St. Landry clarion. (Opelousas, La.) 1890-1921, 1918-05-25
~LAFAReuE's ADDRESS
Continued from page u

bounds and his memory Delng per-
fectly clear as to incidents of his re-.
cent trip and what he saw while
there, he was ready to tell it all.
after one hundred and forty-one
years said the speaker, four liberty
blessed nation finds the heavy, CORY,
mailed fist of Prussian a~utocracy laid
upon it. We must preserve the pre-
cious privilege handed down to us by
our illustrious forefathers, and to that
end we entered the war against our
will.
.Now that we entered the conflict
we must see it to a triumphant con-
c1usion."
Mr.. Laargue then paid his respects
to President Wilson and spoke of the
chief executives great worth as a cit
izen and official.
Continuing, he said there were GER
tain things worse than death. Had
we not entered this war we could not
have looked on the world with feel
ings of pride which we now do. There
was no way out of it without a loss of
dignity and honor and there was only
one patriotic thing to do and that was
to back the standard. This present
conflict is the greatest test and there
has never been as serious a situation
confronting us not even 1776, 1872,
1845 and 1865. Then we did not have
on hand the condition which now con-
fronts US. The salvation Of our Jul
try, the maintenance of our cherished
founded all depend upon the result Of
ideals upon which our country is
this war. We could not avoid enter
ing the conflict. If we did not fight
Germany now we would have to
fight her later and singly.
We must not waste time with those
not one hundred per cent American
Pacificists are against us as well as
those doing undetermined things
against us, just as those Germans who
pretend patriotism are against us at
heart. There is but one place for
these latter-send them back to the
hell-ridden country from which they
came.
We must not, moreover, waste tInfe
with those camouflage Americans.
This is the acid test, and unless they
do the right thing by US, God help
them! We must make a clean sweep
of spies and those who are not with
u.s.
The speaker told of his recent visit
to France and of the scenes of the
brutal and bloody imprint of the I'm
speakable Hun. Those places which
had fallen into the hands of the Hun
remained intact until February, 1917,
and when he saw that he could not
hold them against the allies, he set
them on fire; blew up and destroyed
every vestige of habitation. AS he
saw these places of ruin and desola-
ton from the mountains of debris
there seemed to come the cry of rem
geance and retribution. Dead babies,
outraged womanhood, poor people
murdered seemed to cry aloud: GO
back and tell the citizens Of the
United States what you have seen
and to so grid themselves as to avoid
all these things and to keep away
from their shores the things which
you have see here"
The Hun is not satisfied with ill
treatment of the living, said Mr. La
fargue, but he ~deseerates the dead.
He opens the tombs of the buried and
INDUCES in other atrocities. He spoke
of Verdun, a city whose motto was and
is "You Shall Not Pass" He recount
ed the terrible life in the trenches and
of the destruction of Rheims and of
its faomus cathedral which wept at
the ill-treatment of the invading Hun.
He saw Americans, splendidly pre-
pared, making good-those are doing
their full duty and mothers, fathers,
sisters at the real of the lines must
now do their duty for the boys at the
front. He paid a tribute to the Red
Cross and said that it was needed now
more than ever before. He was told
by the surgeons over there in the
field hospitals that they could never
have done for the dead and the dying
as they had done had it not been for
the Red Cross nurses. All soldiers
hailed with delight the Red Cross
and deemed it a speial favor
to be waited upon and attended to by
American Red Cross nurse. He
praised ''the splendid, heroic, God
blessed work of mercy which the
Bosehe would eliminate if he could"
There was no room for mercy in the
heart of the Bosehe for he had tram
pied under foot all principles of civ
.ilizatfon and mercy. Our God was not
their God. Ours was a God Of love
and of mercy and Of justice and of
civilization. Our Red Cross takes
care ofall who fall into their hands.
There was bpt n argument for
the Hun and that was from the can
mons mouth. 1t may require all our
manhood and womanhood to defend
Dur nation and ideals but it was a