Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The World War Book: Being a Record of the War Activities of This Community and a Brief Personal History of Those Who Entered the Service of Their Country
All the devices of science, all the cruelties of man were ex hausted in mutilating and killing men. They fought a foe who did evil designedly, who recognized no law of nations or of humanity, in sewer-like trenches, the water up to their belts, the mire swallowing them down, in scenes. Of blood and filth to make the heart sick which no one dares to picture and which mercifully stun the imagination of the survivors. In the strong language of Isaiah: Hell hath enlarged herself and opened her mouth without measure. The malignant frenzy of savage hordes was eclipsed by deliberate professors who at ease in their laboratories invented new plagues to choke and poison the sol dier of liberty. The perverted ingenuities. Of science destroyed ruthlessly the noblest works of God and man. Incredible things happened that stagger and sicken and yet it made no difference. The spirit of '7 6 and '61 overcame an inferno that the superlative genius of Dante could not body forth and chateau-thierry, Bel leau Woods, the forests of Argonne, St. Mihiel will quicken the pulse and brighten the eye of the lovers of freedom in all lands and will cause the name of the New World to be held in bene diction by generations yet unborn of the Old.
All this our soldiers suffered and triumphantly endured for their own land; for, to paraphrase Wendell Phillips, the torpedo aimed at the Lusitania was the yell of pirates. Against the Decla ration o-f Independence. But in vindicating the liberty and honor of the United States of America the-y fought willingly and generously for the freedom of every race and every peop-le against the common enemy of all. Patriotism, the love of our fathers, their thoughts and hopes, their deeds and aspirations, springs from the deeps of our being, and the tender line of Horace - It is. A pleasant and glorious thing to. Die for one's country - has evoked in the human heart an universal response. What land, what people, says Dr. Spalding, has the sun ever illumined more worthy of the heart's. Deep affection than our own? We love our fatherland not chie?y for the. Food it gives, the property it protects, the security it provides, but for the richer, freer, nobler human life which it makes possible. Our country is the symbol of all that is most priceless on earth liberty, truth, devotion, loyalty. In the words. And in the deeds of the patriots who made the Declaration of Independence there breathes a lofty and unselfish spirit, which, to the end of time.
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