Trench and camp., 1919-02-13
BY A. G. KELLER

SobleSki defeated the Turk and kept
him out of Europe much as Charles
Martel did at an earlier time. Poland
has produced one of the first
musicians OF the world, in Chopin,
and one Of the greatest players las
well as q great patriot) in Pader-
ewski; Henryk Sienkiewicz, who died
recently was one of the worlds great
est novelists. No one who reads his
stories can fail to realize the SER
vices Of the Poles in saving Europe
from the Turk. 1.-The Pole" said
the Turk, lies at the foot of the
Cross Like watch dog, and bites our
hands when we try to tear it down." I"
We know too little Of the Slavs
and do not appreciate them. But all
musicians know who Tschaikovsky
was. All literary men know Tur-
genev and Tolstoi and Dostoyevsky.
One of the greatest of all chemists,
Mendeleef, was Russian. The fact
that the Russians have had constant
misfortunes, and have been betrayed
by their rulers till they are now up
set and in disorder, ought not to
blind us to their virtues.
To the Hebrews we owe much
more than some of us are accustomed
to realize. The Bible and the strong
religious spirit back of it are He
brew. The Hebrew has been a good
business man, and a frugal, careful
liver. He has been the financier
who pulled a state out of bank
ruptcy many time. Much in
business and finance is owing to him
and to his keen business sense
When the Spaniard expelled the
Jews from Spain, they exiled their
best economic resources. Jews are
usually law-abiding, peaceful citi-
zens, and, despite the fact of their
continued oppression, many of them
have become very eminent and use
full men.
We need now no evidence as to the
glory of France, or Belgium. or
England, or Canada, or Australia
but we must in our own armies not
fail to realize how many good men
Of German origin have borne their
part in the war just won. Anyone
who looks over our casualty lists
will find plenty of German names.
Let US not be unfair to our own COM
rades, who loyalty helped to down
the Prussian peril. Let US consider,
for moment, who these loyal Ameri-
cans with German names are, and
how they came to be here.
Many of them are sons and grand
sons of men who fed from Germany
one jump ahead of the military au-
thorities, who wanted to drag them
into the machine; they fed to avoid
just what we have been fighting to
destroy forever. The ancestors came
here for liberty, and the sons or
grandSons of thse ancestors have, by
thousands, been fighting in the same
cause against the same enemy-the
autocracy and the militarism of
Prussia.
Thus it is clear enough that the
Germans who came to us in the past
came for something the same reason
as the colonists who first formed
the Union-for freedom of con-
science and of life. But this is a
noble motive, which does not move
common men to endure risks and
suffering amidst the chances of a
new land, These men of enterprise
English. Irish, Scotch, French,
Italians, Germans, and all the rest
were the pick of the population of
the districts they came from. And
if they were, then we ought not to
get them confused with those who
were not the pick of the population,
and stayed at home. or course, not
all who stayed at home were un-