The Washington herald., 1918-02-13
ARMY PARADE
FEB. % URGED
BY TRADE MEN
Commerce Chamber Backs
Proposal; Representative
Johnson Tells Of War.


for a parade of District men from
Camp Meade on Washington's Birth
day, President A. Leftwich Sinclair.
of the Chamber of Commerce. at a
meeting of the chamber last night ap-
pointed Col. Robert N. Harper a dele
gate to confer with the District Com
missioners today to assist in drawing
up plans for the parade.
General sentiment among chamber
members trends strongly toward such
a parade. Although no definite steps
have been taken by either commission
ers or by the Chamber of Commerce,
pending decision of conrerees today,
1t is expected that the proposition
will go through with no opposition.
Pictures from Front.
Graphic pictures of fighting in
the front-line trenches were drawn
for members of the chamber by
Representative Albert johnson, of
Washington, one of the party of
ten representatives who visited the
war zone.
Representative johnson told of
the stretches of beautiful, fertile
rolling fields of France, laid waste
and desolate by invading Teutons.
He said that in the region around
Verdun. nine hundred thousand men
or thereabouts lay buried in earth,
which was turned up to a depth of
thirty feet by the shells. of the big
guns.
II can not find words to describe
the horribleness of that stricken
country" said Representative John
son. out Of Frances man power
OF 100000 men at the inauguration
OF hostilities, but 100000 men re-
main. Ninety-two PEI cent of these
remaining men are now in the
army. France has lost in killed more
than a million and a quarter of her
original army. Her wounded may
be counted at exactly the same
figure. There was never anything
like it in the history of the world.
Nears Her Limit.
France has well nigh reached the
limit of her endurance. She is tired
and war weary. But the morale of
the French Is superb. France fights
on"
quarter of her army and that Eng
laHu . "OI III the war pass
without high praise. "She carried
100000 troops back and forth across
the sea. So well did she protect her
transports with conveys that of this
number not more than $500 souls went
to the bottom, the victims of the sub
marine.
"of all the troops fighting under
the English flag. 70 per cent came
from the mainland of Britain. OF
all the losses suffered by the empires
troops in the war. England, the
island, has borne 70 per cent OF the
loss.
They are all eating war bread on
the other side, Mr.. johnson said. 1t
is the color of cement. And the Rep
rescntatlve suggested that perhaps
cement was used in the bread in
some cases as a substitute for flour.
In telling OF the status of Amer
leans at the front. Mr.. johnson stat
&C that to disprove the charges of
dunkenness and immo1 ality brought
against the army he had seen fig
ures which proved that only one
fifth per cent were affected by dis
eases resulting from immortality.
Gasoline costs $1.1O per gallon over
there, he said.
Chinese Makes Plea.
Tehyi Hsieh, of Peking, represent
ing the Chamber of Commerce of
China in the United States, said that
in China the masses looked to the
sister republic in the West to aid
in preserving Chinese democracy. He
implored the merchants to send their
best goods to China and to receive
the work of artisans of the East in
return.
Send US the best you can, and
only the best" he said. do not make
China the dumping-ground for unsala-
bles. 1 can assure you that A merica
will not suffer"
Albert Schulteis offered a resolution
requesting an extension of time limit
for the date of operation Of the alley
bill, which will dispossess thousands
OF alley dwellers Of the District July
l. He asked that the time limit be
extended to 1928. The resolution was
adopted unanimously.
Battling Nelson showed about 10
members of the chamber the way he
put across his best punches in the
days of his prime in che ring. He
used a dummy. typifying the Kaiser,
and gave many and sundry evidences
Of the sentiment existing toward tha
individual in the merciless ham.
mering to which he subjected the
bobbing man of padding and lead.