The Monticellonian., 1919-04-18

cies which always follow the flag
 From the beginning of things Ameri- can the impossible thing has been to divorce politics from legislation. Bol- sheviSm is welded to politics and the legislators know It. Manifestations of certain conditions harmless enough in themselves perhaps, are looked on mls- takingly as marks of the red propa- ganda. On the other hand some things which are accepted as harmless on their face value have been found to be harmful.
 Apologists in High Places.
 Bolshevism k found in high places in some parts of this country. This is the Lords truth. although il k one of the hardest things in the world to prove. Apologists for the present re- zine in Russia are in many gHises. The word ordinarily is that the Rus sian doingS of today are miSunder- stood and that the killings which are the order are prompted solely by kfnd- ly affection for everybody in the world except those marked for slaughter It
  ness over again, except that unlike Isaac the victim of bolshevism does not escape the knife and the pyre.
 In this town there are no wickedly potential apostles of bolsheviSm. They are all of the hot house type. but their preachings are an encouragement to the non-intellectuals who take their lessons from others and prepare to do the things which the others would shudder to do.
 Bolshevism is attempting to enlist discharged soldiers of the American army in it's cause. It probably will not have much luck except in few places where the draft brought into the service some weak minded ones q negligible number of draftees whose iabby mentality not even service in the field could bring te normal.
 Plenty of War Souvenirs.
 It was the easiest thing in the world to gather souvenirs of the battlefields in France All that an American had to do was to stoop down and pick up, and he could continue the process of stopping and picking through all the daylight hours without getting what the fishermen cal la water haul.
 Some four score thousands of Ger man helmets are to be offered aS prIZes to the workers in behalf of the next Liberty loan. The postoftice department recently has said that tae volume of souvenirs sent to the United Stetes from France ny parcel post may be measured by the ton. Already half a million helmets have come through the mails.
 Not far from Chehery, which is northeast of the heavier section of the Argonne forest, is a wood called the Bois de Bourgonne. One day in early November the Americans gassea this wood with mustard. They drove the Huns out limp-legged. The enemy dropped pretty nearly everything that he had in his haste to get away iron, the fumes and the burns. Six days after the wood had been gassed some American officers from General Dick mans headquarters explored the wood.
  a week had passed since the gas shells had been dropped in the forest, the air still was charged with its fumes and the ground was pretty well soaked with the semi-liquid. It was neces- Sary on entering the wood to wear a gas mask, and some of the denser parts of the underbrush could not be penetrated because the exploring off cers were not properly protected.
 Hun Equipment All Abandoned.
 The floor of the BoiS de Bour- gonne was filtered with Hun imple- ments. There were gas masks, hel- nets, revolvers, rifles, belts, blankets. and a score of other things which a soldier carries or has carried for him. The place looked like a curio shop.
 As soon as 1t was safe to enter the wood the salvage corps undertook its work. The Bois de Bourgonne was only one of hundreds of like places in the fields and forests along the front, east and west of the Mouse river, where the Americans operated. The same conditions found duplica- tons in the fields of the French and British fronts. Train loads of souve- nirs were picked up by the American armies after they had attended to the major business of driving the Hun out of his advanced positions In the St. Mihiel salient and the Argonne forest
 One afternoon Gen. Joseph T. Dick man, who commanded the first army corps in the Argonne. took the writer hereof on flying motor trip from Chehery, due east to Montfaucon. The Americans had swept over this ground shortly before driving the Hun back toward Sedan. This section of the front was largely open country and one could get an instant under standing of the wastage of material in the wake of a retreating army. and not all this wastage is that of the army which is on the run, for men in the eagerness of the pursuit occasionally will throw away impedl-