The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1920-11-13

their armor of truth were just the
same as those put on by the embattled
farmers who once upon time faced
the minions of the sceptred Bruins
wicker and fired the shot heard round
the listening world. Why did they
go? They went to challenge the
theory of the superman, to throw back
the savage doctrine that the rule of
Might is the rule of Life; they went in
order that Germanic domination
should not coil it's medieval lasso
around the limbs of twentieth century
Europe, and that Liberty might have
leave to live.
And their actions rose to the height
of their motives. The brain of France
needed not only the doggedness of the
Briton but the Drawn of the Ameri-
can to win. The great disaster of
1S70-the surrender of Sedan-had to
be retrieved by the irresistible rush in
that Inflated region not of the Tricolor
but Of the Stars and Stripes.
But why need l point back to in
stances of valor's victory and it's
inevitable handmade, valor's sacrifice?
The crosses, thick as autumn leaves,
that strew SO many a landscape of the
pleasant fields of France are so many
indexes which the hand Of Time may
wear but the heart of Time cannot
Obliterate. Many of these crosses
have been made by foreign hands and
prayed over in foreign tongue: but
charity overcomes parallels of longi-
tude, and prayer does not lose it's
significance because it's utterance is
alien and it's accents unknown Over
there they lie, and if ones inner ear
were delicate or tuned enough to catch
the whisperings beyond the grave,
these would not be unlike the couplet
stored pass of old Thermopylae:
Go, tell the Spartans, thou that
passeth by
That here obedient to their laws we
lie.
No need to tell you, ladies and
gentlemen, of these laws:-the law of
allegiance, the law of duty the law of
obedience. Theirs not to reason why,
theirs but to do and die
The Survivors.
1t is left for you, the survivors, you
men just as brave, but owing to the
guardianship of your good angels more
fortunate then they, to know "the rea,
son why" to ponder the results which
have emerged from your comrades
combating and your own. 1t is true
the map of Europe has been changed
somewhat. The paean of emancipa
ton rolls along the blue waters of the
Upper Danube, and the figure of Pc
land has risen-pale but regal-from
the grave Of Kosciusko. The royal
house of Hapsburg that queened it for
many centuries in the council halls OF
EUROPEAN tot dominate per amos
lis in the dust, and it's living repre-
sentative is but the shadow of a name
Along the Danube and the Vistula, by
the coasts of the Baltic and the shores
of the Aegean, self-determination has
been begotten: it has penetrated the
highlands of Western Asia, the sands
of Egypt, and the mosques of Hin.
dostan. There is only one country in
which the latest slogan of liberty gets
little audience and less aid. The
mother of fighting men in every land
wherever forlorn hope was to be led
from Dunkirk to Belgrade and from
Fontenoy to Fredericksburg-O surely
there ought to be two at least among
the banqueters of Victory to invite
her to the table and a seat between
them both-she who gave her fighting
blood to their service in the midst of
her own oppression and slavery 1t
would be but the merest gratitude for
France to remember the dash and dar.
ing of the Wild Geese, or for this
Republic to at long last fulfill the
promise made in it's hour of distress
by it's envoy Franklin.
Apart from this general question of
self-determination keen observers are
noting an diverse side to the medal
! of the Allied triumph: Observers are
noting it and world facts are proving
it. After the shedding of so much
blood, after SO much perfidy and
violence, many enemies of Germany
still oscillate between dislike and the
desire of imitation. The battle is still
on between the ideals of moral per-
lection and the aims of power-be
tween justice, charity, uprightness
l>loyalty, chivalrous sentiment and in.
ordinate ambition, INSCRIPTIONS
energy, disregard of others and lack
of "honor bright" Here at home we
| have to consider that Liberty is god
dess which, like Diana of old, wears a
triple aspect, which is social and moral
as we'll as political; and that undue
emphasis on mere political liberty at
the expense often Of the other two
mars the symmetry of triad which
true lovers of freedom have always
endeavored to balance and to recon
Gle. Yes, there are very serious
problems in the name of liberty still
to be confronted, even if there have
been results which rebound to the bet
torment of the Old World and the
! laurels of the New.
America Becomes One.
Not the least of the attained results
on this side of the Atlantic has been
the cohesion of the various particles
of the melting-pot. If the map oil
Europe has been dislocated, the mind