The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1918-06-25
BABIES BORN IN WAR
HE'LL ARE MOST PTTIFUL
Tragic Feature of the World Conflict Described by Dr. Esther
Loveloy After Six Months at Front Wear Tiny Gas Masks

Can you imagine anything more
pitiful than the lives of children who
have never known anything but war?
Is there anywhere on Gods green
earth more dreadful tragedy than
the tragedy of a blighted childhood?
The most wonderful thing to me in
America is to see little children run
ming about, happy and unafraid,"
said DR.. Esther Lovejoy in an adj
dress reported by The New York Sun.
81 have spent six months in the
nearest approach to hell that exists,
| believe, in or out of the teachings
of the theologians-the hell where
babies are born to hear the sound
of bursting shells at their introduce
ton to this world of ours, where lit
tie ones learn their mother tongue
only furtively and in whispers, where
children must learn to wear their lit
tie gas masks as soon as they learn
to walk, where suspicion and fear
rule and love and confidence are not.
What do we in America know
about war? We cannot begin to
sense what it means so long as our
children play. l know what war is,
for | have just come back from the
land where the children have never
learned to play"
When she first went to France last
August she found the American Red
Cross had just established its chill
dren's bureau, joined the staff Of that
organization, and as the medical
member of the Red Cross detachment
went to Evian-les-B ains, the gateway
through which Germany pours back
ito France the old and the infrm,
the manned, the halt and the blind,
all who, found in the invaded zone,
have no military or labor value
and the little children.
Germans Keeps Many of Them.
"Not all the little children" said
DR.. Lovejoy, "for there are many
whom the Germans keep inside their
own lines. These are, first, the chill
dren of mothers who have but one
child; there is a labor value, you see,
in the mother of one child above the
amount of energy it is necessary for
her to eXpend in the care of the
child
"The mother of two or more chill
dren is seldom regarded as of enough
value from the labor viewpoint to
warrant the expense Of feeding her
and her children. She and her little
ones, sooner or later, are sent back
into France, shifting the burden of
their support from the Germans.
There is no sentiment about this re-
patriati0n; ony the economic motive.
''Then there are the children of
French mothers whose fathers are
German. They do not come back We
do not know how many there are of
these-We can only guess.
I'm the French territory occupied
by the German armies there were,
before the war began, more than g.
000,00 people. Not more than $780,
600 of these have been sent back
through Switzerland into France or
returned through other routes. Many
of them were young girls, just round
ing the corner into womanhood. Ger
mans send back boys under IA, for
the older boys can work They keep
al the girls over 16 or who look as
if they were over 16.
"The older boys become slaves,
those who do not die of starvation
and over-work, but they do not be-
come Germans. The girls are lost to
France forever.
Men may be defeated, but they
are not conquered. Women through
the strongest Of all human emotions
and attributes, the mothers instinct,
can be conquered, and the Germans
know this. SO they keep the girls
over Is with the mothers of but one
child for their military value as
mothers to the next German army.
"The rest Of the children come
back through Evian; 1900 and more
OF them came through while / was
there. Once there was a whole orphan
asylum, carloads of children sent
| through alone.