Show kathleen norris says wake up mothers of sons gons on mothers day ibell syndicate service A ak 18 ians lor mothers to expect tribute from their sons this year there doean doesn seem to be any sense in sitting back in pretty old lady complacency and waiting lor flowers and candy and telegrams to arrive theres something we can do for them by KATHLEEN NORRIS DAY has MOTHERS had an especial significance ance this year because the hearts of mothers everywhere are torn with fears and misery the dignity of that relationship has somehow been emphasized and made important and when we read of english boys cheering as their ship sinks in the icy waters of the channel and R russian assian I 1 b boys 0 s piled pi ed in windrows wind rows under ake the deep finnish snows innocents all slaughtered like sheep at the orders of older men then the first thing we say is god help their mothers A current newspaper carries the philosophical statement that only aviators have been lost to britain since the beginning of the war not even a thousand yet aviators are young men above the average in intelligence resource courage aptitude they are no foreign legion composed of ex convicts loafers failures adventurers no I 1 they come from fine homes they are students they are entrusted to carry out the most delicate and dangerous business of war and of them have already come down to violent death in smoking fuselage and tangled wreckage and even if not every one of them had not a mother or wife to mourn him hundreds ot of them had hundreds of mothers have lain awake restless and dry eyed through the endless nights ever since and will not know sleep or rest tor for many and many a night to come thinking of the young fine body the loving eager heart the gayety gaiety and sweetness ot of him now lying so still with all her hopes for him buried with him under the deep earth mothers day in reverse Ke verse and that thought has put a special value upon our own magnificent boys has made us feel this year that the situation is reversed it tor for mothers to expect tribute from their sons this year there seem to be any sense in sitting back in pretty old lady complacency ency and waiting for flowers and candy and telegrams to arrive no theres something we can do for them something they cant or wont do for themselves I 1 that something is to stir up continual agitation over the question of out men being sent to fight over seas our young men that is for the ahe old men who send them never go we want to keep washington continually reminded that several milons of american mothers for the first time in all history armed with the vote that sent these e legislators and representatives to washington are uniting tor for the single purpose ot of electing the men who will promise that we shall be kept out of Eu europe ropes purposeless orgy ot of bloodshed one ot of the sights they show in mexico is the old altar of the mayan civilization that once prevailed there a magnificent amphitheater who whose s e stones were once running rivers ot of young blood thousands of young men were selected as religious offerings indulged petted fatte fattened ried tor for one year and then led to the sacrificial stone to have their living hearts cut out the story stor y is that on one single occasion thirty thousand boys were thus destroyed horrible it american tour ests in their smart silk frocks and broad flowered hats have been known know to taint faint contemplating the scene even so many years after the mayan religion has been swept away but in what way does the slaughter of innocent boys across the seas improve upon these barbaric days in one way wars are even worse for the mayan had at least the feeling that this was destiny destry he was helpless and he had be been en chosen for death but our ens english german french russian boys have no such consolation they have no feeling against each 0 ther other they have committed no crime they hate bate no one and too often they writhe into slow agonizing bitterly lonely deaths with every criminal instinct of their natures roused and brought to life hate a desire for revenge a complete loss of faith in everything their mothers taught them of goodness and forgiveness gi veness and generosity their mot mothers hersl here we are back to their mothers again as mothers day passes by it is no use to watch their babyhood sicknesses to train them in boyhood to goodness only to fail them when the first bugle blows and send them forth to freeze in muddy trenches to meet hot death in the air to drive their bayonets into the bodies of boys they never saw before just as shrapnel or bullets pierce their own splendid bo bodies diesto to rot unnoted in crowded fetid hospitals and finally to lie ile still and unremembered by all except motheral Mot hersl in m foreign soil let men over forty fight it if I 1 could I 1 would get a biu bill through congress prohibiting the enlistment list ment in army or navy of any man under forty years this would stop war so fast that soon its memory would blend with witch burning smallpox small pox epidemics slavery and a hundred other insanities insani ties and abuses that shame the pages of history it if thoughtful established middle aged men men who are absorbed in offices or professions who love wife and home and children and golf and fishing and bridge games had bad to get themselves into olive drab and sail across seas to solve Eu ropes never tending ending quarrels how quickly we should be reading some other plan for the solution of international problems 1 even it if their health and strength match those of younger men what of it if life is to be destroyed why not begin with the unfit send them into battle sneezing and rheumatic and taking soda mints for war destroys health anyway and all camps are full of invalids there was one battalion of strong young men with flat feet who stayed safe la in camp all through bloody 1918 and went home happily to draw their bonus a few years later older men make wars it is the old men who shrewdly consider profits and expanding markets and uses for surplus products it is the old men who make the wars Is there in the long long history of these decisions to destroy young life some shadow of the old jealousy of the males male bulls bull 15 kill young ones deer and elephant and even household cats do the same unexpressed and perhaps completely unsuspected Is jealousy at the base of the policy that sends the finest men of each generation to their death sometimes it almost seems so at all events men ann obviously cant solve this war question they never have and they never will |