The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1922-02-02
MY UNCLE GEORGE
By Matthew Henry Jameson

came to this country at the age of
eighteen years, near the opening of
the Civil War, and enlisted in a
Pennsylvania regiment in the Federal
army. The lad was thorough-going
and reliable-character of the
German race. He was hero in fight
ing jeff Davis Confederacy; but you
would never find it out from him.
In battle one day in Virginia, he
saw a rebel color bearer firing from
behind a safe refuge; George made a
sneak on him, coming up from behind,
killed him, and brought his cOlOrs into
our lines. The Colonel of his regi-
ment saw his act and reported it to
the Secretary of War, and he wears
today the Congressional medal of
honor for heroism. The government
followed the matter up with a PROPOSE
tion to educate him-give him COM
mission and a life job; but he fought
shy of that, preferring civil life.
At the age Of eighty-five years, he
Is in comfortable circumstances, with
a good home and troops of friends
who are glad to do him honor.
Some years after the close of the
Civil War, when my cOmrade was
still young man, the local author
tiles of his neighborhood sent him in
pursuit of a horse thief; mounted, he
came up with his quarry on the pub
lie highway and on approaching him,
found him asleep on the stolen horse.
George accosted him and warned him,
that if he made hostile move, he
would kill him, and returned with his
prisoner and delivered him into the
hands of the sheriff.
There is a moral to this story and
1 ask my reader to take heed. For
fifty years-a lustrum well defined IN
my own lifetime, the Germans were
our most desirable and valuable i'm
migrants scholarly (the
higher classes) and hberty-loving,
and in pursuit ofrthese privileges they
left the Fatherland for a better coun-
try. The late Carl Schurz was type
of the educated class of Germans who
distinguished themselves in civil life
and in the Union army during the
Civil War.
The World War has turned the
world upside down and disturbed our
good opinion of the German race; but
let US be just as well as injudicious
and hypercritical at this point. The
man known as KAISER BiH' and his
sword-rattling fiatterers led their peo-
pie down to shame and contempt; but
the German people left to their nat
ural instincts are a capable, lovable,
loyal people and we should honor
them for they suffer hardships today
hardly less than any other people, GER
tainly in moral turpidtude and humil-
iatiOn.
Look at your German neighbOr here
in Hays-is ne not a good citizen and
entitled to our respect? Assuredly
so!
No school children nor adults have
been killed on the grade crossing in
Hays, and we can lessen that danger
by building a public school house on
the south side, fronting on the Treat
Playground, and so bring that splen-
did gift into daily use. The south
side must stand for its rights in this
matter.
10000
We have committed ourselves to
limited disarmament, whereas the
only hope for China is to become a
strong military power equal to her
own defense; she has been the foot
ball of the nations, and our fear is
that Japan has, or speedily will have,
a strangle hold upon her. America is
her only disinterested friend; but we
cannot, for many reasons, go to the
limit of taking up arms in her de-
tense. Whether she will become help
less through disintegration and the
meddling of Japan, a distant future
only can determine. She has the
population from which to draw a
great army, which, properly trained
could stand her enemies off.
10000
The blasphemous blowhard known
as Jim Reed of Missouri, wants 3
Newberry placard pasted on the foot
Of the bed of 11O, 900, 600 of people to
see when they awake in the morning
to say their prayers
We will give Jim fifteen cents II ne
will get down on his hunkers and ottel
a PRAYER in his own behalf with the
same unction which he assumes the
world at large offers its supplications