The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1919-02-25
UGLY WAR MEMORIALS.
British Newspaper Finds Fault with the
French Models.

One morning after my battalion had
come out Of the line for a rest was
walking in a cemetery in a ruined vii
lage with brother officer He turned
to me suddenly and said, ''The French
people make death very hideous"
l looked at the great slabs Of ugly
masonry piled over the graves, and then
at the big bead wreaths which lay scat
tered and broken on the earth, and / re-
membered how very depressing and I'M
slightly French funeral is; and ! agreed
with him.
The French people do, indeed, make
dea,h very grim and ugly. And when
think of the war memorials which may
be erected in these islands to our dead
comrades in France and Palestine, in
Mesopotamia and GallipoG, in Saloniki
and Serbia, in the Cameroons and East
Africa, | wonder whether we, too, in
times to come may not be judged to have
made death hideous, and TO have been
unworthy to raise our tablets to these
mems memories.
Everywhere committees are sitting to
consider "a fit memorial for the dead
and one hears or reads of schemes for
statues and monuments, which, judging
from those already in existence, will GER
tainly be useless, and almost certainly
be ugly. The official scheme for grave
memorials in France is sufficiently mo
notonous in design to make one feel
alarmed at the thought OF hundreds Of
committees let loose on the country to
put up such tributes as may commend
themselves to interested iob-hunters and
narrow yanitjes.
The first thing we have to bear in mind
in considering war memorials is, surely,
that these men of ours have not died for
a miserable thing, that their death does
not make any occasion for depression
and hideous display, bat for simple pride
and love. These citizen soldiers of ours
did not expend their lives in a paltry
purpose The one thing that made a
beastIv life tOlerable to most Of us, |
think, was our belief that we were fight
ing in just cause, and that we were on
the right side We had the citizens be
lief in betterment, and our consolation
was that if we should be killed and mu-
tiIated, at least we could hope that out
of our death or pain would come bet
terment for our people and for the world.
A hdeous monument like the Albert
memorial would not express that spirit,
Such thing might crafty the vanity
of small minded men who imagine that
a golden heart can be expressed in an
elaborateIy gilded ornament; but it
would not represent the hope and be-
lief that sustained our men in war any
more than "the labor Of an age in piled
stones" or "a starry pointing pyramid"
could, in Millions mind, honor Shakes
peares bones.
When citizens give their lives for citi-
zen purposes, the creation and preserva-
ton Of an orderly and decent world for
the generality of men, surely the most
seemly memorial that can be made in
their honor is something which CORE
spends to their intention? Utility and
welfare are, in greater or less degree the
watchwords TO express these mems hopes
and desires: and the most fit memorial
to them will be some monument that
serves their fellows who have survived
them.
A statue does not serve any useful
purpose, and, in this country, it seldom
serves any ornamental purpose. Great
sculptors are very rare, but mortuary