The Springdale news., 1919-05-09
AMERICAN DE
 CALLING YOU .
DEAD ARI


Su If then. lie at BatheYille and some at FIsmes. Others at Gantigpv and ehateau-Thierry In the Ar. gaune Wood. in the depths of the shattered, blasted burned and twist. cd forest, on the hill slopes and in the raeines that were pounded by the guns of Metz and soaked with the soaring gas from Hun shells. there are 17.000 American dead
 There are other graves in the Yer dun country and at Buzancy. Still others up toward the North Sea sand dunes, in the fields of the Flanders peoples.
 And all along many a weary mile of the scared zigzaggirg trenches that short year ago were ablaze with gun-fire; there are more and more Americans. resting in the soil of France
 From every grave where an Amer ican uniform is the shroud of sol dier comes the far call of the dead men.
 It is an insistent call that should be finding an echo in every American heart It is a summons to American honor and American loyalty. that should reach every man who stayed at home.
 White crosses mark these graves scooped out in the soil of France. They are new graves. Pathttically new This time last year tens of thousands of these Americans who have given the last full measure of devotion were living men, with the hopes and aspirations of the average American. Most of these graves were filled in September October and November of last year
 And because these men died then. breaking through the Hun lines. shat teriRg the kaiser's armies, there was a quick peace We are not fighting on this year because these men fought so gallantly then.
 Every one of these men died for America They knew that they were going where death was a playmate There was no illusion about the sort of struggle they were facing. They went into the sort of war that modern centuries have made, war of machine guns and poison gas. of death turk ing in the sky. in the air, underground. all about them
 Ne made contract with these men, \ solemn pledge When they went into the service We pledged them that We would stand behand them. fully and loyally When they went over seas this was surely in their minds.
 h the days Of the fighting we maintained tha.the# American front hal depth that extended all the Waf from the front line trenches. across the Atlantic Ocean. across all of America to the Pacific Coast We felt that way about t then. with very few exceptions Had the war con- tinued We would have understood far better just what backing the fighting men meant
 The men who crossed had every reason to believe that all Of us here would do our parts Not so long as we were warmed with patriotism or chilled with fear. but to the end-no matter what that end might be. Net man in the American army, not a soldler ef all the dead who are stay ing France while their comrades come home but what would have fought any one who so much as minated to hin. that there would ever come day when American people would be care less and indifferent as to the war and the men who are fighting their bat ties
 And We all like to feel. that. as these men went to their deaths. as they trod their Gethsemanes n far-off France, they went with the feeling that back of them were all the mil lions of America. all it's wealth. all Its population. all the terrible strength of giant nation.
 Not one of them had been given any reason to doubt that America would Finish the Job" that had been undertaken. They all felt that it would be completed in good time and completed right.
 Surely no man of them all ever wis toned that there might come time when an America at peace would be backward and uncertain about com pleting the work that had been laid out for us. Certainly no one of all the American army dreamed that there would come day when peace had arrived, when the armies were coming home and the old ways and the old days were beginning to come back that you and 1 would not do our