did not cease to love it, in the iron days of the sixties. Even then we hugged to our hearts the organic law which it symbolized, and above the storm of battle it said to us: "brothers come back!" We loved it in 1898 when a Hobson and a Bagley, a Joe Wheeler and a Fitzhugh Lee enriched it with the heroism of our noblest chivalry, and we loved it in 1918 when our gallant boys, put to the test of steel, proved to the nations that, in the sons of the South, the spirit of the fathers still survived-survived to toll the knell of parting days to Hohenzollern and to Hapsburg, to interpret for a German Emperor the handwriting on the walls of Babylon and to make the world safe for Democracy.

I speak as the son of a Confederate soldier. Never, at any time in my life nor in any company of men, have I felt constrained to blush for the record or to apologize for the fact that my father was a soldier in the army of Northern Virginia. Around the blazing hearth in winter and in the misty star-light of sweet summer evenings, I have listened to the story of the war until I could almost hear the roll of the Rappahannock and catch the voice of Jackson, in the music of the trees. To me, the harp of heroism, attuned to the deeds of the Confederate soldier, is richer in the soul of song than ever was the Border Minstrel's; and believe me when I tell you, here and now, that no higher inspiration to duty or to patriotism has ever come into my life than the consciousness that in my veins there flows the blood of one who fought for constitutional liberty and who never soiled with cowardice the glory of the Confederate gray.

But I also love the flag of the Supreme Republic, for every star is radiant with the glory and every stripe red with the blood of my people. Born since the bugle sang truce at Appomattox, I have plighted allegiance to but one flag-the flag of the free heart's hope and home.

Forever float that standard sheet

Whence comes the foe but falls before us
With freedom's soil beneath our feet,

And freedom's banner streaming o'er us.

Again I speak for an old Confederacy and with all due reverence for a Conquered Banner when I rejoice with Grady that an omnipotent God held the balance of battle and that, in the crisis of arms, the American Union was saved from the wreck of war.

We of the South have always loved the real Union. It was our Jefferson who wrote the Declaration of Independence. It was our Washington who commanded the Continental armies. It was our Henry who kindled the fires of the Revolution. It was our Madison who framed the Constitution. It was our Marshall who interpreted the organic law. It was our Andrew Jackson who fought the battle of New Orleans. In the Clark and Lewis expedition, we explored the sources of the Missouri River. Under Jefferson, we purchased Louisiana. Under Monroe we bought the Floridas. Under Polk we acquired the Californias, and took over the Empire of Texas. For sixty years, we controlled both houses of Congress, named the Chief Justice and elected the President.

Ye gods! Write this upon Columbia's shield
For all within our fair communion

Whether, in forum or in field,

It was the South that made the Union.

Elks, I call upon you to bear witness to this statement, that love for the flag is taught in all our schools, and proclaimed from all our pulpits, and abides in all our homesfrom the lordliest mansion in our crowded centers of population to the humblest cabin-home, in the furthest hamlet of the mountains.

That flag is our flag. Ready to defend it, there is an army of 3,000,000 hearts in Georgia, and in all of them breathes and burns this sentiment once uttered by the immortal Hill: "Raise high that flag of our fathers. Let

Southern breezes kiss it.
Southern sons will defend it.
and Southern heroes will die for it. Who saves his country,
saves himself, saves all things, and all things saved do bless
him. Who lets his country die, lets all things die, dies him-
self ignobly, and all things dying curse him."

Let Southern skies reflect it.
Southern patriots will love it,

Aye, an army of 3,000,000 true and loyal Georgians love that flag; but it waves over an army vaster still in the inanimate dust of Georgians dead. All over our fair State lie the scattered bones of its defenders-sleeping on every hillside and in every valley. They cover the whole State like a mantle of glory, and stretching back across two centuries they reach to the far-off days of the Revolution. Spectral generations encompass us about to testify that from childhood to old age they knew but one flag in Georgia. Shadowy arms reach out from every fireside to clasp the folds of Old Glory, and to hug the beloved emblem fondly to phantom hearts; and standing upon the graves of the dead-in sight of all the heroic battle-fields of our history— we pledge not only the present but the future generations of Georgia, in an everlasting allegiance, to the Stars and Stripes.

Just a moment ago I observed that we did not wish the riff-raff of Europe. I repeat it. But listen. Though we need to beware of vicious foreigners, we need the vision to see and the courage to admit that we have a mission to humanity. Though the heavens fall-we must keep faith with those who sleep, "where poppies bloom, in Flanders' fields." We must think in terms of a world. It was for this that Washington won a Yorktown and Columbus discovered a continent. In this age of the telegraph and of the steamboat-of electricity and of radio-the world has become a neighborhood-we should make it a brotherhood.

"Go brand him with disgrace, Whose thought is for himself alone And not for all his race."

Israel was tucked away, in a far-off pocket of the Mediterranean-a peculiar and a separate people. Yes, but to give the world a religion; and failing to recognize her world-wide mission, the Shekinah quit the Temple, and Israel lost the Ark of God. For a similar dereliction, America, if she fails to recognize her world-wide mission, may yet lose the Ark of Freedom. Slowly the tide is rising. It has already touched the high rocks; and hour by hour grows the world's admiration for that man of leadership, of light and of learning, who towers amongst us, like a Matterhorn among the Alps-Woodrow Wilson.

"O, say can you see by the dawn's early light

What so proudly we hailed, at the twilight's last gleaming?"

Aye, Francis Scott Key. We can see it. It is waving from the Adirondacks. It is waving from the Rockies. It is waving over Dixie's fields of cotton. Everywhere it is waving, "o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." It is the flag of our re-united country. It is the Star-Spangled Banner of the Elks.

Today, we salute that flag, with the ringing phrase of the Gascon, in the Three Musketeers: "All for one and one for all." Waving there, in silent majesty, it bespeaks the greatest power upon God Almighty's foot-stool. It symbolizes a land which no foreign army can ever invade, which no sectional estrangement shall ever divide, while the rivers roll their waters to the sea or the mountains lift their cedars to the stars. It symbolizes a land, whose one hundred and twenty millions of people-from the Lakes to the Gulf and from ocean to ocean-are many in one-many as the waves but one as the sea-many as the constellations but one as the firmament!

"A Union of lakes and a union of lands,
A Union of States none can sever,
A Union of hearts and a Union of hands,
And the flag of our Union forever."

AN AMERICAN BOY IN FRANCE: LIEUTENANT

FRANK A. HOLDEN.

[Written as an introduction to "War Memories", by Frank A. Holden, 2nd Lieutenant, 328th Infantry, 82nd Division. The Athens Book Co., Athens, Ga., 1922.]

One of the most delightful things in life is to be the herald of a happy event-the message-bearer of a welcome bit of news. The writing of this little introduction, therefore, is less of a task than of a privilege; for its purpose is to inform the public that a little volume which Americans have long been eager to read-have long been anxious for some one to write-has at last appeared. I make this statement, not without a due regard to the meaning of words, and not without some, nay, much, of the gratification which the old Syracusan philosopher must have felt when he exclaimed: "Eureka! Eureka!"

Here it is: a little book which reflects upon every page the intimate heart-life of the American boy in France, during the World War-what he saw and felt and thought and did, not only in the great crises of battle; but on the march and in the camp-setting forth the first impressions made upon a soldier's mind, under foreign skies, at the cannon's mouth, and revealing the fact that everywhere and always his thoughts were of the dear ones at home, thousands of miles across the seas.

It is like a mirror in its faithful reproduction of the simpler elements which enter into vast and splendid scenes. We have heard much of general movements; of grand climaxes; of superb exhibitions of man-power, in the aggregate; of millions, upon one side, confronting millions upon another; and so vast has been the picture presented to our minds that we have utterly failed to grasp it, except in its outstanding characteristics. We have heard too little of the human side of the great war-too little of the things which