"GOOD-BYE, SOLDIER BOYS!"

Evening Star, Issue 16624, 5 January 1918, Page 8

"GOOD-BYE, SOLDIER BOYS!"

This striking statement of why the United States is at war with Germany appeared as an editorial article in the ' Oakland (Cal.) Inquirer,' when Oakland's first contribution to the army that fights for freedom of the seas marched away into history. After a reference to the Civil War veterans who fought on land and ocean, the article continues : The lads that go now, high-hearted as were they, go to bleed and do and dio in a war that is fought under water, on tho surface, and in the air above. They go to face the clouds of poisonous gas and the barrage of fire. They go in the face,of all these, to give blow for blow, to pit American wits, initiative, and courage against these qualities in tho servants of imperial ambition. They go to do more. They go to prove that they are tho soldiers of a great Republic whose people are civilised. They go to writo it int<3 history that humanity, mercy, and justice have their place in war as in peace. They go to victory, in which the despoilers of the homes of non-com-batants shall be punished, the monsters who deflower women shall die wretchedly, the inhuman wretches who condemn noncombatants to slavery shall pass under the rod. They go to compel the Huns who have violated all law, divine and human, to drain to the dregs the bitter cup of sorrow thev have pressed to the lips of the weak and the innocent. They go, God's own avengers of the unspeakable sufforinc of the people of Belgium, Northern France. Serbia, Rumania, and Armenia. As they march, unseen in the clear air above them, are the spirits of the American mothers and babies that perished in the roaring sea, murdered in tho Lusitania. They go to cleanse the earth of the men who began by violating treaties and have progressed by violating the common promptings of humanity which have been held sacred even by the Red Indians of America and the black tribes of Africa. They are tho armed guards of American honor, of the covenants of Almighty God. On this great mission we send them with every blessing, with every ascription of honor. They go to prove that this groat Republic is great no.t only in material things, in its proud cities, its far-flung fields, and its laden orchards and purpling vineyards, but great in the ineffable things of tho spirit, in the courage of its people, and its purpose to fling high and far the banners of the best civilisation created by man. Good-bye, • boys ; acquit Yourselves like men!