Ireland they fill up the school
camps and prepare themselves for
action.
agents in the far flung journeyings Of a
nation whose military history has
shown more than one instance in which
volunteers, ordered to cross q boun-
Diary, have sat down-private and off,
Ger alike-to debate the constitution
atty of a warlike expedition to foreign
soil, and still more instances where
militia organizations have successfully
opposed national attempts to send them
beyond their own state lines.
Yet today, under the urge of the war
resolution which directed the admins
tration ito exert all Of its power and
employ all of it's resources to carry on
war against the imperial German gov
eminent and to bring the conflict to a
successful conclusion" drafted men and
volunteers have not raised single pro-
test of serious import. .---4.sskAa-4
It was rot until January Of the pres
ent Year that the su iiiiF scs o11ftt tfof-
mally construed the constitution to al
low any sort Of war operation the ma
ton desired to carry on. The court said
OF contentious opposing that view that
they were too frivolous for notice."
Yet long before the decision the first
drafted American had fallen in battle
overseas and legions more had streamed
after him to every quarter, almost, of
the Eurasian continent.
Thus the historian has been given
large and interesting mile post to
build in the future; but. for the average
that this interest is purely abstract.
1t having been definitely decided, upon
due and formal consideration, that a
complete defeat of Germany was nee
essary to democracy in the world, the
nation has not even remembered prece-
dents Of history or traditions OF tho
past.
Apparently, the men least inclined
to consider have been the soldiers who
have gone gravely, but with good cheer,
into the valley Of the shadow over.
seas. and there are making good, the
purpose.