OCR Text |
Show LOOK ON THIS PICTURE. The contrast between the ideals of democracy and autocracy is sharply illustrated il-lustrated by two stories which have como out of the war zone in the last few days. Colonel Hamilton Smith, U. S. A., hit by a machine gun bullet just below the heart while making a reconnoissance, begged Private Aug to leave him and save himself. The privato insisted on dragging his wounded chief as best he could through the wheat fields to the rear. Although exposed to the enemy's machine gun fire much of the way, the private accomplished his mission of mercy despite the continuing protests of tho colonel. Both the colonel and the private were true to those traditions which have grown up in the American army. There is nothing unusual about the episode. It was paralleled time and again in the course of the civil war in the armies of the north and south. Such humanity, such loving consideration of one another, an-other, is expected of the officers and men of an American army. In fact, most of us would be inclined to imagine that this spirit animates all armies, but another story of the battlefield discloses dis-closes a different spirit among the officers of-ficers and men of an army fighting for a military despotism. The correspondent of the New York Sun tells us that nn American soldier, who had captured two German officers, asked them to carry a stretcher on which reposed a wounded German soldier. sol-dier. The officers replied stiffly in German, which tho American did not understand, and he requested another American to interpret for him. He was informed that the officers considered it beneath their dignity to carry a private soldier. The American whipped out his automatic and, regarding his wrist watch, gave the officers the fraction frac-tion of a second to take up the stretcher. Thus urged, the officers hastened to obey. Under compulsion they performed an ordinary act of humanity hu-manity at some cost to their insufferable insuffer-able dignity. The conduct of the German officers is not exceptional. We have heard of such a case once before. Probably most of the German officers have the same idea of the dignity of their rank. Rather than tarnish that dignity in the slightest degree they would permit a common soldier to suffer and to die. We must not ascribe the blame to the individual officers. They took that warped view of their honor because they had been taught that view by their military system. The ideals of Christian civilization have been held up to the Germans of high and low degree for hundreds of years, but have been driven out of the army in a few decades by the ideals of a cruel and arrogant despotism. It was Christianity that produced chivalry and such flowers of chivalry as Sir Thilip Sidney and the Chevalier Bayard. They were men who held high station by birth and by acquired Tank, but they would have scorned such ignoble conduct as that of the two German Ger-man officers who refused to alleviate the sufferings of a wounded soldier. Might may make right, but it can never make a gentleman. |