The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1946-01-11
Passing OF Old Year And
Coming OF Another
By SENATOR CLAUDE PEPPER


The old year has gone. The new
is here. The old year 1915 goes
squiekly~+it had sitss aoys land. sorr
rows for each Of Us and for the
Nation.
Last Christmas my two brothers
were oaerseass one in the far Paci-
fic, one in France. My father and
mother, my wife and I, my sister
and her family my. Brother
Franks wife. gathered around our
fireside and Christmas tree in Tai
lahassee. We looked forward like
almost everyone for another
Christmas when there should be
peace and broken families should
be reunited.
This Christmas the boys were
home. l had returned from a long
journey. We were all together
again by the fireside and the
Christmas tree but there was still
a vacant chair My father had
passed away July 8 before either
of the boys returned home. We
remembered all the ChristmaSes
when he had been with us from
the first time Santa Claus came.
All the things he used to say and
do. We remembered how he had
told each Of the boys goodbye,
morally certain he would never
see either again. Now he was only
a hugging memory, apd a portrait
quietly looking. down upon us. all
four over the fireplace. ANNA
children suddenly felt wd hax9
been thrust up into another gem
GRAFTON.
There was a vacant chair and
sometimes more than one by
many firesides and Christmas
trees. At other Christmasses a
mother or father, husband or
wife, son or daughter had sat
there. l knew of so many homes
from which son had given his
life in the war over here or in
some far part of the world and my
heart went out to loved ones
there On a mountain side in Ro-
mania, by Casino, in France and
Germany, all over Europe, l saw
the white crosses where someone's
sons, the Nations sons, slept in
hqnored sleept;rg.z ss.
THEY were so young and fresh
andF finepzA4iStf-so Brave and UNI
complaining. In soff9 ways the
end came easiG EH hf1tkhn for
the loved ones, they left behind.
Sometimes ne Was ar-only son and
now uthefel is Mocson 0end never
will be one. :.SHhef times he was a
fatheI whom a son or y daughter
will never know except from a
photograph on the dresser. He Of
ten vase shueRs4d WHO was Fthe
wife whosWkRav sIost r1ohtts
rushed thrqusha all the 1aets of
life's great dfsnavTlPNe, .marrl-
age, motherhood and widowhood
Most of the time he was a boy
who never got o'liye.
The Nation, too, has mourned.
That great voice is silent The
mighty heart which moved the
world is still, Franklin D. Roose-
welt in 1945 joined. the army asleep
and became a 1iving memory.
And, we haye lost Patch and
Patton and many more who be-
longed to us and to the world.
1t is the way of life and God.
The younger will find it harder to
understand. We who are older
have gradually reconciled to what
Providence brings us. We know
that4all those who have been with
us are a part of us and of all
things. They viii never leave us
and eYepftually, we will all he fosai
plete1y together again. Iinas Rrsd5
faith have been given to tide us
over the intervening distance
Kek THE new year opens bright.
We have many tblessingsI and it
would take q long time, fer any OF
us to Count Them One BY One.
We have peace. America, compar-
ed to most of the world, has been
spared the scars of war. And by
the standards of people anywhere
we are land of marvellous plenty.
We are a free people. All the
world looks to us to guide it to a
new future Of prosperity and
peace. We can look forward to the
greatest era in history when there
will be a better life and a longer
peace than man has ever known.
Our future is truly within us.