The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-07-13
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS


 taught the proud militarists of Will helmstrasse that In war and aroused , democracy is a greater fighting force than autocracy
 This tremendous fact has been the surprise and despair of the European military experts who thought to make quick work of an army that almost lsprang into being, as 1t were over night. The supermen of William II never dreamed that they were to be beaten by men who made no such claim of superiority but who without fuss or parade quietly put aside their business to make cleanup job of autocracy.
 
 Birmingham feels distinctly honored that the famous Rainbow division holds it's first meeting within her doors, and she wants to make the men who come from every section of the United States to realize that true southern hospi- tality is no myth, but reality. For three days she puts ~aside business cares to pay tribute to the boys who carved imperishable names for them selves and for America on the battle fields of France.
 am sorry for the man who is in- capable of hero worship. I want this old town to take a bath in heroism. The way to do it is to realize from the very start that the clean-cut young fell lows who are our guests are truly valorous men and deserve the very best that we can give in the way of honors pride and pleasure. The Rainbow di- vision is the incarnation of the Amer ican spirit which arches itself over the world with the prophecy that democ- racy shall not perish from the face of | the earth
 We are proud of every one of them, 1t makes no difference from which state | they may hail-they are true Ameri- cans; but we would not be human if i've did not take just bit more pride in our own blessed home boys. How our hearts were torn as we bade thenY | farewell. ana how our hearts glowed within us as we read of their splendid deeds overseas, and how our hearts filled with gratitude as they came I marching home again; but how our | hearts bleed because of the precious ones who sleep in the fields of France. We have no higher obligation than l that we owe to the memory of the l "Old Fighting Fourth" which brought limperishable honor to Alabama on the battlefields of France; but Alabamians are not the kind who wish to take all | the 165th U. s. infantry takes pride in the fact that the first convention and I reunion of the Rainbow division, of which it is part, meets on Alabama soil. The state gladly adds it's well come to that of Birmingham. | Waves of heat swept the gravel roads | of Camp Sheridan. Montgomery, Ala, August 14, 1917, when the reorganized Fourth regiment of the Alabama na- tional guard fell out for inspection and I heard the order read out rechristening it the 167th infantry. assigned for duty with the Forty-second division, United States army. It was nearly a month l later that the regiment formed and swung it's sinuous olive drab way into the old lower Wetumpka road and marched a mile or so away, and board | ed train for Camp Mills New York, where the Forty-second division was being assembled
 | It was an experiment to put soldiers | together from twenty-six different l states, and it would have caused the ! Revolutionary Fathers. the signers of l the Declaration of Independence and the framers of the Constitution to sit up and rub their eyes that such thing l had even been thought of. States rights got jolt but these United States gave evidence at home and l abroad that America was in the war for all she was worth It was hinted and feared by some, when the Forty ! second division was formed. that there> would be no unity of purpose because | 1t took in too broad scope But the | alarmists were wrong. for while there | Mills, when the shock of battle came the division fought as a unit.
 
 dare say the Germans had no idea that there was ever doubt in the 4 mind of any Americans that the di- vision would coalesce into a great fighting machine, for they found them l selves up against a new type of sol diery, The combat record of the For tytsecond will live during ages to come for 1t turned1some new tricks in twen- tieth century warfare. I'll not take time to enumerate it's numerous activi- nes. but will content myself by saying 1t captured 14 officers, 1908 enlisted men, 25 pieces of artillery. 495 machine guns, and advanced nearly thirty five miles. It will take volumes to set out it's achievements in detail.
 
 The Forty-second division proudly asserts that it spent more days in the race Of the enemy, gained more ground against the enemy and marched farther in its operations than any other division in the American evolutionary forces It's fighting power has'been attested in Iofficia- mention by the American, French and German commands. and its ! order and discipline elicited the ad- miration and respect of the Germans in its area of occupation.
 Small wonder then that the gallant Colonel Screws in writing to the offi- cers and enlisted men of the 1s7th in- fantry, part of the famous Rainbow division, said:
 'On May 19. 1919. at Camp Shelby. -<