World War I officially ended today.IN honor of twenty-seven fellow workers whose lives were sacrificed in the Great War, the employes of Marshall Field & Company held a memorial service in the Auditorium Theatre, Chicago, December 8, 1918. Four thousand three hundred men and women, a fourth of the employes in Chicago, attended, filling the great Auditorium to the doors.
The Marshall Field Choral Society of two hundred voices sang and Dr. Frank W. Gunsaulus delivered the sermon. Flanking the stage hung the memorial flag bearing in gold the names of the heroes.
The following paragraphs, written by Irvin Clay Lambert, for twenty-six years an employe of Marshall Field & Company, appeared in the program of the memorial service:
"Moved by rapture high and fine, they left us to cross the infested sea. Forth they went, dreaming not of a peace reserved for us alone, but with a vision that reached far down the years—a purpose to clear the road for children yet unborn.
Serene and strong, and armed with swords forged in the white flame of Truth and Justice, they met the ruthless enemy of mankind, and foe-ward fell like men! With stoic calm they gave their lives for something dearer still.
They never doubted clouds would break,
Never dreamed, though Right were worsted,
Wrong would triumph.
For them our memory shall not fail nor falter. Not in vain was the last charge made, the last mound captured! The red harvest of slaughter is ended, and today we recall
with holy pride that they sealed with their life's blood the pledge of Human Freedom! Sleep on, brave souls, in your consecrated places! Yours is the tomb of Eternal Years."
From: The Merchant and the New National Spirit By Forrest Crissey, Marshall Field & Company (1920)
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