The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1918-08-01
WHAT CHILDREN KNOW OF WAR


Strange and Unnatural
Lleuteant Coningsby Dawson tells
OF visiting an American Red Cross
hospital for children in France in the
current issue of Good Housekeeping.
He tells of these small sufferes as fol
lows:
Through villages swarming with
troops and packed with ordinance we
arrived at an old caserne, which had
been converted into the children's
hospital of district, in charge
of one of the first of Americas chill
dFen specialists.
Here are five hundred little pa
TENTS This barracks converted into
hospital is full of babies, the Young
est being only six days old when I
was there. Many of the children
have no parents. Others have lost
their mothers, their father are serv-
| ing in the trenches. It is not always
easy to find out how they came to be
orphans; there are such plentiful
/ chances of losing parents who live
continually under shell fire. One lit
tie boy, on being asked where his
mother was, replied gravely: NV ma
ma, sh Use dead. Les boches, they put
a gun to 'er head. She is finished. I
have no mama
The unchildlike stoicism of these
children is appalling. l spent two
/ VS. among them and heard no cry
ing. Those who are sick lie motion
as waxen images IN their cots
Those who are supposedly well sit all
day broodlng and saying nothing.
! When first they arrive their faces are
earth cOlored. The first thing thew
have to be taught is how to be chill
dren. They have to be coaxed and
induced to play; even then they soon
| grow weary. They seem to regard
mere playing as frivolous and indie
cOrous; and so it is in the light of the
| tragedies they have witnessed. Chill
dren of have seen more of horror
/ three years that most old men have
read about in a lifetime. Many of
them have been captured by and re-
captured from the Huns. They have
been in villages where the dead lay
IN piles and not even the women are
/ spared. They have been present
while indecencies were worked upon
| their mothers. They have seen men
hanged, shot, bayoneted and flung to
roast in burning houses. The pic
lures of all these things hang in their
| eyes. When they play it is out of po-
| likeness to the kind Americans not be-
cause they derive any pleasure from
it.
might is the troublesome time. The
children hide under their beds with
terror. The nurses have to go the
rounds continually. If the children
would only cry, they would give warn
ing. But instead they creep silently
out from between sheets and crouch
against the floor like dumb animals !
That is what they are when they are
first brought in. Their most primitive
instincts for the beginning of cleanli-
ness seem to have vanished. They
have been fshed out of caves, ruined
dugouts, broken houses. They are as
full of skin diseases as the beggar
who sat outside Dives gate, only
they have had no dogs to lick their
sores. They have lived on offal so
long that they have the faces of the
extremely aged. And their hatred
| Directly you utter the word 'boche'
all the little nightgowned figrues sit
up in their cots and curse. When they
have done cursing of their own ac-
cord they sing the 'Marseillaise. 4"
Protection Insures Market
Representing Charles Gulden, 40
Elizabeth Street, New York, May 8,
1918:
"We the commercial travellers who
are the representatives of the various
commercial activities throughout our
country, and on whom about so per
cent, of the burden for the success
| of those industries falls by reason of
the necessity of finding market or
their respective products, believe, and
! it bebooves US to see that adequate
IlProtection is furnished them.
First: Because they are correlat-
| ed one to the other, is that the sue
cess Of each depends Ito a certain de-
gree) upon the purchase made by the
employees of the other. Hence, all
| hands must be kept busy.
Second: Because Protection for
ourselves and those dependent upon
US means Protection for all whom
we are closely allied; namely, labor.
(which produces the products we sell
Third: Because the greater earn
ing power of all, the better is the
chance for maintaining the high
standard of the home life so wonder
| fully developed within the past few
years under the system of Protection;
but which standard, should anything
adverse thereto transpire to change
it to retrogression, would prove a
calamity.
Summed up, the reason why
tionists is because they care for their
own, like the birds of the air and the
beasts of the field care for their
young. Mr.. Geo. H. Flowers.
Protection More Than Ever
Commercial travellers are or ought
to be, Protectionist for one good rea-
son, if no other, and that is that IN
der the system of Protection home in
dustries are encouraged; the Amer
lean workman has money to spend
and the merchant and travelling man
benefit by larger orders. At this time
Protection is more than ever neces-
sary to safeguard the American
manufacturer against foreign goods
being dumped on this market at the
close of the war, seriously upsetting
business conditions
''For the workingman a small loaf
az hn.,nd hnhhI,,. l..