Honoring the Graves of Our Catholic War Heroes by D

OUNCIL August WASHINGTON, D. C. 1922 Featured in This Issue Honoring the Graves of our Catholic War Heroes By D. J. Ryan Catholic Women Unite in Standardizing the Catholic World-Wide Social Work College By Mary- c. Tinney By A. C. Monahan Fiel<J of Social Work By John A. Lapp Review of Catholic Hospital Association Convention Industrial Conditions in the West Virginia Coal Regions By Rev. R. A. McGowan N. C. W. C. Activities Women's Council Urges Scholarships to National Catholic Service School-What Catholic W~men are Doing at Home-N. C. C. W. Affiliations for June-Men's Council Active in Baltimore Archdiocese- N. C. C. M. Organization Notes-Attitude of Catholics Toward the Public School-In the Field of Catholic Education The Industrial Question and the Bishop's Pastoral Letter 2 THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC WELFARE COUNCIL BULLETIN Honoring the Graves of Our Catholic War Heroes N. c. w. C. Chaplain Sails to Bless Overseas Resting Places By D. J. Ryan Director N. C. W. C. Historical Records Dep~rtment HE GREAT WAR, thank God, brought to the these burying places is that of the Meuse-Argonne at United States no acquisition of territory. Yet ou Romagne, and contains approximately 14,000 graves. Five T country can, as a result of it, proudly boast of eight of the others are likewise located in France, that of little strips of European soil that will be forever hers. Suresnes, near Paris, with about 1,400 graves; the Aisne Over there, eight little plots will always proudly fly the Marne at Belleau Wood, with 2,400; the Somme at Bony, Stars and Stripes. True, they are very quiet little places, with 1,900; the St. Mihiel at Thiacourt, with 4,200, and the with no great buildings or busy market-places, needing no Oise-Aisne at Seringes-et-N esles, with 6,100. Another is high walls or embattlements to repel the assaults of future located at Waerenghem, in Belgium, with 450 graves, and enemies. the eighth at Brookwood, in England, with 699. But in them dwell more than thirty thousand Americans, Nothing, of course, is to be left undone, to make these who, leaving their country in the prime of their youth, cemeteries fit resting places for our heroic dead, and com will never return, but sleep forever in the soil they fought parable in arrangement and beauty to those in America. to save and on which they fell. In the center of each will stand the flagpole, from which At the end of the great conflict there were almost five will fly the Stars and Stripes. Broad roadways will lead hundred little plots of ground in Europe in which American through rows of American-grown trees and shrubs. Each fighters had been buried. A toll of 77,158 lives had been grave will be marked with an identical headstone bearing taken, and graves with American dead the name, rank, stat.e, and regiment of the were scattered throughout France, Bel soldier. The cemeteries will be placed in gium, England, and Italy. The War the charge of American caretakers, and Department, on the recommendation ot what with the love and zeal manifested a Commission sent to Europe in 1919, to by Americans in Europe and by the grate study conditions, had decided that the ful European peoples themselves for our bodies of all of our soldiers were to be dead, we need never fear that our eight assembled in eight central cemeteries, little American outposts in Europe will a fter those had been returned to the lack attention or care. United States which had been requested Yet with all these signs of the tender by relatives. solicitude of our country for its defend This great work has been carried on er , American Catholics could never be speedily and successfully by the Graves satisfied that all had been done for their Registration Service of the Army, and is dead that might be, were not the final and now almost completed. The last of the greatest mark of devotion paid to their 46,180 bodies requested to be returned to graves-the bestowal of the blessing of America has been sent over, while the REV. JOHN B. FRIGON, O.M.l. the Church upon them. It was maiqly who has been sent by the N. C. W. C. to bless other 30,393 are being reinterred in the the overseas graves of Catholic soldiers and with this in mind that even during the sailors who died in service and whose names new national cemeteries. The largest of and resting places have been determined. war the National Catholic War Council, THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC WELFARE COUNCIL BULLETIN 3 through its Historical Records had been kept in maJ;).y parishes, Department, set about collecting FINAL TRIBUTE TO OUR DEAD the interest of a great many a complete list of all American The National Catholic War Council is. per Catholics seemed lacking. Or per forming one of its final duties in the bless Catholics who paid the last full ing of the overseas graves of our fallen haps it was too much to expect measure of devotion to their coun soldiers and sailors. The War Memorials that our records would be immedi Fund inaugurated several months ago by the ately completed, when a gr~at try in the great conflict. N. C. W. C. BULLETIN and to which many At first glance perhap£ this BULLETIN readers gener.ously contributed, agency, with all material readily would not seem. a very difficult will be used to help defray the expenses of available, such as the Navy De Father Frigon who .has been sent by the task. Nobody of Americans N. C. W. C. to bless. the graves. partment, does not expect to finish worked harder to bring victory to While the N. C. W. C. Historical Record its war history until 1937. Department has performed an heroic task our arms, both at the front and in collecting to date the records of nearly Appeals were at fi~st sent out behind the lines, than our Catholic 20,000 Catholic soldier dead, the mustering to all parishes, not only for list, of the roll call of Catholiic soldiers and sailors men and women; none were more who died in the great· war is still incomplete of their soldiers who died, but for zealous and self-sacrificing than and many overseas graves must therefore their other war records. The remain unconsecrated until the records of all they. Hence it might be presumed Catholics who died in service are made names came back by hundreds, but that when it came to the perpetu known. there were thousands to be re ating of a record of our war serv The N. C. W. C. Historical Record De ported. Many other letters were partment, which is the only Catholic agency ices their whole-hearted interest working for this end, calls upon Catholics despatched, and a personal repre and cooperation might be counted everywhere throughout the United States to sentative of the Department sent cooperate with it in completing this solemn on. In many cases, of course, this task. around through a number of dio- proved to be true. From great ceses to point out the great im city parishes and small-town mis- portance of the work and stir up sions have come lists of Catholic service men, of soldiers interest in it. Many more names were thus gained for our who had made the great sacrifice, and of war-time accom . record, but still there were thousands that had yet to be plishments, the compiling of which must have taken the reported. greatest amount of time and labor. And yet-perhaps as Thus for over three years the work has been. vigorously a result of the natural reaction. brought about by the close prosecuted, and surely in. that time it might well be expected of the confli'Ct, an antipathy to everything that savored of that at least the list of 'Catholic heroes would have been war, or due, it may be, to the fact that no war-time records completed. But while it grows daily, it is still incomplete. Photographs loaned through courtesy American Legion OVERSEAS GRAVES OF AMERICAN CATHOLIC SOLDERS AND SAILORS WHICH WILL BE BLESSED BY N. C. W. C. CHAPLAIN The illustration under the title of this article shows the Aisne-Marne cemetery at Belleau Wood and the picture above, the Suresnes, near Paris-two cemeteries in which rest many Catholic heroes of the A. E. F. who paid the supreme sacrifice in the Great War. 4 THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC \tVELFARE COUNCIL B.DLLETIN Every device has been used to bring it nearer the final our Catholic soldiers by giving us the 1)-umber of the grave, goal. Thousands of periodicals have been searched for the row, the plot, and the name of the cemetery, or verifying items on our Catholic soldiers and especially the newspapers the same. A difficult task at best with but eight cemeteries of the period during 'which the bodies were being returned to handle, it was even greater at the time lists were first from Europe, when so often accounts were given of great sent to the Deparment when bodies of the soldiers had not military funerals from Catholic churches. Memorial books yet been assembled in the central burying places, and the of colleges and organizations have been scanned, and infor records of many municipal and military cemeteries in mation concerning their gold-starred heroes transferred to . France, England, Belgium, Scotland, and Ireland had to be these more central and permanent records.

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