Webster City freeman. [volume] (Webster City, Hamilton County, Iowa) 1884-1946, 1918-04-29


thing that comes across my perspectiv
daily is the grave Of the American sol
dier in France.
1t comes to me oftener than mos
people over here, because, in additio!
to the other activities which have bee.
transferred to my department, is The
question of the grave in which shat
repose the broken body of the Amer
lean lad. He fell in strange land
fighting for a thing which doomed in
his mind as a solemn duty, vaguely
silhouetted with eloquent phrases
about the rights of man. making the
world safe for democracy, saving civil
lization from the Hun and other fervid
Technology which lighted up his brave
soul and catapulted him into brown
uniform and then into grave three
thousand miles from the land of his
daily longing and his nightly dreams.
Ask Bodies Be Sent Home.
Already dozen requests have come
to the department from American par
ents asking if bodies of their sons, who
have fallen since August last, cannot,
as special favor. be sent back home.
One of these, which lies before me as
write, comes from an American who
has had few requests of his life refus-
ed. The lad whose vision is with him
day and night lies in grave out on
the Cambria front, where he fought
and yielded up his young life with all
the generous courage of those who do
and die. The request Of the father
could not be granted, and when the
cable had taken to him that informa-
ton, he sent this great answer:
THANK you for your sympathy.
realize fully the difficulties which
make the request impossible. Please
be careful about the marking of the
grave, which l shall some day visit
with his mother"
As it lies before me. the message
seems simpler than it really is The
New Highlander who sent it moves
trains, builds terminals, surmounts un-
speakable obstacles at home He max
es millions of dollars turn somersaults,
thousands of men obey him. The lad !
was his pride, the thing which beckon-
ed him on in all his unusual tasks. AS
read his simple acceptance of the
situation, know where the lad who
laid down his life so readily got the
iron that was in him when he did his |
best to stay the Hun charge
The request, which has been denied, |
mas its duplicates in a million others
which have come to those in charge of
he gloomy department OF graves from
svery land since the war began And
he answer must always be the same
The issue was settled the first months
If the war The French had to meet
It first, and they used every endeavor
10 meet it with the widest possible con-
sideration Of the sympathetic demands
IF the case. Their soldiers fell on
French soil, some of them not so far
from home, others Of course several
hundred miles away.
The demand the soldiers body be re-
.urned to his native home became one
of the heartbreaking problems in
and where all hearts are bleeding A
great French officer was placed in
charge of the problem. He spent days
md months trying to meet it. He was
obliged to report the task would be
physically. From repeated
with the men and from
The growth of his own feeling he came
10 realize the soldier himself did not
lesire it. Most Of them preferred to
lie in graves on fields over the defense
If which they had given their lives.
lie explained to French people first
he insuperable obstacles in the way
II transportation, next the impossible
conditions from the standpoint Of sani-
alton. Then he put his great name
1t the bottom of the letter in which he
'equested if he should fall, he be F.
buried in the field cemetery on the
ground he had helped to defend.
Only four months later as lie stood
me day giving orders at Verdun to a
member of his staff shell fragment
ook off his head He was buried in ,
he field cemetery at Ver,lun, as he had ,
and the problem was set ,
led The English realized the French {
ecision was the only practical one and 3;
hey accepted Though they are
luch nearer home than we are. The {
the Canadian, the Austria
ian, the East Indian, all lie in graves |
l tho cemetery bpIou ofutr IN tho fold g.,