, 1925-06-03
Memorial Day Program Under Auspices
of Fred Coe Post, American Legion

again would men go out upon the
field of battle and suffer and die,
but the nations of the old world
are today stepped in hate which
sooner or later will burst forth into
flame.
If the world has not learned from
the last war the horror of wal and
the glory of peace. then it was
fought in vain.
1t has been our unhappy priv
ilege to witness war-to know of
its glory and it horror-to see it's
pathos n it's humor-to know of
its reaction upon the mind of the
soldier and the civilian. 1t has it's
lessons man. of them, but the
greatest of all-the ~desirability of
universal peace..
Upon that subject l might spend
hours-volumes might be written,
but 1 have upon the desk in my
office a little pamphlet of thirty
pages entitled THE Absolute Truth"
1t contains no written matter ave
the titles of thirty U. S. Signal
Corps pictures, but 1 can assure
you that it is more eloquent than
any sermon Gin behalf of peace)
that has ever beer written or ut
tered. 1t shows through thirty au-
thentic photographs why war must
not be. why Peace on Earth, Good
Will to Men," should be our motto
and our goal.
They say this is an age of mater
ialism. that religion has gone into
the discard, that men and women
have lost their souls in a sea of
sures which money will buy. Then
they lay all this at wars door. They
say, as they say in France, "C'est
: la guerre." 1t is the a
, When America entered the war,
in April, 1917, we had the idea
} that we were entering a wal to end
war. and to carry out great idealis-
tic principles, and soldiers wanted
to live through it and to see the
end in order hal they might see
the reconstruction of the world aft
er war had passed. 1T was a ma
: terialistic victory" declared many.
Has time justified hal verdict?
/ Is the world better today? Is it
CltdilStu Will tlt DlOOu VI llOSt
who fell in it's defense? Have our
: ideals perished? Are we a nation
of money grabbers? You know
l know. Let us each answer the
question in his own heart. You
know and | know that if the vic
) tory was a victory for materialfsm
| then we are worse off than if we
had never lifted one sword in de-
Tense of a ruined Europe.
Today this great organization, the
American Legion, is tremendous in
its membership. 1t is the greatest
organized force in our country. 1t
can demand and receive its de
mands. You may read its tenets
and you will find them wonderful
that regardless of race. color or
creed. its members have but one
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES service in
the late war.
1t is a service organization. Thru
its medium we can demand and re
ceive good government. 1t can pre-
vent the election of the dishonest,
it can maintain civic purity as can
no other organization.
| resent the implication that war
has made us materialistic. 1t may
apply to the mar of war age who
worked in the ship yards at fabu-
lous wages, it may apply to the
profiteer who amassed great for
tunes at the expense IF the people
and the government, but it did not
and does not apply to the soldier
who gave up all hope of material
advancement and answered the call
of his country.
The peoples of Flanders wave in
the morning breeze over no soldiers
grave whose last moments were not
comforted by the teachings he had
received at his mothers knee, of
Him whose vision he saw before
him in the cold, bleak nights when
death stalked about him.
I say to you hat there is not a
man who waited along the she'll
torn road for the attack, who lay
in the mud hour after hour gassed
or wounded or waiting for the ad-
vance of the cold gray hour of
early morning, or who saw the sky
of the night Redeemed like blood by
a solid wall of artillery fire dealing
death and destruction, who has seen
his friend die by his side. who did
not come from his experience with
a closer understanding with his God
and a deeper and more intimate
knowledge of the Man of Gallilee
who died that the world might be
saved.
And if we have not learned a les
son from the wars through which
we have gone, then the blood of
those defenders of the right has