Imperial Valley press., 1935-11-11
THE BROKEN PROMISE OF
ARlfTSTICE DAY

It may sound strange to say that we
do not think enough of the dead on Ar
mistice Day; but we do not, and the
proof of it is to be seen in the worlds
slow but steady march toward new
war.
More than eight and one-half million
young men went to their deaths in the
World War. They supposed all of them,
that they were fighting to make the
world somehow better place to live in;
they hoped. and were told so to hope by
the men who sent them out to die, that
through the sacrifice of their lives it was
going to be possible to devise some sort
of world order in which wars could here
after be avoided.
No one needs to look around the world
very long today to see how tragically
that hope has been dashed
In Africa the fighting is on. Black
men and white men expose their bodies
o the fiendishly ingenious devices
which the modern world has invented for
its sprees of mass murder
The thunder of guns, the whine of ap-
preaching Shells the staccato rattle of
machine guns-those noises that we
hoped had been still forever, on Nov. II,
19l8-are sounding again, and the price
of their sounding is the same as it was
before.
Elsewhere tie fighting has not started
yet. But Japanese troops watch the
marshes of Manchukuo, and Soviet
troops drill in the wind swept towns op-
posite them Germany huns with busy
factories turning out planes, tanks, guns,
warships and all the other paraphernalia
of slaughter
France keeps an army Watchful be-
hind the greatest chain of forts the world
has ever seen. Englands graywalled
sea dogs ride the Mediterranean, waiting
for the fateful signal.
In dozen other countries, men march
and drill and prepare for the day; and
our own country spends huge sums to get
its fleet and its fighting planes ready.
That, one hardly needs to say, is not
picture of a world that expects to remain
at peace. 1t is sorry and tragic COM
mentary on the high hopes that we held
that first Armistice Day; and it is an
unspeakably cruel betrayal Of III e
phrases with which more than eight mil
lion men were led to die.
Perhaps if we could see all those eight
mlll1On we WOulQ De so SnOcheQ, SO pfO-
foundly moved in the very bottom of our
hearts, that we would have the courage
to redeem our forgotten pledge to them
We would have to watch for long
long time to see their ranks pass by; all
the soldiers who have fought in all our
wars would not equal them in number.
There is no way of making our magma
tions comprehend what tremendous
army the army of World War dead really
is
Nor is. there any way of comprehend
ing Just how much unbelievable human
suffering that war cost. The physical
pain suffered by the fighting men, the
heart-crushing anguish suffered by those
they left behind, the long and pitiful mis-
cry visited upon Heaven knows how many
millions Of children whose homes were
broken by the war, whose bodies were
stunted by famine, whose lives were
ruined by war-born chaos-there simply
is not any way of totaling all that agony.
But we need to think about it, on Ar
mistice Day above all other days. I'm
til we actually do something in the way
of making this warless world, all that
suffering and loss has gone for nothing