Lincoln County leader. [volume] (Toledo, Lincoln County, Or.) 1893-1987, 1919-05-23
ROOSEVELT HIGH
WAY FROM A MILL
TARY STANDPOINT

I'm y HNDTOiN |
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Ihls article should be written by
" military expert with experience to
DIck up theory, so just a few obser.
V&tions are made here in hopes that
more may be added by others better
informed.
oregon has coast line CT nearly
400 miles in which are many natural
/ harbors or bays and some open ones
In other words, it is exposed as was
tie north and east Of FI5nce border.
ing on Germany. Where was the de-
v7sta'ion in France, entire cities and
countless villages remains no trace
! OF them? Farms were ruined. the soil
burned and filled with uneyploded
shells, the trees and crops DESTROYED.
Despair was the reward of years of
patient toll
Napoleon said his greatest asset
was his knowledge of every road in
I qEurope, and in the same book, his
Memoirs. that his greatest mistake
was in not destroying the Prussian
rule aud wiping the Hohenzolern dy-
nasty frCm the face of the earth. We
know now that Napoleon forsaw more
than 100 yaers ahead. Let us look
ahead a Nv years at least.
Lincoln County is on the west coast
! OF Oregon. 1t is often said that YER
dun saved France. This of course is
an eXaggeration, though while with
the French army remember five bat
ties which would be hard to forget Il
Is said without eNaggeratiOn that the
road fran Bar le Due to Verdun saved
| Verdun. Eleven thousand trucks and
wagon loads of munititn and other
supplies and a place for an army to
march each one of those feverish
nights, when the sky resembled q red
sunset and the noise the rumbling of
a volcano.
The first hard fight of the American
Army was Chateau Thierry. St. Mi
he'll salient was not hard to take but
the Argonne Forest, held by the Ger
mans for four years, containing q
portion of the Hindenburg Line was
the greatest battle. 1t was a success
sion of attacks lasting fem September
&c, 1918, until the armistice was signed
November II. The Yanks took the
ArgCnne The road from Bar le Due
to Verdun is the same road used into
the Argonne, which borders on Verdun
] was there with the S0th Division, the
Blue Ridge boys. more than year
after | had last been at Verdun with
the French, so | think | know some-
thing about it.
Where do the refugees travel? Back
On the roads How do the wounded
get back from the front. Many walk,
many are loaded into empty trucks to
be bumped along, and some are for
tunate enough to get into ambulances.
Having examined about 1000 for
-hemorrhages last Fall, I know some-
thing about wounded.
This Is looking ahead not for, but
in case Of, trouble and looking back
to what has impressed my mind SO
vividly; the great suffering only equal
ed by the dauntless courage of our
doughboys II we have any national
enemies they know our roads or lack
OF them. Spies I'm the Spruce produc-
tion work here last year were allowed
to send reports to Germany because
its effect would be to inspire fear and
regard So we need good highway
to ward of trouble as we'll as to use
for cannon, munitions, supplies, troops,
etc.
We all know what the Columbia High
way has done for Oregon. 1t is adver.
tised by every tourist agency in the
world and is we'll known in the East
ern hemisphere. 1t IS mentioned in
The advertisements in every leading
periodical. Oregon gets the advantage.
What would Portland or Columbia
River townspeople say, not to mention
Eastern Oregon residents, IL there
were talk Of abandoning it. Yet 1t
lis only a few years old and not yet
completed.
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