Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1919-02-04
U. $. MEN FROM RHINELAND
WRITE TO "DEAR AMERICA

expeditionary forces to the home
land, printed In the Stars and Stripes
December 20. It is dated THE
Rhineland, Christmas, 1915" and
addressed to Dear America" The
sketch follows complete
Your sons are coming home. The
task you set before them is nearly
done, and now, day by day, week by
week, month by month, your ships
are bringing us home.
III we have done well, 1t was for
love OF you. Dlmly we understood
that we had been sent forth to stay
something which, II Il throye un-
checked, would one day reach out
across the seas and destroy you. Very
clearly We understood that by our
selves would you he judged by the
free peoples; that the hour had
struck for us to show mankind the
mettle of our pasture And we be-
lleye thls-there was not one of us
who did not walk little straighter,
live a little cleaner, work a little
better, fight a little harder on that
account. Nanny stevedore wrote
in his mothers Day letter last spring,
i want folks TO see your raising in
me- America, 1t was so with every
one Of us, We wanted all the world
to see your raising in us.
And this is written Just to tell
you that those ships will bring back
more than 100000 men, every one
a better citizen than when we sailed
away.
Better citizens, because we know
each other better. Rich and poor,
high and low, rough and polished,
East and West, North and South
the war has mixed us all together.
Alabama and Iowa have Joined to
form a single brigade. and what a
brigade Oregon has fought shoul-
der to shoulder with New York and
means more to New York than ever
she meant-than she could have
meant-before."
Better citizens because many OF US
almost a million Of us-have for a
time. dwelt In that community OF
spirit, which no place in this work
a-day world is quite so animate as II
was in that strange, simple country
which was called the front.
Above all, better citizens because
you, America, mean more to us thar
ever before. For one thing. we have
had to learn what II is to do without
| you. Some for a little while, Others
for interminible months, We hav'
been obliged to do without you. o.
course the whole A. E. F.-tho W,
have tried to hide II in our letters
has been as abysmally homesick a
the most jealous mother could hav,
wished. But surely that was no ba'
thing.
Then. too, we have seen such shin
ing things done In your name. w
who were at Chateau-Thierry an,
northwest Of Verdun have seen mel
in olive drab and forest green besid
us show themselves made of sucl
stuff as taught us a new wonder TO
the land that could breed them
There were some of us who had Il
set forth from our own front gat,
and journey all the way to the Marn,
to discover America.
We of this generation had come Il
take our country for granted. w,
had come to take our liberty as ,
matter of course, like the air W
breathed and the unfailing sun. L
was not so with the generation tina
wrung the first homesteads from the
wilderness. II was not so with tn;
generation that conceived the nation
in liberty and dedicated 1t to the
proposition that all men are created
free and equal. It was not so with
the generation that fought a civi
war to prove whether that nation
or any nation so conceived and dedi
Gated could long endure, But We
we Of the easy spring of 1917-were
like the idle sons Of some rich man.
inheritors Of a fortune which only he
could value who had by toll and sac
rifice amassed 1t. Now we have done
more than inherit the treasure. We
have earned 1t. We are children oi
a great estate. We have added to It.
And so, dear America. We write
you from the Rhine. In the name oi
those who cannot return, in the name
of the best of all, those who lie be-
side the Marne and the Ourcq and
the vesle and the Aire and the
Meuse, we wish you Merry Christ.
mas and Happy New Year. The
American soldier sends you his love.