ANZAC HEROES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 29 April 1939, Page 5

ANZAC HEROES

GREATNESS OF A NATION SPIRIT OF SERVICE. MR T. JORDAN'S ADDRESS AT DAWN PARADE. The address by Mr T. Jordan. Mayor of Masterton, at the Dawn Parade, held in Wellington on Anzac Day has attracted considerable attention and those who heard it at the parade or over the air were deeply impressed. The full text of Mr Jordan’s address is as follows:—

“Fellow citizens: What manner of men were they to whom we do honour this morning? A distinguished British Admiral who saw them during their period of training, in the rough, shall I say, described them in these words: ■They are the most magnificent body of men ’ that I have ever seen. I thought the Canadians were very fine men but these are even finer still. It makes one feel really proud of one’s race. They are such pleasant looking devils, too.’ “Some few weeks later on the first Anzac morning, their Commander-in-Chief, the general with the mind of a poet, as he watched the attack developing, made this note in his diary: ‘These men are not charging up the Sari Bair ridge for profit, nor from compulsion. There they go ... all the way from the Southern Cross and earning Victoria Crosses every one of them.’ Not for glory nor for gold, these ‘pleasant looking devils' went at call of country in a cause that they deemed just to help the weak and the oppressed and to defend the right; and seven out of every eight that landed on the peninsula became a casualty, killed or wounded.

“How shall we commemorate such men?

“I believe that the greatness of a nation comes from the spirit of service of its citizens and that there is a great deal of real spiritual value in the readiness of the individual to devote himself to the service and wellbeing of the community. But if our form of government, this democracy of ours, is to survive and flourish and if the liberty which is its lifeblood is to remain pure and strong, then we shall have to realise that this readiness to serve the state in some way, either civil, social or industrial or to defend its shores, will have to be regarded not as the mild eccentricity of a few of us but as the normal state of mind of the great majority. Ours is the duty of guarding and safeguarding for future generations all that is worthy and worth while in our past, the heritage and the tradition of these men, their honour and all their hopes. “Let us take them for our example. Like them let us remember that prosperity can be only for the free and that freedom itself is the sure possession of those alone who have the courage to defend it. Let us highly resolve that from these honoured dead we shall take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion ... the cause of freedom and humanity.”