The Monroe journal., 1918-12-31
The Healing Hand of Peace.
M n Nauc altar

The armistice drawn by Generals
simo Foch was signed by the German
authorities at 2.45 this morning and
all guns were silenced at 6 a. m,
Paris time. on the llth day of No
vember. The kaiser and the crown
prince have abdicated and are seek
ing safety in fight. The kaiserlings
in the little German states are fol-
lowing suit in swift order. Peace is
not yet concluded in set terms, but
the world war is oyer-the war that
cost the struggling nations e21 bill
lion dollars. that slew s million men
in battle and orphaned 20 million
children.
With peace in sight. IL becomes pos
sible to look straight at the largest
task the Good Samaritans of the
world have ever had TO contemplate
in all history-the healing of the
wounds of Armenia. Poland. Rouma-
mia. Serbia. Italy. France and Bel
gium. These countries have fallen
among thieves, they are stricken be-
yond words. and human hearts in
happy lands will not pass them by on
the other side.
Our prediction is that we are now
about TO witness the greatest out
pouring of Christian charity that this
OLD word has ever seen. Strange,
but the henGish purposes of Germany
IN four years OF war have brought
humanity further along the road to-
ward the common brotherhood OF
man and the common fatherhood of
God than all the civilizing agencies of
twenty centuries have been able to
do. So il is that He maketh wrath
of man TO praise Him.
Mighty agencies of rehabilitation
and merciful healing are girding up
their loins for gigantic tasks in the
blasted regions of war. Five billion
dollars will barely cover the value of
properties destroyed and stolen i'm
France and Belgium alone, say the
War Damage Commissions whose bus
iness il has been the last three years
10 keep books against the day OF
righteous reparation by the central
powers.
A DISTRESS SIGNAL
Andre Tardieu, the French Minis
ter of War Affairs, has just laid bare
TO the world the wounds of France.
Two and half million of her heroes
are dead. or down and out with
wounds or disease-a full fifteenth
OF her effective population. Her
m ai,nad cnld,arc ara IN ba ra m, n a. h,-
the magic arts of modern surgery,
and trained to self-sustaining indus
tries in endless variety. Widowed
mothers and five million fatherless
children are TO be cared for tenderly.
Three hundred and fifty thousand
homes are to be re-erected. Hundreds
upon hundreds of hamlets, towns and
cities are to be rebuilt. industries are
TO be re-established, mines put into
working order, highways and bridges
reconstructed. railway trackage over
hauled and equipped with rolling
stock, merchant marine created
anew, and so and on. Ten thousand
square miles of farm land are TO be
eveled, plowed and narrowed for
he spring seeding, orchard spaces
must be reset with vines and fruit
trees. and shade trees are to be re-
planted along the streams and high
ways after the stately fashion of
France.
The plans of reconstruction are
BASED on the five billion dollars of
that France may right
'ously demand of Germany.
But they call for five billions more,
ind the land of Lafayette and Roch-
smbeau flies a distress signal to
for assistance. And also
hey call for fifty per cent credit
On all purchases made In America
or restoration in France. They call,
90. for all the volunteers that can be
ound in our armies-technical en-
,ineers of every description, indus
rial organizers and superintendents
business men, doctors, teachers, and
minister's.
While our soldier boys are waiting
hip during the next twelve morthc
or the return home, what nobler
hing can they do than to lend
land to stricken France and Bel
,ium. now bowed down and strug-
ling to stan derect again?
'EACE-TIME JOBS IN FRANCE |
General Pershing knows, as Mazzi-
Il knew, that the morrow of peace is /
more perilous than the eve; that idle |
ninds are the devils workshop; that
like the flies of Belize
ub for multitude will now be swarm
ng about our boys abroad while
rating their return home; and that.
they are to come back to us stron-
er not weaker men, their brains and
odies must be nobly employed every
minute Of the time in peace projects
rebuilding the civiliza-
ion Of the stricken war zone, and in !
all the lessons that France |
nd Belgium have to-teach America.
Hence General Pershing's call for |