The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1918-09-02

those were thrown against one
point OF the British line and some
people are fools enough to ask: Why
was there a gap in your line! WhyY
Contrast the 20 divisions at Verdun
with 102 divisions at Cambria and
with all that armament of Germany
and you viii understand why there
was a gap in the line"
No Mans Land.
II told you that No Mans land
was IS, yards across. in some places
ii is half mile or a mile or more.
On the other side. we have our front
line trench. Behind that the sup,
port trench, about a quarter of a
mile between them, and then the re-
serve french and back and back and
back to the line of our great guns
and they are great mammoth guns.
COLOSSAL. One Tommy was asked
one day what they looked like. He
said they looked like the day of
Judgment and they weighed some
thing like a small factory. But have
you ever thought of the distance
between the German line of guns,
or 5 miles behind their lines, and
our line of guns behind our lines
and all the area between devasted.
the armies have been pressing each
other to and fro and to and fro. and
the area of destruction has Widened
with the pressure. Today the area
Of destruction is so to so miles wide,
400 miles long, so miles wide, think
Of it.
81 have been charmed beyond ex-
preston with your beautiful coun-
try. Behind the charm of its beauty
there has been sadness, because l
could not forbear contrasting the
fertile land, with the war-wasted
land from which l came.
You know you might divide the
people of France-you might divide
the people of France into three great
classes; the agriculturist behind the
line, those whose homes were once
behind the enemy line, those be-
tween the lines and those behind our
lines. Thank God you fathers ara
mothers of America. that your home
is in this land. Although your boys
fine thing for the American lads to
fight with the knowledge that their
homes are safe, they have no an
xiety or dread about their home
behind. When your American lads
are fighting they can face their
front and say, 1T is all right be-
hind" All, it means everything.
Our homes are three thousand miles
back and they are safe Look at
that Frenchman, fighting in the
front line, a young married man.
All married men of England and
F'raee are called up: you call yours
boys do you not? We call ours
men, men, our men are gone. Men
have gone-aye, and men have died.
Think o fthat young Frenchman
the line. a married man.
His name-he has got no home-his
home in enemy hands, his wife TAX
en- away, he knows not where to be
a slave or worse, his little children
pariahs and outcast save as they are
picked UP by the tender, wonderful.
the merciful ministrations of your
great American Red Cross. But that
man can't think of home. / tell you,
men and women, that mans home,
if he could see it would be a horror.
Oh, / have been there / have been
through the Somme fight have seen
these people when we passed them
back and some of those French
homes were horrors.
t'Your lads get letters from home
telling them all is well. And faith
ers and mothers, do write your boys
dliu tell the ISlSnDOcS TO write.
Mothers, you know letter from.
home in the trench, speak from ex-
oeriencer is like a CLEAN from heav-
On. Mothers, write your boys and
tell the people to write the right
sort of letter. Don't write about the
war, they are in the war. Don't
write news, so-called, tell the people
10 write tender, intimate letters OF
nome, letters that you wauldnH
.hink Of writing to anybody else III
the world. For instance, when you I
ire writing, mothers, tell the la
what the old daddy is doing now.
don't matter what it is, tell mothe
TO write the boy what she is doing
f only washing or baking. it doesn'
matter, what the boys and girls, til
brothers and sisters. are doing. TIE
him about the garden, about tt
farm, about the crops; make the les
ters SO full of home that it sht
bring home near to the heart of the
boy in the trenches At the otha5
end he will tell his friend: I haN
had a letter from home today. dad6
Is all right, mother said he was a.
ing so and so when she wrote me,
mother is all right. She was wor-
RED about me but she has had my
letter and she is all right again. The
boys and girls are all right.
But the French lad never gets a.
letter from home"