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Show THE AMERICAN WAY BEN TOLAND fcgj GAVE HIS ALL ':U;-fe I v- By Georse Peck PfiadLj On February 21, 1945, First Lieutenant Ben Toland of Concord, Con-cord, New Hampshire, died on the bloody slopes of Iwo Jima. No one had ordered this 24-year-old Marine Licutentant to take over the wounded officer's platoon pla-toon which was to storm the ridge; he simply stepped into the breach, look command, charged the ridge "where every ten yards cost a life." He and his men were laying out airmarkcrs to show the new position when the motar-burst nit. Lieutenant Toland laid down his life on the altar of freedom. But this New Hampshire lad left something behind that transcends trans-cends even his supreme sacrifice. He had scribbled a will. The text of that will already has been read into the Congressional Record by New Hampshire's Congressman Sherman Andrews. National magazines and metropolitan daily newspapers have paid glowing glow-ing tribute to a real American, who on- the eve of- death, left a legacy to his country that never will be forgotten. Lieutenant Toland had a keen understanding of the American Way his last will and testament was a solemn covenant to the American people back home to cherish and nurture that for which he and his buddies were , fighting in the Pacific for which 5,000 Marines died on tiny Iwo Jima. Ben Toland saw labor strife as one of the gravest menaces to the welfare of postwar America. He I willed nearly half of his modest estate 40 per cent (about $1,-500) $1,-500) for the settlement of problems prob-lems between labor and management. manage-ment. Ten per cent goes to each of the CIO and AFL; 20 per cent to the National Association of Manufacturers. Ben Toland was concerned a-bout a-bout our national government. He feared it might become the master instead of the servant of the people. To the Congress he left 20 per cent for research toward to-ward a "far-sighted foreign policy," pol-icy," and better government for "al the people in the country instead in-stead of merely the organized pressure groups." Ben Toland was interested in education. To St. Paul's school of Concord, New Hampshire, where he had captained the hockey team and distinguished himself as a scholar, he bequeathed 20 per cent. To Yale University, where he was graduated summa cum laude, just in time for the war, this Phi Betta Kappa left ten per cent. Ben Toland's bequeathal of the remaining 10 per cent revealed his deep interest in charitable . and spiritual affairs. Five per cent was willed to the New York Times Christmas charity fund known as the "One Hundred Neediest Cases," and 5 per cent to the Protestant Episcopal Church "to bring the Kingdom of God nearer to earth and the earth nearer to the Kingdom of God." And having thus arranged the disposal of all his earthly goods for a better America, Lieutenant Toland proceeded to give his one remaining and most cherished possession his life. |