Clinch Valley news. [volume] (Jeffersonville, Va.) 18??-2019, 1919-05-02

Souplet; at st. Mihiel, Chateau Thier-
ry, and in the Argonne Forest? What
man is there who will not covet the
honor of paying in money for the vic
tories that our boys bought with
their own LIES blood.
Oh, how little have we done, how
little can we do to repay those who
have suifcrd and died for us, those
brave sailor lads who kept grim
watch on ocean lanes, themselves in
constant peril from the marauding
murdercrS of the sea; those other
lads who went into the hell of battle
with smile on their lips, who were
shot to pieces, scared by poison gas,
burned with liquid flames, wrenched
soul and body by bursting shells, kill
ed by the flying scythe of steel, froz-
en- in the icy waters of the trenches,
drownd like rates in the Dogs of Elan
ders, who fought and bed and died
until the cemeteries behind the lines
grew to forests of white crosses.
We can do little for them, and yet
we can do this. We can preserve and
sacredly maintain the honor of the
nation that they defended. We can
pledge our labor and cur substance
to complete payment Of the debt
incurred by this nation in the cause
for which they died.
Four Liberty Loans to the as
founding total of eighteen billions of
dollars have borne eloquent rcstimo-
ny to the unity, the loyalty, and the
enduring patriotism of our Nation.
Now must our people put the cap
stone to this splendid structure.
This will not be easy of accomplish
ment with the fever Of conflict past,
for 1t takes higher, Il finer type of
patriotism to serve the nation now
than was required in the delirium Of
war. For the other loans were rails
ed IN the heat of passion Of battle,
when the spurs of defeat were being
prest against our sides, when the
black battalions of the enemy with
their laundering millions of men and
guns were rocking the world with
fearful blows when the Prussian le-
gions stood OF the very heights of
Paschaendale Ridge and looked up
on the coveted waters of the English
Channel
Now that task is finished. The in
corruptible and supreme equity is as
sertmg itself once more. The disturb
crs of the peace and balance of the
world have been put down, and the
fires of patriotism, turned to white
heat in the roaring converter of war,
are dying. We are again returning to
sober processes Of normal life and we
are forced to face the cold facts of
our brad obligations in the solemn
light of reason.
But our imagination would indeed
he cold and our hearts would be hard
II we were so soon to forget the mag
nltude of the enterprise that we have
won, if now this time of triumph
we were even to hagglc over the price
of victory.
For this is indeed and in truth a
Victory Loan. No longer are we ask
ed to give our money to an uncom-
pleted cause. This great business is
hnishcd. BY these commitments now
presented for payment we have 81
fenced = eternally pray God = the
frlghtful crash and roar of the artil-
lery that belched and blazed from
the North Sea to the Alps; by these
commitments we have stilied the poip
nant grief that was wringing mil
lions of mother-hearts; by these same
commitments we have stopt at last
the vast lists that day by day cast
their black and frightful shadows oy-
en- our imaginations-lst whose ey-
cry name sent shaft of agony into
some woman's breast.
Were these colossal Expenditures
then worth while? We're these bill
lions well spent? Was it right that
we should have been prodigal with
money that we might not be prodigal
with human lives-that we might
bring this agonizing conflict to so
swift and so victorious a conclusion.
10 such consummation how glad