The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1919-02-08
SOLDIERS IN TRENCHES
DON'T HATE GERMANS
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they gave her some patched clothes as
coming from America, and she knew
that nobody in America would send
such stuff as that 1t is hard to have
to choose between being just and be-
ing good American. l won't tell you
what attitude took, but Pm afraid
my dear old lady still thinks she has
an argument to prove that the Boches
are robbers.
cat any rate, the older griefs of
these people are for the soldiers who
have come through an intense war
far-off things, and battles OF long ago.
They judge the German soldier by
their own experience and by soldier
standards; they don't fear him; they
don't hate him; they don't despise
him either They respect him when
he puts up good fight or makes a
clean getaway, and that has been
most Of the time. When they meet
him now the impulse is not to hit.
him, but to give him 'tailor-made'
cigarette and swap experiences.
eff l can Judge by the tone of the
press the civilian mind has had a
quite different set of experiences. You
are much more bitter over there. You
talk of the Huns and it is the
rarest thing to hear a soldier in
combat division talk of 'Huns'-it is
always the 'Boche' or 'Heinie' or sim
ly the Germans Perhaps it is what
you have been fed upon; perhaps it
lis something that, is fundamentally
decent showing itself in crooked
way when some fellow who isn't in
the fight manifests his feelings by
damning the Kaiser or bursting the
| windows of delicatessen store or
teaching his kid to insult some little
towhead in school. In France ami
mostly was characteristic only of re-
cruits or warriors of the rear areas
who never heard or fired a shot.
"It was fine spirit on the part of
our troops, much better than hatred
would have been. cannot see that
deep bitterness could have made them
holder. 1t only would have made
| them less efficient. And the spirit
is admirable in ITSELF l saw a Ger
man airman do a particularly daring
bit of work and bring down one Of
our observation balloons in sight of
10000 soldiers, and 1 do not think
there was a soldier in the bunch that
didn't say: 4 hope to God the beggar
gets away
"You can easily understand that
now that our fellows have licked
them in fair fight on both sides, they
are kindly disposed towards them.
And you can understand, too, the rea-
son for the prophecy 1 have often
heard many Of our officers make, that
the return of the front-line troops
will do much to soften the bitterness
of American opinion with regard to
German conduct of the war. though
it will not change American views on
the war itself or the need of our get
ting into it,
Father Duffy, who is one Of the
great individual heroes of the war,
writes from the heart of the Amerf-
can Army, for he is marching with
the Rainbow Division through Ger
many. His letter will serve to en-
tighten the American people who have
been systematically deceived by that
element which has fostered the spirit
Of hatred and has sought to incite
unforgiving bitterness and hostility
against the German people. He Is
big enough and courageous enough
to tell the American people that they
have been misled and that the spirit
Of hatred which 10 90 pronounced ut