The Cordova daily times., 1919-06-11
CONTEMPTIBlE LITTLE
 GENERALS

SGN6nNA0
 After the armistice was signed the Americans occupied Coblenz."
 Thus Field Marshal Haig in his off cial report. It is the only recognition he accords the soldiers that saved him from disaster when his "back was to the wall' in Flanders and he was crying for help. It is his only men, tion of the men who, after the debacle in the spring of 1918, were the first, with the aid of the Australians, to break the Hindenburg line.
 We had it in mind to voice with some bitterness the growing resent ment and scorn of Americans for the conspiracy of silence that seems to have throttled all generous words in the throats of men who boast of their fair play as if it were somthing akin to a religion. But the words that surge within us to be uttered die on our lips.
 Our vision goes back to that "con- temptible little army" that fared forth out of England to hold the Hunish hoards from Belgium and France, back even to those gallant days when As uuith declared that England's honor would not permit her to stand aside and make bargain of self-interest with the barbarians of Prussia. Those were inspiring days and the blood still thrills when one thinks of the British army, ''The first hundred thousand" that crossed the channel to battle for the foemen who had measured swords with them in every century from be- fore the middle ages down almost to our own times. It was an alliance to make the heart throb and the eyes grow dim What names fired the brain with immortal memories! One seemed to see the Black Prince and the long line of warrior kings flaming through the clouds to lead that dazzling host And on the other short one seemed to glimpse the ancient chiyalry of France and at their head Bayard and Joan of Arc in blazing armor
 And then came Mons and Charleroi and the terrible retreat of the Gallic, Celtic and Saxon hosts. Their swords were broken, but their spirits never. Fighting for the best there was in civilization, for the ideals that still ennoble the hearts of the men of Merry England, for liberty and for honor, for the things that make hon. est and good men grip hands where ever they meet whether by the shelt' cred rivers of England, on the burning Africa sands or amid the fatal snows of the Antarctic.
 We had it in our hearts, we say, to utter words that scar and kill. But it that pass.
 Tomorrow perhaps they will need our aid again. Tomorrow, perhaps the Stars and Stripes will start east ward from the bridgehead at Coblenz to lead the way for our men fighting beside the men of England and of France. And if that high call shall come our soldiers will think, not ot the petty generals of England, but the heroes of Mons and Charleroi, of the thin red line" that held the coast Of Flanders when the tidal wave of Huns dashed forward in vain, of the landing at the Dardanelles, of the campaigns in Mesopotamia, of the cool intrepid. ity which ruled the oceans while the ships of England were sinking on ev' cry hand, struck to their hearts by the sneaking torpedoes; of Ypres, Mes sines, Vimy Ridge and Cambrai, of the sea fighters who volunteered for al most certain death when the order came to block the harbors of Bruges and Ostend.
 The kaiser spoke of the "con- temptible little army of the Britons, but he was thinking, perhaps, of Eng lands contemptible little generals. Had Great Britain, in her gravest crisis, been blessed with great gener- als her army would not have stood with it's back to the wall in the spring of 1918 and there would have been no necessity for an American army to do even so slight thing as occupy Cob lenz after the armistice was signed.