The Dillon herald. [volume] (Dillon, S.C.) 1894-????, 1918-02-28
-ssRzrE 10 THEM,"

MEoW Home Letters Hold the Front
Line Trcnches
New York. February 81.
= Tell the women Of America to
write letters to their men at the
!. front-snd then more letters. It's
hope letters that hold the front-line
{ trenches"
This is the message brought back
! to America by Captain H. H. Pear
son. the first to see service with Kit
chen,s army. Later he was wound
y ed when q bomb struck the Young
Z Mems Christian association head
quarters at Belgian Poperinghe, OF
which he was in charge. He has seen
hundreds OF men go over the top. and
. lesser number come back again.
He has been over the top and come
!, back again. Both from experience
and from observation he knows what
1t is that puts heart into soldiers
when they stand near the edge Of No
Mans Land, with the shells bursting
around them.
For two years. Capt. Pearson. as
commissioned officer OF the Canadian
army has supervised the Young
Mems Christian association work
along the entire Canadian front in
France. He was wounded twice and
-'gassed" and has now been sent home
. by the Canadian army to tell the folks
back home Of conditions cover there"
" So CAPTAIN Pearson. a big modest
man with as untroubled a smile as il
he had never heard of a worldwar,
but with the remembering eyes that
all men have when they come back
from it, has good deal to say Of
woman's plain duty in war time.
Write to them!" he urges. "If you
!, have a relative or friend at the front,
write to him, and do it often. Letters
:. from strangers don't count. of course.
but the others-no one can say how
/. much they matter. Why do you sup
pose that the Young Mems Christian
~r~1 "ia:ion spends thousands of dol
1EsY.Ifs every month for paper and ink?
at isn't so much because we are
thinking of the home-folk; they must
y look out for themselves in time OF
war. We want those letter written
so that the mothers and the sisters
and he wives and the sweethearts
hack home may answer them as soon
as possible. It's the answer we are
in. because we know how
those letters In the familiar hand
srwriting are going to help win the
battle"
=. Americans will never see the most
terrible part Of the war. Captain
v Pearson declared.
"The most terrible part OF the war
: was that first winter OF 1.-THE end
Of 1914. the beginning Of 1915" he
!. said. During that first winter OF the
war, when the enemy marched
!. against us with machine guns and
all the modern instruments OF war
fare. and we had no guns. no am
munition. nothing but sheer strength
of will to go on, it was really the let
tiers from home that held the lines for
u.s. We did it because the home-folk
expecteu rs to tic it. and said so in
their letters.
"You may say that this is all senti-
ment. Well, this is war OF senti-
ment It's sentiment that took MS
over there to fight and it is sentiment
that Is asking you Americans.
Anyhow. soldiers are like that.
I've known some OF them that
haven't gotten a word from home in
all the time they have been gone.
more than three years now. 1t may
have been because their women were
slackers. and it may have been be-
cause their letters had gone astray.
They were very different lot, as a
rule, from the chaps who got letters
from home regularly. and they went
into the fight with different spirit.
Sometimes boy who hadn't
heard from home for two years or
moro would get his letters at last.
lot Of them in bunch. You ought
to have seen his face when he saw
his name on the envelope, and knew
that those letters were for him. You
ought to have seen how many times
he got those letters out and re-read
them. when he thought no one was
looking. You ought to have seen the
vim with which ne went into the next
5atile!'
What kind OF letters should the
hOme-fOlks write to the soldiers at
, the front? Literary quality isn't the
thing most needful in them, of course.
). Perhaps the best Of them all are the
one packed full of little homely de-
.ptails- account of the new neighbors
across the rect, and of the words the
~ baby has l,,.. ID to say. and of how
Jimmy is grow = out OF all his cloth