Montpelier examiner. [volume] (Montpelier, Idaho) 1895-1937, 1918-03-22
Described CO nditions in France.
CONTINUED from page one)

Continued from page one)
this. Some member of every family
in France is either fighting at the
front, or incapacitated by wounds or
disease, or dead. There is even
more sad feature in the situation.
During the FIVE years before the war
began twenty-three per cent of all the
men who came up for enrolment for
military service in France, were re-
jected as unfit because of tuberculo-
sis. Nine hundred thousand of these
men were rejected in the five years
before the war commenced. When
the war came and the iron heel OF the
invader was upon French soil, these
men were called to the coiors, and
without any exception they responded
to the call. Do you know what
trench warfare means to a man suf-
fering from tuberculosis? 1t is muir
der. Many OF these men we're cap
tured by the Germans The food or
a German prison camp is not suf-
ficient to sustain life In a healthy
man. let alone to support a man suf-
efring from tuberculosis and need
ing the most nourishing food. In the
early days of the war the French
women put up packages OF food to
send through neutral agencies to
their husbands or sons or sweethearts
who were in German prison camps.
In the first year of the war these
were good sized packages. AS the
war went on, when the TERRIBLE grip
OF hunger took hold upon the land,
thse packages grew smaller and
smaller. The women of France never
complained; they never will com
plain; they send what they are able
to send, that is all.
Over in Europe the people are hun.
CRY. II they lived across the street
from you instead of across the ocean
you would realize the situation very
much more than you do today and Il
would not be necessary to make &C
urgent an appeal.
Now this is a simple problem IL
mathematics. There is only q certain
amount of wheat and meat and sugar
and coal in the world If the needs
OF Europe are to be met they mus
be met by the United States ant
Canada. II you eat wheat and mea
and sugar As you are accustomed {,
eating them, and II we waste coal q
we have been accustomed to wastinI
1t, then the Allies will have to e
without. We can eat other things
corn, vegetables and fish and othe
kinds of food. The people of Europ
can not eat those other things. The
must go hungry unless we eat les
wheat, meat and sugar in order YER
greatly to increase our export q
those foods abroad.
The Germans say that the hes
fighters In the world are the Frenc
soldiers. and those who know attrit
ute the splendid heroism of tn
French soldiers to the wonderful In
fiuence OF the women of Franc,
Those women who are toiling In tn
fields like beasts of burden, and ds
priving themselves of food that thei
men may have enough to strengthe
them for the fight, are described a
going with their boys to the train an
seeing them off to the front withor
a tear. The women of France breath
their heroic spirit into the men I
France. Those people are fightin
for liberty. even as their great gram
fathers came to America to help Il
In our hight for independence.
An old French soldier did a parti,
ularly daring and reckless deed in tb
No Mans Land between the ternche
and his general asked him why he dj
It. The general said, You shout
have thought of your wife and chi
dren and left that difficult task FOR
younger man.. The old soldier al