The Dallas express. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1893-1970, 1919-11-15
NEEDHAM ROBERTS THRILLS THE
VAST AUDIENCE WHO HEARS
THE SIMPLE, But GRAPHIC AND
HEROIC DEEDS OF EXPLOITS
IN NO MANS LAND.
He is Dis-embOwels and with Dang
ling intestines and Shattered Arm
Holds the Line and Puts the Enemy
to Flight.

| IL Is rarely the high privilege of
an audience to hear the exploits of
a hero related by his own mouth in
person, and to listen to the very
words as they fall from his lips in
| graphic narration. But this was the
case of the exploits told in a simple
story by an American soldier on last
Wednesday evening in the Pythian
| Temple before an audience of about
nine hundred persons. enraptured
from start TO finish with a vivid mar
ration of the chivoric and blood cur
ling deeds of two American soldiers
on a foreign land. doing the duty
| of the government of the United
States. intrusted with that high duty |
| imposed upon them to see to it that |
the enemy of Democracy shall not |
pass through No Mans Land to en-
| danger or capture important po-
3ition of the great armies that were
battling to make the world safe for |
Democracy. where the highest conf |
dence is imposed and intrusted on |
few men stationed in the night to |
| watch, to go days without food,
without drink, without protection,
lying in shell holes, reposing among
I NhLNiASN vi Pof lldlh6 anu CuOCdNOI-
ling to conceal themselves from the
view of the enemy, but the never
table must come at some time, and
i came to the two men told by the
commanding officers TO do their duty
or report to God the reason why.
They stood in No Mans Land, and as
the simple story related in burning
words by Needham Roberts, whose
exploits of that night are now re-
corded in the memory of his coun-
try men and recorded in a simple
; story that the future historian will
be glad to weave chaplet of ever
green to emboss these wonderful
J acts, and the poet with frenzied yes,
will repeat in lays of the brightest
J GEMS, and the sculptor will give ton
: CUES to the silent marble to express
the story imperfectly told by the
! man and hero whom all who love
J their country, will honor. and even
, revere and repeat the story in ira
J dition to latest -posterity. We can
J never forget the impression made on
| our minds by the graphic and heroic
story of that night; how that two
American Negroes grapple with the
enemy, grappled in the throes Of
: death, grappled in the grip for Am
erican institutions, grappled for your
flag and my flag. grapDled for your
, children and my children, and not
J that but for the flag of old England
the land of the mighty power, a
! worlds power, and for her children,
and for her land for her mothers,
and for institutions, and neither is
| thfo oil WI hot
But for bleeding France. her wom-
EN- insulted outraged, her mighty in
situations bombarded, shell torn, her
arts despoiled, her children driven
> mad for shelter, for bread, for cloth
) ing, and made orphans, and the sight
of hope almost gone, but Needham
Roberts and Henry Johnson, two
: American soldiers, gave new inspira-
: ton. gave new. and confirmed hope
! to the fast failing and torn and de-
= ,vastated France. Such is seems in
creditable, but such is the logic OF
\ war, such was the tide that these
D two Negroes made immortal, turned
e back and set the whole civilized
e world a new record of the exploits
Of manly deeds. Are heroes born?
!. Are born to accomplish certain things
y In the annual of history? Two men
y without education in that sense of
!. which we speak of education.
I Needham lay bleeding. according
r to his story. pierced through with
a bayonet, his entrails dangling out
|. his right arm shattered by an ex-
e plosion, but he grappled for your
:. flag and my flag, he did this in the
stern performance of his high mill
s tary duties that every soldier mus
d do or die Well, he did his duty
|. and the number of the dead lyins
g round the place of encounter tolC
e the story better than the lad who
turned back the German raiders. anC
made safe the front trenches of the
= Allied armies that lay back of thu
= place made sacred with heroic deed:
; that can never die, but grow bright
Il err as the ages recede and pain
i them with undying glory to be re
lated in son and story to latest gen
erations in America, In England, II
y France and even in the Father Ian,
/ and to all generations, a story will
l. be worth while.
n The following program was car
l. ried out In. connection the lecture 0
d Sergeant Needham Roberts:
IS Negro National Anthem Invoca
e ton. DR.. A. S. Jackson: son. "Battl
u Hymn of the Republic" instrumental
X solQ1Mrs. Portia w. Pittman; voca
Is Solo. Rubye Pollard; Introduction o
speaker. Hon. A. s. Wells; Address
te Sergeant Needham Roberts; Voca
E Solo. Mrs. Madeline Carter Hawkins.
ID