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CASS COUNTY IN WWI NEWSPAPER CLIPPINGS

The Des Moines Register
Des Moines, Iowa
April 12, 1918
Page 4, Column 2

FROM FRANCE.

An incident has occurred in connection with the Liberty loan drive in Atlantic, Iowa, which ought to make every Iowan consider whether he has bought bonds to the limit of his ability. It is described as follows in the news columns of the Atlantic News-Telegraph:

"Among the very first subscription to be handed in locally was one from Harold Kjar, member of Company M, One Hundred and Sixty-eight infantry, who is lying wounded in a French hospital. This bond was for $50 and was bought with money sent by the young soldier in France to his father, Jens Kjar in Atlantic. Harold Kjar was wounded supposedly, in the same engagement in which Cecil Conley and Fred Turner lost their lives. Joseph Fudge, another member of the company, was also wounded at the same time."

When an American soldier lying wounded in France saves $50 out of his pay and sends it home to invest in Liberty bonds, he is doing more than his share. Who, then, can afford to do less than his share?

Harold Kjar evidently is not a descendant of those who came over in the Mayflower. The chances are that his father, Jens Kjar, possesses a slight foreign accent.

What doubt is there of the effectiveness of the American melting pot, when such an incident as this occurs?

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Transcribed and contributed by Eileen Reed, September, 2016

Background courtesy of Creations by Dawn (http://www.creationsbydawn.net)