Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1918-08-08
UNITED STATES
ARMY UNITS IN
SIX COUNTRIES

WashingtOn.-The war map with
its trench lines struggling athwart
international boundaries shows
American fighting men holding
their footing on strangely alien
soils. AS it now stands army units
of the United States are a. their
grim work in six countries, France,
Germany Russia, Austria, Italy
and Belgium.
The swelling volume of their
movement overseas has been SO
necessary a response to the emer-
gency Of the nations responsible
~, so thoroughly implied by the
original war declaration, and so
entirely natural a picture to a peO-
pie prepared by three years Obser-
Walton Of world war, that it may
take a historians perspective to
visualize completely the departure
from traditions and the smashing
of presidents that the movement
involved.
Checking the six, American ar
tillery has been reported on the
French line opposite Mulhausen,
several miles inside the border OF
the German empire. In Austria,
the oIive-drab uniform supports
Italian sectors which swing round
the toe of Lake Garda, and Ameri-
can f1iers have manOeuvered over
the Venetian IOwIandS where the
austrian 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 Via livestock
and now on the frozen reaches of
the Thurman coast they are puc-
ting disciplined force behind the
manifold manifestations of ma
tionaI purpose. Likewise, in Eng
land, Scotland and Ireland, they
fill up the school camps and pre-
pare themselves for action.
These men, drafted nearly all,
are the agents in the far-fiung
journeyings of a nation whose mil
itary history has shown more than
one instance in which volunteers.
ordered to cross a boundary, have
sat down, private and officer alike,
TO debate the constitutionality of
a warlike expedition to foreign
soil, and still more instances
where militia organizations have
successfully opposed national at
tempts to send them beyond their
own state lines.
Yet today, under the urge of the
war resolution which directed the
administration ''to exert all of it's
power and employ all of its re-
sources to carry on war against
the Imperial German government
and to bring the conflict to sue
cessfuI conclusion" drafted men
and volunteers have not raised a
single protest of serious import
1t was not until January of the
present year that the supreme
court formerly construed the con-
stitution to allow any sort of war
operation the nation desired to
carry on. The court said of con-
tentiOns opposing that view that
they were too. frivolous for no
tice"
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.
mus the historian has been CIV
en- a large and interesting mile
post to build in the future, but for
the average American, the news OF
the day shows that this interest is
purely abstract. 1t having been
definitely decided, upon due and
formal consideration, that a COM
plete defeat of Germany was nee
essary to democracy in the world,
the nation has not even renem-
bered presidents of history or ira
ditions of the past.
Apparently, the men least in
clined to consider that, have been
the soldiers who have gone bravely
but with good cheer into the val
ley Of the shadow overseas, and
there are making good the pur-
pose.