The Mount Holly news. [volume] (Mount Holly, Burlington Co., N.J.) 1891-1942, 1919-01-07
that IS AMERICA!
Splendid Work in France Typical
Of Country.
Returned Soldier Tells Something Of
Wonderful Doings In Which Every
Citizen Of Our Great Republic
May Have Pride.

A soldier of the expeditionary force
conversed with us the other night. He
had been shot half to pieces. Never
again will he be the same lad of swing
ing gait and vibrant life who went out
for us. Yet the spirit of him was un-
touched.
As he talked he suddenly lifted the
veil between us and far-off coasts
we saw France.
From port that had no docks of
importance before the war we say
extend the new American-built
wharves; mile on mile. Great ships
were swinging In on hurrying tides.
Thousands OF men, many of them
black giants from the South. the phys
ical equals Of any that ever bowed
to labor, swarmed around them.
Mountains of supplies lowered on
every side.
From those great docks ran four
track railroad; heavy steel rails,
heavy-timbered roadbed. rock bal
last, steel clamped. graded perfectly.
400 miles across France to the roar
ing guns. Half way across that land
the tracks were only two. No passen-
ger station on that line-only the
American highway for fighting mil
lions. going up to battle, and their
supply depots.
Every ounce of that metal, made In
America, dug out of our hills by men
like those of New Hampshire, was
smelted and forged and rolled and
beaten to our uses and set down by
the million tons In far-off places.
On that road ran cars upon which
could have been laid two or three OF
the lesser cars of the European lands.
On 1t ran locomotives such as the
world never saw, save In America.
Their monstrous forms lowered above
the heads of the peoples of all the
earth, who stopped. half in terror. as
the great machines rolled by, their
ponderous drive wheels dwarfing the
I engineers that worked about them
when they rested
As he talked. this broken-bodied,
whole-spirited soldier told Of his re
turn from the field. How he was rat
tied and bumped. and wrenched and
Jared as he went over the lightly
built railway In the hospital train
Then there was a change. He felt
the bump and pull Of an American To-
connective, felt the solidity Of rock un-
der his tortured body, the smooth
rolling Of wheels not to be mistaken
the localized, incarnated soul Of Amer
| lea In unbending rails beneath the
mighty engine and the swiftly running
cars. The landscape began to flash
BY as by magic. '-Then," he said. y
knew I was all right. Something had
got hold Of me-
That is America. The soldier that
no wounds could dismay; the solid
rock. the wonderful creation that
made not only the highway for our
| power but the foundation OF our free
republic,
AS this shattered but strong-spirited
| lad told Of the tranquility that came
with the bump and pull Of an Ameri
| can locomotive, our hearts were
stirred. Who of us has not waited
with bat poised. the pitcher fumbline
| the ball meanwhile, to see one Of oul
mighty locomotives 60 laundering pasl
our improvised diamond? 1t was
more than locomotive-it was sym
Dol. Perhaps we did not fsthom ths
| symbolism Of 1t, but we felt 1t. Here
| nj last, is the Interpretation. brought
| home by soldier of the Union that
I In no small part has been made great
by the vision, the daring. and the
| downright work that conquered ths
| wilderness, crossed the eastern noun
| tains, swept over the pralries, mas
tered other and mightier mountains
linked the sunrise coast to that Of
| the sunset OF steel. and converted {
! continent into neighborhood by tht
American locomotive. brother OF the
| one that picked up our wounded sol
der and made him feel that some
thing had got hold OF him." Tha
something" had got hold Of the world