Here is April, and still the black shadows of war press onward. Clouds of battle smoke rise to meet a grey dawn and float above a sea of human blood. Far over the crest of a battered hill there lies a boy whose young face is turned toward the earth, and who has gone beyond the hoary grievance of man.
—SERGEANT GORDON W. SMITH,
339TH INFANTRY, 160 MILES FROM
ARCHANGEL, RUSSIA, APRIL 1919
It is one of the phenomena of human nature that once an opinion gets a popular start and becomes rooted in the mind of the public at large it is next to impossible to uproot it or kill it off. It may be proved over and over again that the opinion is not entirely true, or even that it is entirely false; and the public at large will listen to the proof and go right on believing in the opinion as before.
—JAMES WELDON JOHNSON, MAY 1919