The Irish standard., 1919-03-08
The CHURCH
The CHAMPION
OF SMALL NATIONS

In the Monitor, BY William F. Markoe.
The two column interview given re-
Gently by Premier Clemenceau to the
Associated Press for American con-
sumption in which he depreciates the
friendly relations said to exist be-
tween "Boches" and Doughboys quar-
tered in Germany, met most unex-
pected but striking counter thrust in
three column letter from Father
Duffy, the beloved chaplain of the fam
Gus Fighting Sixty-Ninth" regiment
of New York, now part of the Rainbow
Division in Germany, written to his
friend, the Rev. Joseph A. Donohue,
who he addressed as "My Dear joe"
1t was published in The Monitor of
February Is.
The letter puts entirely a different
face on conditions which even so con-
servative a correspondent as Frank l..
Simonds denounces as Hun hypocrisy
and pro-German propaganda, because,
if true, it might, make Germany the
victor in peace, though vanquished in
war, and thus rob the Allies of the op-
portunity to collect something like two
hundred thousand millions of dollars
from the defunct Central Powers. A
few quotations will prove highly inter-
esting reading:
-Four years of war and losses in
every family must breed resentment.
But the resentment is never shown,
not even by the large number of SOL
diers who are already back with their
people,"
"You civilians may hold grudges,
but we soldiers don't. In the first
place, you have been fed up on lot of
stuff which our fellows call 'buI'."
"We followed their retreat through
three sectors, in two of which they
had been for years, and we never wit
messed any of the atrocities we read
about no crucified soldiers,
girls outraged in trenches to provoke
our soldiers to rush to death to rescue
them, no poisoned food or we'll, no
women chained to machine guns and
no prisoners playing treachery. know
that sometimes some of our own SOL
diers wrote such things home, only to
be in for guying when some trustful
relative gave it to the press, but no.
body, feel sure, in the Forty-second
Division"
"ln France animosity was charac,
teristit only of recruits or warriors of
the rear areas who never heard or
fired shot"
He quotes the prophecy made by
many officers that:
''The return of the front-line troops
will do much to soften the bitterness
of American opinion with regard to
German conduct of the war, though it
will not change American views on the
war itself or the need of our getting
into it," ..-..
cat any rate, and whatever indi-
vidual or temporary feelings might
have been during the campaign,
friendly 'hospitable,' kind cordial,
nice people, just like home folks.
cant do too much for you,' are
phrases you hear on the lips of every
soldier in the regiment since we have
come into the Rhineland."
"In a regiment where devotion to
the old faith is so evident as in ours,
community of religion helps, too. The
soldiers have to go about armed.
Where's your gun, Father?' said one
| of them to me, grinning In my cap,
said l, pointing to the little silver
cross, and can get more out of these
people with my weapon than you can
with that rifle of yours He agreed
readily
There's the key to the whole stu
alton! 1t was the Cross that con-
quered the world, wiped out barbar-
ism, civilized society, and gave the
glorious life-giving sunshine of Chris
tianity! Once more the Church is
coming into her own and the world is
beginning to recognize that she, and
she alone, occupies unique sphere of
influence which it is futile for others
to try to usurp. The great powers
have just erected colossal statue to a
modern "Nabuchodonosor Rex" in
Paris and invited the whole world to
fall down and adore it. But somehow
the world seems not to heed the sum-
mons and is not removing it's hat and
treating the statue with the desired
reverence. This is partly because the
statue seems to be deaf to the cries of
humanity to save it.
Thus little nation has been knock
ing in vain at the door of the ''Parlia-