Golden Lads

Lads, by Arthur Gleason and
Helen Hayes Gleason

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Title: Golden Lads
Author: Arthur Gleason and Helen Hayes Gleason
Release Date: August 28, 2006 [EBook #19131]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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LADS ***

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[Illustration: Photo. Excelsior.

THE PLAY-BOYS OF THE WESTERN FRONT.
The famous French Fusiliers Marins. These sailors from Brittany are
called "Les demoiselles au pompon rouge," because of their youth and
the gay red tassel on their cap.]

GOLDEN LADS
BY
ARTHUR GLEASON
AND
HELEN HAYES GLEASON
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY THEODORE ROOSEVELT
"Golden Lads and Girls all must, As chimney sweepers, come to dust."
[Illustration]
TORONTO McCLELLAND, GOODCHILD & STEWART, LIMITED
1916
Copyright, 1916, by THE CENTURY CO.
Copyright, 1915, by the CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY.
Copyright, 1916, by the BUTTERICK PUBLISHING COMPANY.
Copyright, 1915 and 1916, by the TRIBUNE ASSOCIATION.
Published, April, 1916
(Printed in the U. S. A.)

TO THE SAILORS OF BRITTANY THE BOY SOLDIERS OF THE
FRENCH FUSILIERS MARINS WHOSE WOUNDED IT WAS OUR
PRIVILEGE TO CARRY IN FROM THE FIELD OF HONOR AT
MELLE, DIXMUDE, AND NIEUPORT
Profits from the sale of this book will go to "The American Committee
for Training in Suitable Trades the Maimed Soldiers of France."

CONCERNING THIS BOOK
It would be futile to publish one more war-book, unless the writer had
been an eye-witness of unusual things. I am an American who saw
atrocities which are recorded in the Bryce Report. This book grows out
of months of day-by-day living in the war zone. I have been a member
of the Hector Munro Ambulance Corps, which was permitted to work
at the front because the Prime Minister of Belgium placed his son in
military command of us. That young man, being brave and adventurous,
led us along the first line of trenches, and into villages under shell fire,
so that we saw the armies in action.
We started at Ghent in September, 1914, came to Furnes, worked in
Dixmude, Pervyse, Nieuport and Ypres, during moments of pressure on
those strategic points. In the summer of 1915, we were attached to the
French Fusiliers Marins. My wife's experience covers a period of
twelve months in Belgium. My own time at the front was five months.
Observers at long-distance that are neutral sometimes fail to see
fundamentals in the present conflict, and talk of "negotiations" between
right and wrong. It is easy for people who have not suffered to be
tolerant toward wrongdoing. This war is a long war because of German
methods of frightfulness. These practices have bred an enduring will to
conquer in Frenchman and Briton and Belgian which will not pause till
victory is thorough. Because the German military power has sinned
against women and children, it will be fought with till it is overthrown.
I wish to make clear this determination of the Allies. They hate the
army of Aerschot and Lorraine as a mother hates the defiler of her

child.
There are two wars on the Western Front. One is the war of aggression.
It was led up to by years of treachery. It was consummated in
frightfulness. It is warfare by machine. Of that war, as carried on by the
"Conquerors," the first half of this book tells. On points that have been
in dispute since the outbreak, I am able to say "I saw." When the Army
of Invasion fell on the little people, I witnessed the signs of its passage
as it wrote them by flame and bayonet on peasant homes and peasant
bodies.
In the second half of the book, I have tried to tell of a people's
uprising--the fight of the living spirit against the war-machine. A
righteous defensive war, such as Belgium and France are waging, does
not brutalize the nation. It reveals a beauty of sacrifice which makes
common men into "golden lads."
Was this struggle forced on an unwilling Germany, or was she the
aggressor?
I believe we have the answer of history in such evidences as I have
seen of her patient ancient spy system that honeycombed Belgium.
Is she waging a "holy war," ringed around by jealous foes?
I believe we have the final answer in such atrocities as I witnessed. A
hideous officially ordered method is proof of unrighteousness in the