Mother

To Ernestine Schumann-Heink, a certain recent War means more than a pale echo of a bold blare of excitement, War veterans more than a cluster of sad-eyed poppies sold on the street by a khaki-coated huckster. For Schumann-Heink's sons were fighters--four with the U S. army, the fifth on a German submarine, an officer, killed--and a decade is not so long a time when one is within five years of the allotted three score and ten.

Last week the Disabled American Veterans of the World War announced through National Commander John W. Mahan the creation of a $750,000 fund--to be called the Schumann-Heink Foundation--named for the chunky, grey-haired woman who has mothered them, who will also mother the fund, gather in the first dollars by a benefit concert tour, which will open in Los Angeles May 29, take her to 15 cities, ending June 30 in Boston.