Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1919-04-22

SOlQler as q rule is pretty good
| thinker. If he was not one before
he went into the service he became
one under the influence of the decen-
cies which always follow the flag.
From the beginning of things Ameri-
can the impossible thing has been to
divorce politics from legislation. Boil
shevism is welded to politics and the
legislators know it. Manifestations Of
certain conditions, harmless enough in
| themselves perhaps, are looked on mis-
takingly as marks of the red propa-
ganda. On the other hand some things
which are accepted as harmless on
their face value have been found TO
| be harmful.
Apoogists in High Places.
Bolshevism is found in high places
in some parts of this country. This
is the Lords truth, although it is one
of the hardest things in the world to
prove. ApOlogists for the present re-
gime in Russia are in many guises.
The word ordinarily is that the Rus
sian doings Of today are misunder-
the order are prompted solely by kind
ly affection for everybody in the world
| except those marked for slaughter. 1t
sort of an Abraham and Isaac busi-
ness over again, except that unlike
Isaac the victim of bolSheviSm does
not escape the knife and the pyre.
In this town there are no wickedly
potential apostles of bolshevism. They
| are all of the hot house type, but
their preachings are an encouragement
| to the non-intellectuals who take their
| lessons from others and prepare to
| do the things which the others would
shudder to do.
Bolshevism is attempting to enlist
discharged soldiers of the American
| army in its cause. 1t probably will
not have much luck except in a few
places where the draft brought into
the service some weak-minded ones
a negligible number of draftees whose
fiabby mentality not even service in
the field could bring TO normal.
Plenty of War Souvenirs.
1t was the easiest thing in the world
to gather souvenirs of the battlefields
in France. All that an American had
to do was to stoop down and pick up,
and he could continue the process Of
STOPPING and picking through all the
daylight hours without getting what
the fishermen cal la water haul.
Some four score thousands of Ger
hoI,, ,A1 o. 10 ms
prizes to the workers in behalf OF
the next Liberty loan. The pOstoffice
department recently has said that the
volume of souvenirs sent to the United
States from France by parcel posi-
may be measured by the ton. Already
half a million helmets have come
through the mails.
Not far from Chehery, which is
northeast of the heavier section Of the
Argonne forest, is a wood called the
Bots de BourgOnne. One day in early
November the Americans gassed this
wood with mustard. They drove the
Huns out limp-legged. The enemy
dropped pretty nearly everything that
he had in his haste to get away from
the fumes and the burns. Six days
after the wood had been gassed some
American officers from General Dick
mans headquarters explored the wool.
Notwithstanding the fact that nearly
week had passed since the gas shells
had been dropped in the forest, the
air still was charged with it's fumes
and the ground was pretty well soaked
with the >semi-liquid. 1t was neces-
sary on entering the wood to wear a
gas mask, and some of the denser
parts of the underbrush could not be
penetrated because the exploring off,
GERS were not properly protected.
Hun Equipment All Abandoned.
The "f1oor" of the Bots de Bour-
gonne was Uttered with Hun nipple
mants. There were gas masks, he'll
NETS, revolvers, rifles, belts, blankets,
and score of other things which a
soldier carries or has carried for him.
The place looked like a curio shop.
AS soon as it was safe to enter the
wood the salvage corps undertook its
work. The Bots de Bourgonne was
only one of hundreds of like places
in the fields and forests along the
front, east and west of the Mouse
river, where the Americans operated
The same conditions found duplica-
lions in the fields OF the French and
British fronts. Train loads of souve-
Mrs were picked up by the American
armies after they had attended to
the major business of driving the Hun
out of his advanced positions in the
st. Mihiel salient and the Argonne
forest.
One afternoon Gen. Joseph T. Dick
man, who commanded the first army
corps in the Argonne, took the writer
hereof on a flying motor trip from
Chehery, due east to Montfaucon.
The Americans had swept over this
ground shortly before driving the Hun
back toward Sedan. This section of
the front was largely open country
and one could get an instant under
standing of the wastage of material
In the wake of retreating army,
and not all this wastage is that of
the army which is on the run, for
men in the eagerness of the pursuit
occasionally will throw away impedi-
menta in order to "fy light and fight
light"
In the fields between Chehery and
Montfaucon there were tens Of thou
sands of shell cases. Hun guns out
of commission broke the line of vision
everywhere. Baby tanks, which one
Founders had put out of business, were
waiting the arrival of the members OF
the salvage corps.