atform. He was escorted to the front of the platform,
and in a clear, strong voice spoke to the almost breathless crowd. He
acknowledged with sorrow his crime, and urged upon all the necessity
of being true to God and their country. He stepped back on the "trap,"
the black cap was drawn over his head, the noose placed about his
neck, the "trap" sprung, and with a sickening thud he dropped to his
doom. For twenty minutes, from nine fifty to ten ten, his body hung
there before he was pronounced by the attending surgeon officially
dead.

I never witnessed a twenty minutes of such deathly silence. Two guards
fainted, and the effect on the crowd was indescribable. I overheard a
colored fellow say, "I never want to do anything bad again as long as
I live."

The body was immediately cut down, placed in a coffin, and taken in
the ambulance to its burial. It was a silent, thoughtful company that
went out from that tragic scene.

"THE AMERICAN DEAD"

"Will we be able to locate the body of our boy?"

So often has this question been asked me that I must take a moment to
answer it.

I watched two American military burial plots grow from the first lone
grave to small cities of our noble dead. One was at Bazoilles, half
way between Chaumont and Toul. The other was at Baccarat near the
Alsatian border. Each grave was marked with a little wooden cross
bearing the name and rank of the soldier, and beside each cross an
American flag.

Many were buried in French cemeteries. At Neufchateau a section was
set aside for the use of our American army. When I visited it there
were about one hundred new-made graves all plainly marked, and fresh
flowers on each grave.

Of course most of the French cemeteries were Catholic, and Protestant
bodies could not be granted burial within the walls. A touching story
is told of an American Protestant soldier buried close outside the
wall of a Catholic graveyard. During the night French civilians tore
down the wall at that place and rebuilt it around their comrade of a
different faith. It was a beautiful symbol of the new dawn of peace
when all nations and all creeds shall recognize the common brotherhood
of all God's children.

FRANCE A GREAT SCRAP HEAP

Now that the war is over, France is a vast junk heap of arms and
equipment that cost a mint of money and the brains and lives of
millions of men.

For generations to come the soil of France will be disclosing to the
peasants who till her