The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1918-12-13

drawn into war will return. 1 Already those here are being prepared for their reabsorp- ton into the normal currents of our life and the tive million and more who have had the glory and the experience of making war upon foreign soil in protection of the liberties of the world will be brought back as soon as their work is done. With conditions as fluent as they are in Europe 1 presume that no one can foretell when the last man will be once more III America, but whatever the day of their coming their vel come can not be too warm or our appreciation of their ser vice too hearty.
 
 What shall that welcome be? Is it to be merely one of glad greetings, the emodoHll outburst of moment, or shall it take on a more permanent form, one which will be adequate in it's largeness and lasting in its na- ture? l am quite sure as 1 wrote you in May. that we can make of this event something that is real, some oF +1n net permanent value to the men and to the nation.
 No one can tell what such an ex- perience will have done for these boys. They have not seen the pie ture of the war in the bread view that has been given us from day to day. The map which we have stud fed has not been theirs. To them the sector on which they fought, the valley up which they marched, the ruined villages which they saw, the narrow trench in which they lived, the desolate blasted foreground of No Mans Land-these composed their picture. Life has been Q series of in cidents sobering, strengthening, hor- rifying, democratizing. Through these they will have grown, all of
 
 than they went. They have lived through years in the months they have been gone. They may not have gained the larger view of the great war, being too near to sec, but they will have gained a new view of America.
 They will return home as victors; proud. no doubt, and becomfngly OF hot, I,, dividual power and new tests set up in their minds as to the qualities which make a man. We will hold them at arms length and look into their eyes to see what change war has made upon them, the doing of daring things, the taking of ordered risks, to prompt recognition of au- thority, the steady, long companion ship of their fellows, the sight and enduring of suffering, the hard life of dust and mud and weary walking and long, sleepless nights We will look hard into the sunburnBd, hard ened faces to see what the strange life of a few months has done to these boys, these youngsters of but day ago. They will resent, maybe as soldiers should, the soft sympathiz. ings that will be poured out upor them, just as hey will make light o1 all that they have done. But out oi every mouth and from every hear will come the words, Well hom, sure looks good to mel"
 "What Is to Re My Chance?"
 They will be looking at us, too! AnC in their look will be a query, one thought over in the trench at nigh and on the Dong, slow "slog, slog slog' of the days march: What 1 my life to Joe when I get home? An l to go hustling for a job or will tn, old place be mine? But if girl ha that place and wishes to be her ow1 mistress in the future---what then School? Oh, can't go back to school When I left I was only 21, but nov I'm 31. And I have lived with men fought with them, been sometime bested by them, learned to know then In all their many littlenesses ant their great goodnesses''
 Being Americans and being young they will not ask or expect pension They will want work They vii want, if possible chance for & horn Of their own. They would like t know that while perhaps the fortune Of war did not so turn as to bestoI Ni IHS4Al tfie iheual TOT QlStlngu1She service, the Nation which they serve thought well enough of what they ha done to give them some evidence c its appreciation
 Now. these hopes, reasonable an manly as they are. can be met. an in fashion that will not weaken tn fiber of the man, by making him a object of bounty, and that will ad permanently to the strength and tn wealth of the Nation
 The Joh For the Man.
 Why not say to rhis t1.futsing so dier man: America offers you a far, if 3nu will he'U n4 is oasine and "a for 1t out of wHa- you make out of This can De done. and f it were would solve or tend largely il, solv several problems:
 Ql That of tine tz.~zadiate job fc the man htmze'f
 (3) That Of protecting the 19hc market against any possible colaps by being swampnd win a sur Jus labor.
 @ T5at Of p~3v.aine for man lines Of ra-estah,sa-G in7ust~r an in mediate demand for their r.u5lcts
 (4 That of saying he moveme toward the cities. and .hGs more cor pletely decentraiz.n~ our population
 (5) That Of aISiuF to uur soil large number Of st-proved Amer cans.
 (6) That O se.tioz u0 throughar the land the most modern pattern farm settlement in which the soci si6e of human nature IS given consi eration.