Loyola University Maryland - Evergreen / Green and Gray Yearbook (Baltimore, MD)

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Jus t how many fighting Irishmen were buried alive was never known to me but we did know that they were there in “that place of pain and pride.” Hardly an appropriate grave for fighting men — just a labyrynth of logs, rocks and sandbags. Yet “it was a worthy grave, that place, where they nobly fought and nobly died.” Ever submis- sive were they “that pain may cease they yield their flesh to pain, to banish war they must warriors be.” ’Twas in the Rouge Bouquet. “Such was their life and the end thereof.” This is the story of Kilmer’s Rouge Bouquet, but who could tell it as he did? Who could bring before our minds the awful gruesomeness of that incident in such style that it would appeal so strongly to us? And as he wrote of his comrades of the “Fighting Sixty-ninth” so it must be written of him that “he nobly fought and nobly died.” For Sergeant Joyce Kilmer was killed on July 30, 1918, in the advance on the Ourcq. And on the banks of this historic river he was buried in much the same fashion as Thomas More, “with not a drum heard nor a funeral note.” Thy soul was like a star and dwelt apart Pure as the naked heavens, majestic, free; So did’st thou travel on life ' s common way In cheerful godliness; and yet thy heart The lowliest duties on herself did lay. 27

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thought) entered in the Army records as the 165th U. S. Infantry, thereby losing all the prestige naturally associated with a unit which had so distinguished itself. For a week or two after the coming of the division the front was as serene as a placid lake. Then came the fifth of March, with the Ger- man raiding party, followed by the American counter-attack on the ninth. Days characterized by the trying monotony of dawn and twilight vigils seemed once again the rule rather th an the exception. EAYMOND B. FURLONG, ’21. Another of our soldier boys who is just fluishiug Junior Class. He enlisted in the Maryland Coast Artillery from Sophomore and saw actiye service abroad with the Rainbow Division from Octoljer 1917, until the end, spending eighteen months overseas. On the seventeenth, just after “stand to” everyone, exhausted by the early morning watch, had sought asylum and comfort such as it was, in the musty dinginess of the dugouts. Suddenly everyone was astir; “they” were sending a few over; first a few shells, then a few more, then an avalanche of artillery burst forth. To us one missed its mark; to the Hun it was a perfect shot. For indeed it had “stopped its flight at the dugout stair, touched its prey and left them there clay to clay.” 26

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mttlf-©ntunpr Sill. Charles J. Ciotti, ’20. The Smith Bill was introduced in the United States Senate on October 10, 1918, and was revised and re-introduced on February 19, 1919. It was sponsored and upheld in the lower house by Hon. Horace Towner of Iowa. The purpose of the bill is to create a department of education, and by the appropriation of money, to encourage the States in the promotion and support of education. That which is directly aimed at bj Senator Smith is the centralization of education by the appointment of a Secretary of Education who will rule the schools of the countr} from Washington. That the Smith Bill is by no means dead is plainy shown by the announcement made by the National Educational Association in The Bulletin of January last: “The Smith-Towner Bill is still in committee in both the Senate and House. It will hold its present number and designation throughout the 66th Congress which will expire March 4, 1921. We shall do all in our power to secure the passage of this bill by the present Congress.” The bill should be defeated. One good reason would be sufficient to prove this statement, but several may be cited. First, it establishes an educational bureaucracy at Washington controlling the free schools of a free nation, thereby dragging education into politics; second, it will place enormous and unnecessary taxes upon our people; third, it will injure, if not utterly destroy Catholic education. If the bill becomes a reality, the Secretary of Education will be vested with great powers indeed. He will exercise supreme control over almost twenty millions of our inhabitants. By following the course outlined by the Smith Bill, no matter what his wishes may be, it will be impossible for him to keep the school out of politics. The bill aims at encouraging the States in their work of education. Its passage, however, will tend to lessen and practically to confiscate their power. The conduct of the schools will not belong to the States, for the schools must conform to the orders formulated and enforced by l)oliticians at Washington. The Secretary of Education may consult with the State authorities, but he is not obliged to do so. In the event of any dispute, it will be with the Federal, and not with the State authorities, that the final decision will rest. To oppose the Smith Bill on the ground of its additional needless taxation is but a matter of common sense. Prior to the war our public 28