A year later, in Paris, the French judge and court cleared the young girl who choked to death with a string the babe of the German officer who had attacked her. But since that time, all France and Belgium and the lands where there are refugees are discussing the question—Where does the right lie? Has the French mother, cruelly wounded, no right? And this foul thing forced upon her a superior right? Which path for the bewildered girl leads to peace? Where does the Lord of Right stand? What chance has a babe born of a beast, abhorred and despised, when it comes into the world? The women of the world alone can answer this question.



IN FRANCE THE IMMORTAL!

IV

1. The Glory of the French Soldier's Heroism

As much as the German atrocities have done to destroy our confidence in the divine origin of the human soul, the French soldiers have done to vindicate the majesty and beauty of a soul made in the image of God.

I have seen French boys that were so simple, brave and modest in their courage, so beautiful in their spirit, as to make one feel that they were young gods and not men. One day, into one of the camps, came a lawyer from Paris. He brought the news of the revival of the Latin Quarter. For nearly three years a shop near the Beaux Arts had been closed. During all this time the French soldier had been at the front. When the first call came on that August day he put up the wooden shutters, turned the key in the lock, and marched away to the trenches.

Said the lawyer: "I come from your cousin. The Americans are here in Paris. Your cousin says that if you will give me the keys and authorize her to open the shop she will take your place. She can recover your business, and perhaps have a little store of money for you when you have your 'permission' or come home to rest. She tells me that she is your sole relative." The soldier shook his head, saying: "I never expect to come home. I do not want to come home. France can be freed only by men who are ready to die for her. I do not know where the key is. I do not know what goods are in the shop. For three years I have had no thought of it. I am too busy to make money. There are other things for me—fighting, and perhaps dying. Tell my cousin that she can have the shop." Then the soldier saluted and started back towards his trench. "Wait! Wait!" cried the attorney. Then he stooped down, wrote hurriedly upon his knee, a little paper in which the soldier authorized his cousin to carry on the business, in his name. Scrawling his name to the document, the soldier ran towards the place where his heart was—the place of peril, heroism and self-sacrifice.

This was typical of the thousands of soldiers at the front, for French soldiers suffer that the children may never have to wade through this blood and muck. The foul creature that has bathed the world in blood must be slain forever. With the full consent of the intellect, of the heart and the conscience, these glorious French boys have given themselves to God, to freedom, and to France.

2. Why the Hun Cannot Defeat the Frenchman

One morning in a little restaurant in Paris I was talking with a British army-captain. The young soldier was a typical Englishman, quiet, reserved, but plainly a little excited. He had just been promoted to his captaincy and had received one week's "permission" for a rest in Paris. We had both come down from near Messines Ridge.

"Of course," said the English captain, "the French are the greatest soldiers in the world."

"Why do you say that?" I answered. "What could be more wonderful than the heroism, the endurance of the British at Vimy Ridge? They seem to me more like young gods than men."

To which the captain answered: "But you must remember that England has never been invaded. Look at my company! Their equipment is right from helmet to shoe, so perfectly drilled are they that the swing of their right legs is like the swing of one pendulum. I will put my British company against the world. Still I must confess this, that, so far as I know, no English division of fifteen thousand men ever came home at night with more than five thousand prisoners.

"But look at the French boys at Verdun! As for clothes, one had a helmet, another a hat, or a cap, or was bareheaded. One had red trousers, one had gray trousers and one had fought until he had only rags left. When they got within ten rods of the German trench they were so anxious to reach the Boche that they forgot to shoot and lifted up their big bayonets, while they shouted, 'For God and France!'

"That night when that French division came back ten thousand strong they brought more than ten thousand German prisoners with them to spend the night inside of barbed wire fences.

"The reason is this: These Frenchmen fought for home and fireside. They fought against an invader who had murdered their daughters and mothers. The Huns will never defeat France. Before that could be done," exclaimed the English captain, "there would not be a man left in France to explain the reason for his defeat."

3. "I Am Only His Wife"

Human life holds many wonderful hours. Love, marriage, suffering, trouble, are crises full of romance and destiny, but I question whether any man ever passed through an experience more thrilling than the hour in which he stands at the Charing Cross or Waterloo Station in London or in the great station in Paris and watches the hospital trains come in, loaded with wounded soldiers brought in after a great battle.

Often fifty thousand men and women line the streets for blocks, waiting for the trains. Slowly the wounded boys are lifted from the car to the cot. Slowly the cot is carried to the ambulance. The nurses speak only in whispers. The surgeons lift the hand directing them. You can hear the wings of the Angel of Death rustling in the air.

When the automobile carrying two wounded boys moves down the street, the men and women all uncover while you hear whispered words, "God bless you!" from some father or mother who see their own son in that boy.

Now and then some young girl with streaming eyes timidly drops a flower into the front of the ambulance—pansies for remembrance and love—upon a boy whom she does not know, while she thinks of a boy whom she knows and loves who is somewhere in the trenches of France.

One morning a young nurse in the hospital in Paris received a telegram. It was from a young soldier, saying: "My pal has been grievously wounded. He is on the train that will land this afternoon. He has a young wife and a little child. You will find them at such and such a street. I do not know whether he will live to reach Paris. Can you see that they are at the station to meet him? That was his last whispered request to me."

That afternoon at five o'clock, with her face pressed between the iron bars, a young French woman, with a little boy in her arms, was looking down the long platform. Many, many cots passed by, and still he did not come. At last she saw the nurse. The young wife did not know that her soldier husband had died while they lifted him out of the car.

The young nurse said that she never had undertaken a harder task than that of lifting the boy in her own arms and leading the French girl to that cot, that she might know that henceforth she must look with altered eyes upon an altered world. A few minutes passed by and then a miracle of hope had happened.

"I saw her," said the nurse, "with one hand upon his hair and the other stretched upward as she exclaimed: 'I am only his wife, France is his mother! I am only his wife, France is his mother! I give him to France, the mother that reared him!'"

4. A Soldier's Funeral in Paris

The two boys were incredibly happy. Two mornings before they had landed in Paris. What a reception they had had in the soldiers' club from the splendid French women! How good the hot bath had seemed! Clean linen, a fresh shave, a good breakfast, a soft cot, plenty of blankets, twenty-four hours' sleep, and they had wakened up new men. The first morning they walked along the streets, looking into the shop windows; in the afternoon one of the ladies took them to a moving picture show, and now on the second day here they were, at a little table before the cafe in one of the best restaurants in the Latin Quarter, with good red wine and black coffee, and plenty of cigarettes, and not even the boom of cannon to disturb their conversation. Strange that in three days they could have passed from the uttermost of hell to the uttermost of safety and peace. "These are good times," said one of the boys, "and we are in them."

Then they heard a policeman shouting. Looking up, they saw a singular spectacle. Just in front of them was a poor old hearse drawn by two horses, whose black trappings touched the ground. Shabbier hearse never was seen. Strangest of all, there was only a little, thin, black-robed girl walking behind the hearse. There were no hired mourners as usual. There was no large group of friends walking with heads bared in token of reverence; there was no priest; no carriages followed after. Saddest of all, there was not even a flower. What could these things mean? How strange that when they were so happy this little woman could be so sad.

Suddenly one of the soldier boys arose. He stepped into the street and looked into the hearse. There he saw these words: "A soldier of France." He began to question the woman. Lifting her veil, he saw a frail girl, and while the traffic jam increased she told her story. The soldier had been wounded at the Battle of the Marne. He was one of the first to be brought to Paris. He never walked again. "I am very poor; I have only one franc a day. We have no friends. I borrowed money for the hearse."

The boy returned to his fellows. "Fall in line, boys!" he shouted. "Here is a soldier of France. This little girl has taken care of him for three years on one franc a day. Line up, everybody, and tell the men to swallow their coffee and wine and fall into the procession. Go into the shops and say that a soldier of France lies here." When that hearse began to move there were twenty men and women walking as mourners behind the body. Two soldier boys walked beside the frail little girl with her heavy crepe. As the soldiers walked along beside the hearse the procession began to grow. On and on for two long miles this slowly moving company increased in number until one hundred were in line, and when they came into God's Acre they buried the poor boy as if he were a king coming in with trumpets from the battle. For he was a soldier of France.

5. The Old Book-Lover of Louvain

Among the fascinating pursuits of life we must make a large place for the collection of old books, old paintings, old missals and curios. Certain cities, like Venice, Florence, Rome, Naples, and Madrid, have been for a thousand years like unto the Sargasso Sea in which beautiful things have drifted.

Fifty years ago, men of leisure began to collect these treasures. Some made their way into Egypt and Palestine, and there uncovered temples long buried in sands and ruins and all covered with debris. From time to time old missals were found in deserted monasteries, marbles were digged up in buried palaces. Men came back from their journeys with some lovely terra cotta, some ivory or bronze, some painting by an old master, whose beauty had been hidden for centuries under smoke and grime. The enthusiasm of the collectors exceeds the zest of men searching for gold and diamonds amid the sands of South Africa.

Fifty years ago a young scholar of Louvain won high praise because of his skill in dating and naming old pictures and manuscripts. When ten years had passed by, this scholar's name and fame were spread all over Europe. Many museums in different countries competed for his services.

The time came when the heads of galleries in London and Paris and Rome sent for this expert to pass upon some art object. During the fifty years this scholar came to know every beautiful treasure in Europe.

In the old castles of Austria, in a monastery of Bohemia, in the house of an ancient Italian family, in certain second-hand bookstores, in out-of-the-way towns he found treasures as precious as pearls and diamonds raked out of the muck-heap.

When death took away his only son and left his little grandchildren dependent upon himself the old book-lover looked forward serenely into the future. He knew that every year his treasures were growing more and more valuable. Living in his home in Louvain he received from time to time visits from experts, who came in from all the cities of the world to see his treasures, and if possible, to buy some rare book.

Then, in August, 1914, came the great catastrophe, as came the explosion of Vesuvius that buried Pompeii under hot ashes and flaming fire.

One morning the old scholar was startled by the noise and confusion in the street. Looking down from his window he saw German soldiers, German horsemen, German cannon. He beheld women and children lined up on the sidewalk. He saw German soldiers assault old men. He saw them carrying the furniture, rugs and carpets out of the houses. He saw the flames coming out of the roofs of houses a block away.

A moment later an old university professor pounded upon his door and called out that they must flee for their lives. There was only time to pick out one satchel and fill it with his precious manuscripts and costly missals. Then the two old scholars fled into the street with the grandchildren. Fortunately a Belgian driving a two-wheeled coal cart was passing by. Into the cart climbed the little grandchildren. Carefully the satchel filled with its treasures was also lifted into place.

At that moment a German shell exploded beside the cart. When the old book-lover recovered consciousness the cart was gone, the grandchildren were dead and of all his art treasures there was left only one little book upon which some scholar of the twelfth century had toiled with loving hands.

Carried forward among the refugees several hours later, Belgian soldiers lifted the old man into a train that was carrying the wounded down to Havre. In his hand the collector held the precious book. Excitement and sorrow had broken his heart. His mind also wandered. He was no longer able to understand the cosmic terror and blackness. A noble officer, himself wounded, put his coat under the old man's head and made a pillow and bade him forget the German beast, the bomb shells, the blazing city. But all these foul deeds and all dangers now were as naught to the old man.

"See my little book," he said. "How beautiful the lettering! Why, upon this book, as upon a ship, civilization sailed across the dark waters of the Middle Ages. Look at this book of beauty. The ugliness of the tenth century is dead. The cruelty and the slavery of bloody tyrants is dead also. The old cannon are quite rusted away. But look at this! Behold, its beauty is immortal! Everything else dies. Soon all the smoke and blood will go, but beauty and love and liberty will remain."

And then lifting the little book the old collector of Louvain pressed his lips to the vellum page, bright with the blue and crimson and gold of seven hundred years, and in a moment passed to the soul's summer land, where no shriek of German shells rends the air, where wicked Germans have ceased from troubling and where the French and Belgians, worn by the cruelty of the Huns, are now at rest and peace.

6. A Vision of Judgment in Martyred Gerbeviller

To-day everybody knows the story of Gerbeviller, the martyred.

To the northwest is that glorious capital of Lorraine, Nancy. Farther northwest are Verdun and Toul, with our American boys. The region round about the martyred town is a region of rich iron ores.

Some years ago, Germany found herself at bay, by reason of the threatened exhaustion of her iron mines in Alsace-Lorraine. The news that France had uncovered new beds of iron ore stirred Germany to a frenzy of envy and longing.

High grade iron ore meant a new financial era for France. The exhaustion of Germany's iron mines meant industrial depression, and finally a second and third rate position. Rather than lose her place Germany determined to go to war with France and Belgium and grab their iron mines. To break down resistance on the part of the French people, the Germans used atrocities that were fiendish beyond words. The richer the province she wished to steal, the more terrible her cruelties.

At nine o'clock in the morning on August 27, General Clauss and 15,000 soldiers entered Gerbeviller. Ten miles to the south was the remainder of the German army, utterly broken by the French attack. Clauss had been sent north to dig his trenches until the rest of the German army could retreat.

Every hour was precious. The Germans remained in the little town from 9 A. M. until 12:30 P. M. They found in the village thirty-one hundred women, girls and children, fifteen old men (the eldest ninety-two), one priest and one Red Cross ambulance driver. Even the little boys and men under seventy had gone to the front to dig ditches and carry water to the French.

It took the Germans only two and one-half hours to loot all the houses and load upon their trucks the rugs, carpets, chairs, pictures, bedding, with every knife and fork and plate. At half-past eleven General Clauss was in the Mayor's house, when the German colonel came in and reported that everything in the houses had been stripped and that they were ready to begin the firing of the buildings.

The aged wife of the secretary to the Mayor told me this incident:

"We find no weapons in the houses, and we find only these fifteen old men, one Red Cross boy, and this priest," said the colonel.

"Line up the old men then and shoot them," shouted General Clauss. "Take the priest as a prisoner to do work in the trenches."

The old men were lined up on the grass. General Clauss himself gave the signal to fire. Two German soldiers fired bullets into each one of the old men.

One of the heart-broken onlookers was the village priest. The Germans carried him away as prisoner and made him work as a common labourer; through rain and sun, through heat and snow, he toiled on, digging ditches, carrying burdens, working eighteen hours a day, eating spoiled food that the German soldiers would not touch, until finally tuberculosis developed and he was sick unto death. Then the Germans released him as a refugee, so the priest returned to Gerbeviller to die.

Then came the anniversary of the murder of the fifteen old men and of the one hundred and two women, girls and children. On the anniversary day of the martyrdom the noble Governor of the province assembled the few survivors for a memorial service about the graves of the martyrs.

Knowing that the priest would never see another anniversary of that day the Prefect asked the priest to give the address at the memorial service. No more dramatic scene ever occurred in history. At the beginning the priest told the story of the coming of the Germans, the looting of the houses, the violation of the little girls, the collecting of the dead bodies. Suddenly the priest closed his eyes, and all unconsciously he lived the scene of those three and a half hours.

"I see our fifteen heroes standing on the grass. I see the German soldiers lifting up their rifles. I hear General Clauss cursing and shouting the command to fire.

"I see you, Thomas; a brutal soldier tears your coat back. He puts his rifle against your heart. When you sink down I see your hands come together in prayer.

"I see you, Francois. I see the two big crutches on which you lean. You are weary with the load of ninety years. I hear your granddaughter when she sobs your name, and I see your smile, as you strive to encourage her.

"I see you, Jean. How happy you were when you came back with your wealth to spend your last years in your native town! How kind you were to all our poor. Ah! Jean, you did us good and not evil, all the days of your life with us!

"I see you, little Marie. You were lying upon the grass. I see your two little hands tied by ropes to the two peach trees in your mother's garden. I see the little wisp of black hair stretched out under your head. I see your little body lying dead. With this hand of mine upon that little board, above your grave, I wrote the words, 'Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.'

"And yonder in the clouds I see the Son of Man coming in His glory with His angels. I see the Kaiser falling upon Gerbeviller. I see Clauss falling upon our aged Mayor. But I also see God arising to fall upon the Germans. Berlin, with Babylon the Great, is fallen. It has become a nest of unclean things. There serpents dwell. Woe unto them that offend against my little ones. For, lo, a millstone is hanged about their necks and they shall be drowned in the sea with Satan."

The excitement was too much for the priest. That very night he died. Henceforth he will be numbered among the martyrs of Gerbeviller.

7. The Return of the Refugees

The return of the refugees to Belgium and France holds the essence of a thousand tragedies. From the days of Homer down to those of Longfellow, with his story of Evangeline, literature has recounted the sad lot of lovers torn from one another's arms and all the rest of their lives going every whither in search of the beloved one, only to find the lost and loved when it was too late.

But nothing in literature is so tragic as the events now going on from week to week in the towns on the frontier of Switzerland.

When the Germans raped Belgium and northern France they sent back to the rear trenches the young women and the girls, and now, from time to time, those girls, all broken in health, are released by the Germans, who send them back to their parents or husbands.

Multitudes of these girls have died of abuse and cruelty, but others, broken in body and spirit, are returning for an interval that is brief and heart-breaking before the end comes.

Three weeks ago an old friend returned from his Red Cross work in France. By invitation of a Government official he visited a town on the frontier through which the refugees released by Germany were returning to France.

It seemed that during the month of September, 1914, the Germans had carried away a number of girls and young women in a village northeast of Luneville. When the French officials finished their inquiry as to the poor, broken creatures returning to France they found a French woman, clothed in rags, emaciated and sick unto death. In her arms she held a little babe a few weeks old. Its tiny wrists were scarcely larger than lead pencils. The child moaned incessantly. The mother was too thin and weak to do more than answer the simple questions as to her name, age, parents, and husband.

Moved with the sense of compassion, the French official soon found in his index the name of her husband, the number of his company and telegraphed to the young soldier's superior officer, asking that the boy might be sent forward to the receiving station to take his wife back to some friend, since the Germans had destroyed his village. By some unfortunate blunder the officials gave no hint of the real facts in the case.

Filled with high hope, burning with enthusiasm, exhaling a happiness that cannot be described, the bronzed farmer-soldier stepped down from the car to find the French official waiting to conduct him to one of the houses of refuge where his young wife was waiting.

My American Red Cross friend witnessed the meeting between the girl and her husband. When the fine young soldier entered the room he saw a poor, broken, spent, miserable creature, too weak to do more than whisper his name. When the young man saw that tiny German babe in his young wife's arms he started as if he had been stung by a scorpion. Lifting his hands above his head, he uttered an exclamation of horror. In utter amazement he started back, overwhelmed with revulsion, anguish and terror.

Gone—the beauty and comeliness of the young wife! Gone her health and allurement! Perished all her loveliness! Her garments were the garments of a scarecrow. Despite all these things the girl was innocent. But she realized her husband's horror and mistook it for disgust. She pitched forward unconscious upon the floor before her husband could reach her.

The history of pain contains no more terrible chapter. That night the dying girl told the French officials and her husband the crimes and indignities to which she had been subjected. Two other babes had been born under German brutality, and both had died, even as this infant would die, and when a few days later her husband buried her he was another man. The iron in him had become steel. The blade of intellect had become a two-edged sword. His strength had become the strength of ten. He decided not to survive this war. Going back to the front, he consecrated his every day to one task—to kill Germans and save other women from the foulest degenerates that have ever cursed the face of the earth.

8. An American Knight in France

Coming around the corner of the street in a little French village near Toul, I beheld an incident that explained the all but adoring love given to our American boys by the French children. The women and the girls of that region had suffered unspeakable things at the hands of the German swine. Photographs were taken of the dead bodies of girls that can never be shown. The terror of the women at the very approach of the German was beyond all words. The very words "Les Boches" send the blood from the cheeks of the children. The women of the Dakotas on hearing that the Sioux Indians were on the war-path with their scalping knives were never so terrified as the French girls are on hearing the German soldiers are on the march. Even the little children have black rings under their eyes, with a strained, tense expression as they stand tremulous and ready to run.

On the sidewalk near me was a little French girl of about six, with her little brother, perhaps four years of age. Suddenly around the corner came an American boy in khaki. He was swinging forward with step sure and alert. The children turned, but there was no terror in their eyes and no fear in their hearts. They did not know the American soldier; never before had they seen his face, but his khaki meant safety. It meant a shield lifted between the German monster and themselves. Forgetting everything, the little French girl started on a run towards the American soldier, while her little brother came hobbling after. She ran straight to the American boy, flung her arms around his legging, rubbed her cheek against his trousers and patted his knee with her little hands. A moment later when her little brother came up the American boy stooped down, lifted the boy and girl into his arms, and while they were screaming with delight carried them across to a little shop, and found for them two tiny little cakes of chocolate, the only sweet that could be had. The French children understand.

The German motto was: "Frightfulness and terrorism are the very essence of our new warfare."

Pershing's charge was: "You will protect all property, safeguard all lives, lift a shield above the aged, be most courteous to the women, most tender and gentle to the children."

In France our boys have lifted a shield above the poor and the weak, and, having given service, they are receiving a degree of love beyond measure; but there is no danger that they will be spoiled by the adulation of the French women and children, who rank them with the knights and the heroes of old.

9. An American Soldier's Grave in France

One August morning I was in the wheat fields near Roye. Somewhere in that field the body of a noble American boy was lying. He was a graduate of the University of Virginia; his mother and his sister had a host of friends in my old home city, Chicago. Guided by a white-haired priest, out in the wheat we found at last a little mound with a part of a broken airplane lying thereupon. I pulled the rest of his machine upon his grave and learned that when the French boys picked him up they found that four explosive bullets had struck him while flying in the air after his victory over many German enemies.

With my knife I cut a sheaf of golden grain and an armful of scarlet poppies and said a prayer for the boy and his mother and his sister.

Standing there in the rain I wrote a letter to those who loved him, saying: "When you see this head of wheat, say to yourself 'One grain going into the ground shall in fifteen summers ripen into bread enough to feed sixteen hundred millions of the family of men.' When you look at this pressed poppy, say, 'His blood like red rain went to the root to make the flowers crimson and beautiful for all the world; soon the fields of France shall wave like a Garden of God, and peace and plenty shall dwell forever there. "Without shedding of blood there is no remission." Wine means the crushing of the grapes. At great price our fathers bought Liberty.'"

Two thousand years ago Cicero, sobbing above the dead body of his daughter Tullia, exclaimed: "Is there a meeting place for the dead?" What becomes of our soldier boys who died on the threshold of life? This is life's hardest problem. Where is that young Tullia so dear to that gifted Roman orator? Where is that young musician Mozart? Where is young Keats? And where is Shelley? And where are young McConnell and Rupert Brooke and young Asquith? And ten thousand more of those young men with genius. Where also is that young Carpenter of Nazareth, dead at thirty years of age?

The answer is in this: They have passed through the black waters and have come into the summer land. There they have been met by the heroes coming out with trumpets and banners to bring them into a world unstained by the smoke and din of battle. There they will write their books, invent their tools, complete their songs and guide the darkling multitudes who come in out of Africa, out of the islands of the sea, into the realm of perfect knowledge, love and peace.

10. "These Flowers, Sir, I Will Lay Them Upon My Son's Grave"

Last August, at an assembly in Paris, Ambassador Sharp held a little company spellbound, while he related several incidents of his investigations in the devastated region near Roye. One afternoon the captain stopped his military automobile upon the edge of what had once been a village. Surveyors were tracing the road and making measurements in the hope of establishing the former location of the cellar and the house that stood above it. An old gray-haired Frenchman had the matter in charge. He had lost the cellar of his house. Also, the trees that had stood upon his front sidewalk, also his vines and fruit trees. His story as stated by Ambassador Sharp was most pathetic. The old man had retired from business to the little town of his childhood. When it became certain that the Germans would take the village, the man pried up a stone slab in the sidewalk and buried his money, far out of sight. A long time passed by. When the Hindenburg plans were completed, the Germans made their retreat. Among other refugees who returned was the aged Frenchman. To his unbounded amazement the old man could not locate the site of his old home. In bombarding the little village, the Germans dropped huge shells. These shells fell into the cellar, and blew the brick walls away. Other shells fell in the front yard, and blew the trees out by the roots. Later other shells exploding blew dirt back into the other excavations. Little by little, the ground was turned into a mass of mud. Not a single landmark remained. Finally the old man conceived the idea of beginning back on the country road, and measuring what he thought would have been the distance to his garden. But even that device failed him. For the huge shells had blown the stone slab into atoms, scattered his buried treasure, and left the man in his old age penniless and heart-broken.

Long ago Dumas represented the man who had taken too much wine as trying in vain to enter his own home, explaining to his inebriated friend that the keyhole was lost. But think of a cellar that is lost! Think of shade trees, whose very roots have disappeared! Think of a lovely little French garden with its roses and vines, and fruit trees, all gone! "Why, the very well was with difficulty located," said the Ambassador. But after all, the loss of buried treasure that could never be found is only a faint emblem of the loss of human bodies and human minds. Think of the soldiers who have returned to find that the young wife or daughter whom they loved has disappeared forever! And think of the wives and sweethearts who have received word from their officers that the great shell exploded and killed the lover, but that no fragment of his body could be found! During one day Mr. Chamberlain and myself were driven through twenty-four series of ruins, that once had been towns and villages, but where there was nothing left but cellars filled with twisted iron and blackened rafters. Already, men are anticipating the hour of victory and talking about the reconstruction of the devastated regions, the enforced service of a million German factories, building up what once they had torn down. But the restoring of houses, the restoration of factory and schoolhouse, of church and gallery, represent a material recovery. But the other day, a French woman was invited before the general who decorated the widow and praised her, returning to her the thanks of France, in that her last and seventh son had just been killed. Her response was one of the most moving things in history. "I have given France my all. These flowers, ah, sir, I have but one use for them. I will take them out, and lay them on my son's grave."

11. The Courage of Clemenceau

One Sunday afternoon, last August, in Paris, Alexandre, head of the Fine Arts Department of the Government, brought me an invitation from Rodin to visit his studio. We found the successor to Michael Angelo turning over in his hand an exquisite little head of Minerva, goddess of wisdom, carved with the perfection of a lily or a rose. "He is always studying something," exclaimed the author. But what Rodin wanted us to see was his head of Clemenceau. When the covering was lifted, there stood the very embodiment of the man who is supreme in France to-day,—Clemenceau. The sculptor's face kindled and lighted up. "The lion of France!" How massive the features! How glorious the neck and the shoulders! Clemenceau makes me think of a stag, holding the wolves at bay, while his herd finds safety in flight. He makes me think of the lion, roaring in defence of his whelps. Our descendants will say, of a truth there were giants in those days, and among the giants we must make a large place for Clemenceau.

The invincible courage of Clemenceau is in the challenge he has just flung out to the enemies of France. Reduced to simple terms it comes to this,—"It is said that the Germans can get within bombing distance of Paris, or reach the capital, providing they are willing to pay the price. Well,—the Allies can break through the German line and gain the Rhine, providing they are willing to pay the price. To destroy Paris means a price of 750,000 Germans at least. The probabilities are that so heavy a price would mean a political revolution in Germany. But what if Ludendorff gets to Paris? Rome was twice destroyed, and later the city of brick was rebuilt as a city of marble. Nearly fifty years ago the people of Paris destroyed their own city, at an expense of hundreds of millions of francs. The motive back of the destruction was the desire to replace an old and ugly city by a new and the most beautiful city in the world. Fire destroyed Chicago, intellect rebuilt it,—earthquake and flame levelled San Francisco, courage restored the ruins. Enemies may destroy Paris, genius and French art and skill and industry and will, will replace it. Our eyes are fixed on the goal, namely, the crushing of Prussianism. What if Paris must decrease? It will only mean that civilization in France, and humanity, will increase." Reduced to the simplest terms, that is the substance of Clemenceau's appeal. Never was there courage more wonderful. Not even Leonidas at Thermopylae ever breathed nobler sentiments. That is why Paris is safe to-day. That is why France is secure. That is why we await with confidence and quietness the next great offensive for the Germans.

In her darkest hour what France and the world needed was a hero, a man of oak and rock, a great heart, a lion,—and the world found such a man in Clemenceau. Nothing fascinates the listeners like tales of courage. Not even stories of love and eloquence have such a charm for children and youth. Many of us remember that in our childhood the crippled soldier of the Civil War became a living college, teaching bravery to the boys of the little town. For months Clemenceau has been going up and down France, heartening the people. This Prime Minister with his great massive head, the roaring voice, the clenched fist, is an exhilarating spectacle. That hero of Switzerland, William Tell, left behind him a tradition that it meant much to him to waken each morning and find Mont Blanc standing firm in its place. Not otherwise all patriots, soldiers, and lovers of their fellow men to-day can look on the great French statesman and patriot and gather comfort and courage from the fact that he still stands firmly in his place.



OUR BRITISH ALLIES

V

1. "Gott Strafe England"—"and Scotland"

At the crossroads near the city of Ypres is a sign-board giving the directions and the distances to various towns. One day the Germans captured that highway.

There was a man in the company who had lived in some German-American city of the United States. He knew that but for England Germany would have gotten through to the Channel towns and looted Paris. Climbing up on the sign-board that German-American wrote in good plain English these words: "God —— England!"

That afternoon the Australian and the New Zealand army pushed the Germans back and recaptured the highway. Among other soldiers was a Scotsman named Sandy.

He read the sign, "God —— England!" with ever increasing anger. Finally he flung his arms and legs around the sign-post, pulled himself up to the top and, while his companions watched him, they saw him do a most amazing thing.

They were cheering him because they expected him to rub out the word "England." But not Sandy! Holding on by his left hand, with his right Sandy added to the words "God —— England!" these words, "and Scotland."

He felt that it was an outrage that Scotland should be overlooked in any good thing. Blessed was the people who had won the distinction of being hated by the German, and therefore Sandy added the words "and Scotland"!

Now Scotland deserved that high praise. When the historian comes to write the full story of this great war it will make a large place for the words "and Scotland." Wonderful the heroism of the British army! Marvellous their achievements! But who is at the head of it? A great Scotsman, Sir Douglas Haig.

What stories fill the pages of the achievements of English sailors ever since the days of Nelson, standing on the deck of the Victory, down to the battle of Jutland! But that gallant Scot, Admiral Beatty, holds the centre of the stage to-day. There came a critical moment also when a man of intellect and a great heart must represent Great Britain in her greatest crisis in the United States, and in that hour they sent a Scotsman, Arthur James Balfour, philosopher, metaphysician, theologian, statesman, diplomat and seer.

And what shall one more say save that the finances of this war have been controlled by a Scotch Chancellor of the Exchequer, and her railways organized by a Scotch inventor. Wonderful the achievements of England—that "dear, dear land." Marvellous the contribution of Wales, through men like the Prime Minister, Lloyd George!

Who can praise sufficiently the heroes of Canada, Australia and New Zealand? In Ireland, for the moment, things are in a muddle. "What is the trouble with the Emerald Isle?" was the question, to which the Irishman made instant reply: "Oh, in South Ireland we are all Roman Catholics, and in North Ireland we are all Protestants, and I wish to heaven we were all agnostics, and then we could live together like Christians."

But Ireland will soon iron out her troubles. To the achievements of the various people of the great British Empire let us make a large place for the contributions of Scotland. The Germans hate with a deadly hatred any country and any race that has stopped them in their headlong career towards crime.

But the next time that a German-American has gone back to Berlin and has reached the western front and puts up a sign reading "Gott strafe England" let him not fail to add these words, "and Scotland."

2. "England Shall Not Starve"

Despite all warnings, rumours, and alarms, no dire peril known to passengers disturbed our voyage. The nearest approach came on a morning when the ship was two hundred miles off the coast of Ireland.

The steamer was making a letter S and constantly zigzagging, when suddenly the lookout called down that there was a rowboat dead ahead. With instant decision the officer changed the ship's course and we passed the life-boat a half mile upon our right.

The usual rumour started up and down the deck that there were dead bodies in the boat, but the petty officer answered my question by saying that it was 2,000 lives against one possible life that every drifting boat must be looked upon as a German decoy; that if the steamer stopped to send sailors with a life-boat to investigate it would simply give a German submarine a chance to come up with torpedoes. At that very moment one of the men beside the gun sighted a periscope and a moment later the gun roared and then boomed a second time and then a third. Because the object disappeared, all passengers said it was a submarine, but the officers said it was a piece of driftwood, tossed up on the crest of a wave.

That night, on deck, a close friend of the purser came for an hour's walk around the deck. The memory of those three shots rested heavily upon his mind.

It seemed that some months before he had been a purser on an East Indian liner. On the home voyage, twenty-four hours after they left Cairo, when well out into the Mediterranean, this officer went below for an hour's rest. Suddenly a torpedo struck the steamer. The force of the explosion literally blew the purser out of his berth. Grabbing some clothes, he ran through the narrow passageway, already ankle deep in rushing water. The great ship carried several thousand soldiers and a few women who were coming home from India or from Egypt. Despite the fact that all realized the steamer would go down within a few minutes, there was no confusion and the soldiers lined up as if on parade.

The boat went down in about eight minutes, but every one of the women and children had on their life-preservers and were given first places in the life-boats that had not been ruined by the explosion.

The purser said that he decided to jump from the deck and swim as far as possible from the steamer, but despite his struggles he was drawn under and came up half unconscious to find himself surrounded with swimming men and sinking rowboats that were being shelled by the German submarine. Suddenly a machine-gun bullet passed through his right shoulder and left an arm helpless. For half an hour he lay with his left arm upon a floating board, held up by his life-preserver. The submarine had disappeared. At distances far removed were three of the ship's boats and one raft. It was plain that there was no help in sight.

Near him was a woman, to whom he called. The purser told the woman that he had been shot in the right arm and could not help her nor come near to her. She answered that it was good to hear his voice.

The water was very cold. He began to be alarmed and reasoned as to whether the cold water would not stay the bleeding. From time to time he would call out to the woman to keep up hope and courage and not to struggle, but at last he saw she was exhausted. With infinite effort, swimming with his left arm, he managed to draw near to her.

"Is drowning very painful?" the woman asked.

"No," answered the officer. "Once the water rushes into the lungs one smothers."

To which the English girl answered, "Then I think I will not wait any longer. Good-bye! Good luck!"

Utterly exhausted she let her head fall over and in a moment the life-preserver was on the top and that was all that he saw.

"The next thing I remember," said the officer, "was waking up to find a nurse trying to pour a stimulant down my throat."

A destroyer had come up in response to the signals for help and picked up the survivors.

For months he was in the hospital before he could be carried to England. Even now he was not able to lift a hat from his head with his right arm, but he could write a little. This was his first voyage to test his strength to prove to the Government that he could take his old task as purser.

"How did you feel, purser, when you heard that cannon roar this morning against that submarine?"

You should have seen the fire flash in the man's eyes.

"How did I feel?" answered the officer. "I felt like a race-horse snuffing the battle from afar. Let them sink this ship—I will take another. Let them sink every steamer, I'll take a sailing vessel. Let them sink all our sailing vessels, we will betake ourselves to tugs.

"We have 5,000 steamers that come and go between any Sunday and Sunday. Some are old cattle-boats, some are sea tramps and some are ocean hounds. They have carried 10,000,000 men and 20,000,000 tons of war materials, and 8,000,000 tons of iron ore and $3,000,000,000 worth of goods.

"We have lent six hundred ships to France and four hundred ships to Italy. Our ancestors smashed the Spanish Armada. Our grandfathers baffled Napoleon and their sons defy the Hun and his submarine.

"When I go down my son will take my place. When Germany beats England there will not be an Englishman left to tell how it happened."

Then, leaning over the railing of the ship, the officer pointed to the setting sun, and lo, right out of the sea, sailing into our sight, came a fleet of English merchantmen, laden with wheat, and the purser said:

"By God's help, England shall not starve."

3. German-Americans Who Vilify England

The biography of Grant holds many exciting incidents. One of them concerns a spy who nearly wrecked Grant's plans. It seems that a rumour came saying that Sheridan had been defeated at Winchester. A telegram came a few minutes later saying that Sheridan was recovering from the disaster. Meanwhile, Grant noticed one of his young assistants was endeavouring in vain to conceal his pleasure over the news of Sheridan's defeat. That feeling seemed inexplicable to Grant. The Commander-in-Chief had three armies—Sherman's in the South, Sheridan's in the Valley of the Shenandoah, and his own army of the Potomac. How could a young aide rejoice over Sheridan's defeat without down in his heart wanting Grant defeated, the Union destroyed, and secession made a success? Grant became more and more alarmed. He told one of his associates to follow this youth, whom he feared was a spy. Shortly afterwards the man was discovered sending signals, was tried, the proofs of his treason uncovered, and finally he was executed.

To-day certain German-Americans never tire of announcing their Americanism. Their favourite expression is: "Germany was the Fatherland, but the United States is the wife." Not daring, therefore, to attack our Government, afraid to confess that they want Germany to succeed, and when that time comes expect to hold certain offices under Germany, they spend all their time vilifying Great Britain. There is one absolute and invariable test of the German-American's treason to this country, and that is bitterness towards England, because England is doing all she can to prevent Germany's victory. One thing has saved this country during four years, giving us a chance to prepare—Great Britain's fleet, holding Germany's battle-ships behind the Kiel Canal. To-day our Republic is defended by three armies—General Pershing's, Marshal Foch's and Marshal Haig's. But whenever a German-American vilifies Haig and attacks England you may know that down in his heart he wants Pershing defeated, the United States conquered, and Germany made victorious. The German-American who vilifies Great Britain is angry because Great Britain has prevented Germany from loading a million German veterans upon her six or eight thousand passenger ships, freight ships, sailing vessels and war fleet, and sailing to New York and assessing fifty billion dollars indemnity upon us.

In a certain Western State a German professor of electricity resigned from his institution. He was receiving about $3,000 a year. Many months passed by. One day this man was heard defaming England. "England has destroyed the freedom of the seas. England controls Gibraltar and the Suez Canal. England is the great land pirate. England is the world butcher." A Secret Service man followed the German professor, and found that he was working as fireman at the wireless station of that great city. This German professor of electricity had resigned a $3,000 a year position to work for $75 a month as fireman. As soon as he found that the United States Government was upon his track he fled to Mexico. This spy's camouflage was love for the United States, but his treason was revealed through his hatred of England. That man should have been arrested at dark, tried at midnight, and shot at daybreak.

There is a newspaper reporter in this country. This German-American was caught by a trick. Another reporter faked a story, writing out on his typewriter an account of several German submarines getting into the harbour of Liverpool and blowing up half a dozen English steamers and killing several thousand Englishmen, and this German-American reporter lifted his hands into the air in glee, and in the presence of half a dozen fellow reporters shouted: "I knew it! I knew it! I knew the Germans would smash Hades out of them!" In that moment he revealed his real attitude towards the United States. Any man that wants Admiral Beatty defeated wants the American transports sunk and American soldiers murdered. That reporter should also have been arrested at dark, tried at midnight, and shot at daybreak.

In another city there is a young Irish writer. He fulfills all the proverbs about the crazy Irishman. In connection with the Sinn Fein conspiracy this young writer proposed a toast to the memory of Sir Roger Casement, the success of the revolution, and poured forth such bitterness upon England as cannot be described by those who hate ingratitude towards a country that has given us a chance to prepare. Wherever that man goes he carries hate with him towards Great Britain. His atmosphere is malign; his presence breathes treason towards England. That is another man who should have been arrested at dark, tried at midnight, and shot at daybreak. No man can serve God and Mammon. No man can be faithful to the United States who hates England and loves Germany. He must love the one and hate the other; he must hold to the one and despise the crimes of the other. No man can serve God and the Allies, Germany and the devil, at one and the same time.

4. British vs. American Girls in Munition Factories

To-morrow morning at eight o'clock one million British girls will enter the munition and related factories. To-morrow afternoon at four o'clock another million girls will enter the same factories, to be followed at midnight by the third shift of women.

These factories average forty feet wide, and end to end would be 100 feet in length. The roar of the machinery is never silent by day or night.

In one factory I saw a young woman who was closely related, through her grandfather, to a man in the House of Lords. Her arms were black with machine oil, her hair was under a rubber cover, she wore bloomers. Her task was pouring two tons of molten steel into the shell moulds. The great shells passed from the hands of one girl to another until the fiftieth girl, 1,500 feet away, finished the threads into which the cap's screw was fastened.

Every twenty-four hours these women turn out more small calibre cartridges than all England did the first year of this war. Every forty-eight hours they turn out more large cartridges than all England did the first year of this war. Every six days, with the help of men not fit for the battle front, they turn out more heavy cannon than all England did the first year of this war.

They have sent 17,000,900 tons of ammunition to the front. Their shells are roaring on five battle fronts in three continents. When the British boys thrust their huge shells into the cannon these boys literally receive the shells at the hands of the millions of English girls who are passing them forward.

Wonderful the heroism of the British soldiers! The reason why the men fight well at the front is because there are women at home worth fighting for. In all ages battles have been won, partly by the strong arm of the soldier, but chiefly by the heart that nerves the arm. That is why John Ruskin once said that "the woman in the rear generally wins the victory at the front."

It stirs one's sense of wonder to find that all classes and all social conditions are represented in these factories. Thousands of young school-teachers have left the schoolroom behind, closed the book and desk and gone to the factory. Tens of thousands of young wives and mothers have left their little children with the grandmother. Many rectors and clergymen and priests, unfit for service at the front by reason of age, work all day long in the munition factory. Many a professional man crowds his work in the office that he may reach the factory for at least a few hours' work upon shot and shell.

One day in France, as I was entering the factory, I saw perhaps twenty young women come out, hurry across the street to a building where two old crippled soldiers were taking care of the little children. These young mothers nursed their babes, looked after the other children and then hurried back to the factory. Every minute was precious; every day was big with destiny. Their young husbands and brothers and lovers, when the German push came, must have their cartridges and shells ready and in abundance.

Watching these women with their strained, anxious faces—women who cut each thread in the shell with the accuracy of the expert—you could see the lips of the woman murmuring, and needed no confession from her that she was silently praying for the man who would use this weapon to defend her beloved France, her aged mother and her little child.

When the beast is slain and the Potsdam gang tried and executed for their crimes, and the boys come home with trumpets and banners, the ovations will be for the soldiers; but after the soldiers have had their parade and their honour and their ovation on the first day of the triumph, there should be a second great parade, in which, while the soldiers stand on the streets and observe, and the merchants and working men and the professional classes stand as spectators, down the street shall march the munition girls, who fashioned the weapons with which the soldiers slew the common enemy.

For while the boys at the front have defended liberty the girls at home have armed the soldiers. Neither one without the other could have made the world safe for democracy.

Through the imagination these women have a right, while they toil, to watch the shell complete their work. The smith who forges the chain for the ship's anchor has a right to exult when he looks out through his imagination upon the great boat held firm by his chain in the hour when the storm threatened to hurl the craft upon the rocks. The inventor has a right to say: "That granary full of wheat is mine; I invented the reaper." The physician has a right to rejoice over the battle and victory over the youth whose life was saved by the surgeon's skill. Not otherwise, the munition girl has a right when the long day of battle is over to say: "I safeguarded that cottage; I lifted a shield above that little child; I built a wall against the cathedral and the gallery and the homes of yonder city."

For American girls of vision there is nothing that they so much desire as the immediate condemnation by our Government of 10,000 luxury-producing plants in this country, which should immediately be taken over by our Government for munition purposes, and before the daybreak of the first morning there would be ten million American girls standing before the doors, trying to break their way in to obtain a chance to fashion the shells that would protect American boys in danger at the front.

5. The Wolves' Den on Vimy Ridge

The bloodiest battle of 1917 was fought on the slopes of Vimy Ridge. That ridge is seven and a half miles long and is shaped like a dog's hind leg. Lifted up to an elevation of several hundred feet, the hill not only commands an outlook upon the German lines eastward, but protects the great plains that slope westward towards the English Channel.

To hold that ridge the Germans constructed a vast system of trenches, barbed wire barriers, Portland cement pill-boxes and underneath the ridge, at a depth of sixty feet, they made their prisoners dig a gallery seven and a half miles long, with rooms for the officers opening out on either side of the long passageways.

One morning the Canadian troops started up the long sloping hillside, under skies that rained cartridges, shells and gas bombs. So terrific was the machine-gun fire that some cartridges cut trees in two as if they had been cut with a saw, while others did not so much strike the Canadian boys as cut their bodies into two parts.

Lying upon their faces they crawled up the hillside, cutting the wires as they crept forward. Not until the second afternoon did the shattered remnants reach the German trench that crowned the hillcrest. Then they plunged down into the trench, while the Germans rushed down the long stairs into the underground chamber and fled through the lower openings of their long gallery northward towards safety.

Not until the Canadian officers led us into one of those German chambers did we understand the black tragedy. The room was shell-proof. The soft yellow clay was shored up by rough boards. All around the walls were bunks. In that chamber the German officers had kept the captive French and Belgian girls. There were two cupboards standing against the wall. One was made of rough boards; the other was a large, exquisitely carved walnut bureau for girls' garments. When the German officers fled from the trench above they had just time to escape to the lower shell-proof rooms, grab some of the treasure and flee. Unwilling to give these captive girls their freedom, since they could not have the girls they determined that their French and Belgian fathers and sweethearts should not recover them.

There was just time during the excitement of the flight to unlock the door, rush in and send a bullet through each young woman. A few minutes later the Canadian boys swarmed through the long connecting chambers and side rooms.

In one of those rooms they found these young women now dead or dying. Gas bombs had already been flung down and the rooms were foul with poisoned air. Protected by their masks the Canadian boys had time to pick up these girls and carry them up the steps into the open air, where they laid them down on the grass in the open sunshine. But help came too late. Beginning with an attempt to murder the souls of the girls the German officers had ended by slaying their bodies.

An officer saw to it that the official photographer kept the record of the faces of these dead girls. Once they must have been divinely beautiful, for all were lovely beyond the average. One could understand the pride and joy of a father or lover when he looked upon the young girl's face. The slender body made one think of the tall lily stem, crowned with that flower named the face and glorious head. Strangely enough they seemed to sleep as if peace had come, after long pain. Plainly death had been longed for.

Weeks passed by. The photographs of the dead girls were shown in the hope that if possible word might reach their parents, but no friend had been found to recognize them. One day a Canadian officer, making slow recovery in a hospital near the coast, was asked by his nurse for the photograph.

It seemed there was a Belgian woman working in the hospital. Her village had been entirely destroyed. Her home was gone and all whom she loved had disappeared. By some accident the Red Cross nurse remembered this photograph and decided to show it to the Belgian woman who had passed so swiftly from abundance and happiness to the utmost of poverty and heart-break. Almost unwillingly at first the woman looked at the print. A moment later she held the picture out at arm's length, rose to her feet, then drew it to her lips and hugged it to her breast.

With streaming eyes she almost shouted, "Thank God! Julia is dead! Thank God! Julia is dead! Now I know there is a God in Israel, for Julia is dead, is dead—is dead! Thank God! Thank God!"

Though for a long time the doves had been in the clutches of the German hawks; though for a long time the lambs had been in the jaws of the German wolves; when all else failed death came and released the lovely girls from the clutch of German assassins.

6. "Why Did You Leave Us in Hell for Two Years?"

For British soldiers it had been a long trying day on Messines Ridge. For many nights the boys had been coming up towards the front trenches. The next morning at 3:50 they were to go "over the top"; a feat which they accomplished, driving in a mile and a half deep, on a long, long line, only to be stopped by four days and nights of rain that drowned the trenches and drove them back out of the flooded valley to the hillside. Because the Germans knew what must come the next day, the German cannon were trying to bomb out the British guns.

That night—tired out—we drove back eighteen miles behind the line for one good night's sleep. After dinner an English lieutenant told me this tragic tale:

"It was an April night last spring. All day the wind and fog and rain had been coming in from the North Sea. The chill and damp went into the very marrow of the bones. When night fell a few of us officers crept down the long stair into a shell-proof room. There we had our pipes and gossiped about the events of the day and talked with the French captain, our guest, who was spending a week studying our sector. Finally the time came when we must go back into the trench to take our turn in the rain.

"We were putting on our raincoats, when in my happiness I said, 'Well, men, you should congratulate me. One week from to-night I shall not be here in this rain and mud. I shall be home in England and have my little wife and my baby girl. Just one week! It seems like seven eternities instead of seven days and nights!'

"I little dreamed the little tragedy that I had precipitated. My colonel was very kind. He told me that he would have his permission in three more months. The rest of the boys also said nice things. Suddenly we realized that the French captain was acting very strangely and saying excited things with his back towards us. We did not know how we had insulted him, nor could we understand what had happened. Finally my colonel said to him:

"'Captain, I hope you will have your vacation soon and have a chance to go home and see your family.'

"He turned on us like a crazy man. He put his fists in the air, he half shouted and half sobbed at us.

"'How do you men dare talk to me about going home? Your land has never been invaded, nor your families ruined. Home! How can I go home? The Germans have had my town for a year. In their retreat they carried away my little girl and my young wife, and now the priest has gotten word to me that in six weeks my little girl and my young wife will both have babes by the German beast who carried them off.'

"And then the Frenchman cursed God and cursed the devil! Cursed the Kaiser and cursed the Fatherland. Oh, it was so terrible. Doctor, I often wonder how Americans could have left the women and girls of Belgium and France in hell for two and a half years, while you men stood in safety and in peace."

The historian will find it hard to answer that question. History will have it to say that England was the good Samaritan who helped the Belgians who had fallen among thieves, while Americans were among those who passed by on the other side.

7. "This War Will End Within Forty Years"

A New Zealand officer was giving directions to a group of his soldiers. They were in the field at the foot of Bapaume. The immediate task was that of cutting and rolling up the barbed wire. In that territory the Germans had left trenches foul with fever, wells filled with the corpses of men and horses, springs polluted with every form of filth, but worst of all, the barbed wire entanglements. Every sharp point was covered with rust and threatened lockjaw. Looking in every direction, the whole land was yellow with the barbed wire. The work was dangerous. The rebound of the wire threatened the eye with its vision, threatened the face and the hand, and all the soldiers were in a mood of rebellion. In an angry mood, the officer exclaimed, "There are a hundred million miles of German barbed wire in France!"

And when later I asked the first lieutenant how long this war would last, he made the instant answer, "This war will continue forty years more! One year for the fighting, and thirty-nine years to roll up the wire."

Because every soldier at the front hated the wire entanglements, that bright sentence ran up and down the entire line from Belgium to the Swiss frontier. And for men of experience there is more truth in the statement than one would at first blush think. It will take one more year for the fighting, but it will take thirty-nine years more to grow the shade trees. Five centuries ago the French began to develop the love of the beautiful. On either side of the roads running across the land they planted two rows of poplars, oaks or elms. When long time had passed the fame of the French roads and the shade trees went out into all the earth. Under these trees the French farmer stopped his cart, fed his horses and refreshed himself beneath the shade. Under these trees the old men at the end of their career rested themselves, and gossiped about old friends that had gone.

And when the German found he could not hold the land and enjoy the shade trees, the splendid orchards, the purple vineyards, he determined that the Frenchman should not have them, and so he lifted the axe upon every peach and pear, plum and grape, cherry and gooseberry tree. Perhaps it was as black a crime to murder the land as it was to murder the bodies of the farmers, since the soul is immortal.

"One more year of fighting and thirty-nine years" not to roll up the wire, but to rebuild the cathedrals and churches, the colleges and universities, the halls of science, the temples of art, the mills for the weaving of cotton and linen and wool, and above all for the rebuilding of the railways, the reconstruction of the canals and the bridges, great and small. But the most grievous loss is the human loss. Think of 1,500,000 crippled heroes and poor wounded invalids in the land of France alone! Think of another 1,500,000 young widows, or lovers and mothers! Gone the young men who promised so great things for the French essay, the French poem, for the paintings and the bronzes! Dead the young lawyers, physicians and educators! Gone the young farmers and husbandmen! Perished 1,000,000 old people and 500,000 little children, all dead of heart-break. The German beast has been in the land. Like a wolf leaping into the sheepfold to tear the throats of the young lambs and the mother ewes.

What! Thirty-nine years more to recover ruined France and Belgium, Poland and Rumania? France will never be the same again. The scar of the beast will abide. That is why no man of large mind and great heart will ever make friends with a soldier from Germany, will ever buy an article of German stamp, so long as he lives, will ever read another German book, or support another German business. It is our duty to forgive the transgressor who is repentant, but it is a crime to forget the unspeakable atrocities, the devilish cruelties of the German Kaiser, the German War Staff and the German army, with its 10,000,000 criminals.

8. "Why Are We Outmanned by the Germans?"

Many thoughtful men have lingered long over the despatches announcing that Great Britain called thirty thousand farmers to the trenches, thus threatening the loss of a part of her harvest. One of the British editors and statesmen explains this event by the frank statement that for the moment the Allies are outmanned, and will be until another million Americans reach France. Many men are puzzled to understand what this means, but the explanation is very simple. The combined population of Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria is not far from 140,000,000. To this must be added seventy millions of conquered and impressed peoples of Belgium, Poland, Rumania, with the Baltic provinces of Russia, Ukraine and other regions. Over against this population stands the 125,000,000 living in Great Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the English people of South Africa, and India, and the Isles of the Sea. Concede, therefore, that the army of six millions of Allies are over against six millions of Germans. Why are we outmanned?

Back of that British editor-statesman's statement lies a most dramatic fact. Our Allies keep their treaties, and will not use German prisoners to fight against their brothers. Therefore the six million of Allies' soldiers have no support behind them. But the Germans impress all conquered peoples and lifted into the air if the observer had a glass powerful enough, he would behold back of the German six millions another six millions of impressed prisoners and conquered peoples, who support the German army. These men, driven forward by an automatic pistol and the rifle, work within half a mile of the rear German trench. They dig ditches, fill shell holes, repair roads, bring up burdens, care for the horses, scrub the mud from the wagons, and the slightest neglect of the task means that they are shot down by the German guards. All this releases the German soldier from the deadly work that breaks the nerve, and unfits a man to go over the top. That means that the German soldier can fight eight hours, and have sixteen for rest and recreation.

But over against this German army fighting eight hours, with the deadly work wrought by several million of impressed servants and slaves, stands the Allied army. But our men after eight hours of active service must then begin to dig ditches, fill shell holes, repair bridges, clean the mud from the wagons, bring up the munitions, and this deadly work for eight hours, added to their eight hours of active service, means only eight hours for sleep and recovery, while the German has sixteen hours off duty for recovery and sleep. The Allies keep their treaties, and do not ask a German prisoner to fight against his brother. The Allies obey the laws of right and wrong, but the Ten Commandments are a great handicap in time of war. Is there any one who supposes that six million of Allied soldiers, working sixteen hours a day, are as fresh and as fit as six million Germans, working only eight hours a day? That is why the situation is so perilous. Fortunately victories are not won by muscle without but by the soul within. The sense of justice in the heart lends a form of omnipotence to a youth. In a moral universe, therefore, we must win. The great problem is, how to carry on until we can get another million Americans across to France, with full equipment, and fifty thousand aeroplanes.



"OVER HERE"

VI

1. The Redemption of a Slacker

Out on the Ohio River there is a large steel town. During the last few years many foreigners who have the Bolsheviki spirit have crossed the ocean and found work in the great shops and factories. Little by little the foreign newspapers have developed the spirit that has now ruined Russia, and is here under the American name of the I. W. W. movement. In this steel city was an anarchist, with real power to move the mobs. The mere mention of the name of Carnegie or Rockefeller was to him like waving a red flag in the face of a bull. In the evenings it was his custom to climb upon a box at the corner of the street, close to a little park, and tell his hearers that all the wealth in the rich man's house was created by the workman's muscle. He made no allowance for the inventor, for the organizer, for the risks taken by the man who built a factory. A few weeks ago this anarchist laid down a newspaper, containing an account of the trial of the I. W. W. leaders in Chicago. That night, becoming alarmed, lest he himself be caught in the drag-net, and perhaps forced to enlist as an enemy alien, this agitator disappeared, leaving behind him his board bill, laundry bill, tailor's bill, not to mention many other forms of indebtedness—a disappearance that led every one of his creditors to give up any and all faith in the American Bolsheviki movement.

Now there was a young boy of about twenty-three who had long been listening to this agitator. When, therefore, the second night after the anarchist's disappearance came, this young man, who aspired himself to be a leader of the mob, climbed up on the soap box, at the corner of the little park, and began to speak to the same old crowd.

"Think of it, my friends! Just think of it! Think of some soldier coming in here and making me enlist! I have no grudge against the Germans. I don't want to kill them. My forefathers were all German! My name is German. And I am an American all right, all right! Still, I don't propose to have anybody tell me what I must do. If I want to enlist, I will enlist, and if I don't, I won't! I'd like to see some Government agent come along and grab me for the draft! When he comes, he'll hear a few things from me, and then some!"

At that point a man lifted up his hand and said: "Now you may stop right there!" Throwing back his coat collar, he showed a little metal badge. Climbing up on the box, the stranger took the young anarchist by his shoulder and half choked him, saying: "So you want to have the people see some one take you to the draft office? Well," said the officer, "now's the time for them to see him, and I'm the man. And you people," he went on, "just take a good look at this fellow. It'll be the last chance you're going to have, for he will be in jail to-night, and to-morrow we will decide whether or not he has been opposing the draft. If he has, he stands a good chance of being shot." Blowing a little whistle, the officer dragged the young anarchist to the edge of the street, half lifted and half kicked him into the police wagon, which soon disappeared. The enemy aliens who remained behind were stupefied, partly with astonishment and partly with terror. Aliens began to say, "What will come next?" That night a number more of pro-Germans disappeared from this town with its steel mills.

The next morning, at ten o'clock, the officer entered the jail. "Get a move on you, young man!" he said brusquely. "You're going up to the court to be examined to see whether you are a slacker or a traitor. In the one case you will be interned and in the other case you will be hanged or shot."

The young anarchist was on his feet in a moment. "But, officer, aren't you going to give me a chance to enlist?"

"Young man, this Government does not want traitors to enlist, nor pro-Germans."

"I am not a pro-German this morning," cried the excited man. "I have thought the whole thing over last night. I did not sleep a wink. I think this Government is the best government in the world. And I am willing to fight for it."

The officer was astounded. "Well, my young enemy," he exclaimed, "a dungeon seems to have had a good effect upon your mind. What has regenerated you? Was it the cold water or the corn bread? Or the steel door before your dungeon? Or was it the bad air in your cell? Or possibly it was the fear of death, or God Almighty, or future punishment. Come now, out with it!"

It was a thoroughly frightened boy who stood half an hour later in the prisoner's dock. "Give me some book on the Government of the United States," he exclaimed to the judge. "And give me a week in which to show that I am in earnest, and I will then volunteer." The judge was very grave. "Young man," he said sternly, "any boy that will eat the bread of the United States, that will enjoy the liberty of this country, and has had all the chances to climb to place that have come to you, and refuses to enlist, has something wrong with him, and it is only a question of time when he comes to the judgment day." To this the young man made the answer that he had been lazy, careless and ignorant; that he had allowed himself to become the tool of the runaway agitator, and then once more he asked that he might have a chance to enlist. With the help of friends, the judge and the draft board finally let him off and sent him to a camp for three months' intensive training. Then came the news that his company had been sent over seas, and within a short time thereafter in the list of casualties the name of this young foreigner appeared. But one letter reached this country, and that letter was notable for this sentence: "For the first time in my life I have had young Americans for my companions. The boys in my company have had a college education and they have taught me bravery, truth, self-sacrifice, kindness and chivalry. I have learned more in two months at the camp than in all the rest of my life put together. The companionship in my company and in my camp have saved my soul." It is this that explains the redemption of the slacker.

2. Slackers versus Heroes

Going through the long communication trench, between the ruined city of Rheims and an observation lookout, with its view of the German front trench, we passed several soldiers digging an opening in the soft white marl, into a parallel trench. The captain in charge called my attention to a French poilu. His hair was quite black, save for the half inch next to the scalp and that was white as snow. If one had lifted up his hair and estimated his age by the last two inches of the jet locks the poilu would have been about thirty-five, but the hair, pure white at the roots, and a glance at his face told us that he was fifty-five to sixty.

"He passed inspection," said the captain, "by dyeing his hair, and several weeks ago he broke the bottle of dye. Now he is half scared to death for fear he will be thrown out, because he is at the beginning of old age. Still I have no better soldier, no stronger, braver man. But I am hoping much from a friend in Epernay, to whom I sent for a bottle of black hair dye."

So long as the Frenchmen have that spirit France will never be defeated.

Many weeks ago I was in a manufacturing town near Pittsburgh. The wind was sharp and chill. All overcoats were turned up at the collar. On a box stood a young Australian lieutenant. His cheeks held two fiery spots. He was telling the story of the second battle of Ypres. While he talked you walked with him the streets of the doomed city, you heard the crash of the great shells as they smashed through the public buildings; you witnessed the burning of the Cloth Hall and shivered as the noble structure fell. One laughed with him in his moments of humour and wept over the sorrows of the refugees. He pleaded with the Welshmen and the Cornishmen, and told them that the motherland was bleeding to death and that now every boy counted. He flogged his hearers, scoffed at them, praised them, wept, laughed, reviled, transformed and finally conquered them.

At the close, shaking hands with him, lo! he was burning with fever, with skin hot and dry. "Lieutenant, you should be at the hotel, in bed. You will kill yourself speaking in this cold air."

"Well," he answered, "there are plenty of our boys who are perfectly sound who will be killed inside of three months. I have the t. b., (tuberculosis), but I believe that I can pull through a year. I have enlisted over one hundred coal miners from Wales and iron-workers from Cornwall. I am willing to die for the motherland, after a year of t. b., since my pals will be dead within three months through bullets. And when I die I want to die with the consciousness that I have kept my manhood."

I left that poor, wounded, half-dead young soldier with the feeling that I had been in the presence of a superior being.

Over against these heroes stand the slackers. There are hundreds and thousands of young men from allied countries who are of draft age, who find refuge in this land. There are other thousands who have been exempted, one because he has a flat instep, another because he has had trouble with his eyes or his teeth; or has tuberculosis, in its initial form, or is a victim of bronchitis. Most of these men owe it to their country and themselves to tear up their exemption papers. They earn their living in this country, working ten hours a day, but they will not work six or eight hours a day for Old England, thus releasing some young man to go to the front.

The question is not whether the youth has an exemption paper. The heart of the question is, Has he any moral right to accept an exemption? This war is being fought by untold thousands of soldiers who could obtain half a dozen exemptions. They prefer to run the risk of death in six months, to looking after their own hides and keeping well away from danger for the next six years or sixty. No one who has been in the coal regions or in the great mines of the Rocky Mountains but realizes that there are an enormous number of allied slackers in this country. They have left their country to its dire peril at a moment when Old England is bleeding to death—when every man counts and when the cripples, the invalids, the old men, the women, everybody who can give four hours or eight of work a day should enter the great war offices or commissary departments and do office work, and thus release the stronger men for their work at the front.

The time has fully come when Americans should ask themselves the question whether or not they have a moral right to support with money that could be far better used, in the war stamp purchases or Red Cross work, all these slackers and cowards, at a time when the motherland asks them to throw away their exemption papers, in an hour when civilization, liberty and humanity are treasures trembling in the balance.

3. German Stupidity in Avoiding the Draft

Following the revolution of 1848 in Germany, multitudes of people fled from Prussia and Bavaria, and these fugitives, settling in the United States, organized colonies that grew until there were often one hundred families in a single community. Strangely enough, as the years went on, these Germans forgot the iron yoke they once had borne, until, when many years had passed by, it came about that time and distance lent a glamour to the landscape of the far-off Fatherland. Occasional letters from their relatives kept them in touch with the old German home. At last they quite forgot the militarism, the poverty, the cruel limitations and the hypocrisy of Germany. Familiarity also with the institutions of the Republic bred a kind of contempt. Through the imagination Germany became an enchanted land. When, therefore, war was declared these German-Americans came together in their clubs, beer gardens and German churches, to pledge unswerving fealty to the Kaiser and to the militarism from which once they had fled as from death itself.

Last summer brought the Government draft to the young men of one of these German colonies. The week was approaching when the German boys must have their physical examination. American officers, American physicians and the members of the draft board were already in session in a certain town. One Sunday a German-American physician appeared in that community. That night some twenty or more young German-Americans met that physician. He told them plainly how deeply he sympathized with their unwillingness to turn their guns against their own German cousins and relatives in the Fatherland. Out of pity and compassion had been born his plan to save their limbs and perhaps their lives, and also to serve the Fatherland and the beloved Kaiser. "I have here," said the physician, "a certain heart depressant. It will slow your heart like the brake on an automobile. It is a simple coal-oil product. It is quite harmless. It was made by the well-known German firm of Baer & Company, chemists, and it is so cheap. I shall see to it that you are rejected for the draft. And—think of it!—only twenty-five dollars! For that little sum I will keep you from being wounded or killed. You will each one give me twenty-five dollars; then I will give you this bottle, holding five grains for Monday, ten grains for Tuesday, fifteen grains for Wednesday, twenty grains for Thursday, twenty-five grains for Friday, and on Saturday you will be rejected." Ten minutes later the necromancer had juggled twenty-five dollars out of the pocket of each newly drafted boy and into his own right-hand pocket.

On Saturday these young men appeared before the draft board and the Government physicians. All the boys were in a dreadful condition nervously. Now the heart would drop to forty, and then at the slightest exertion run up to two hundred and twenty. All were dizzy, nauseated, yellow and green, feverish. But the Secret Service men knew every detail of what had taken place, and all the facts were in the hands of the draft board. A certain farmer's son, young Heinrich H——, was first examined. The United States physician counted a pulse that varied from forty to two hundred and twenty. The physician kept his face perfectly straight. "Marvellous heart! Regular as a clock! Strong as the throbbing of a locomotive. Seventy-two exactly! Absolutely normal. I congratulate you, young men, upon your fine heart action. A man is as old as his heart engine. A boy with a heart like yours ought to live to be a hundred years old. All you need is a change of climate. France will do the world for you. You may need a little heart stimulant, but I think that nothing hastens the pulse beat like a few rifle balls and bomb shells from Hindenburg." He sent every one of the twenty boys into the service, but separated them, one going to Camp Ayer, in Massachusetts; one to Camp Bliss, in El Paso, Texas, and the rest to camps in States between. In one Middle West community a German father and son went so far as to deaden pain through cocaine and then cut off the finger of the right hand. It is generally understood that both the father and son are now in two widely separated penitentiaries, reflecting each in his own cell upon the folly of treason and the crime of becoming a traitor to the kindest and best Government that has ever been organized upon our earth.

4. "I'm Working Now for Uncle Sam"

The long transatlantic train came to a dead stop at the division station in that great Southwestern State, where one was surrounded by sage-brush, the sand, the distant foot-hills and the far-off mountain range.

One of the Pullman cars showed signs of a hot box, and a moment later the wheel burst into a mass of flame. In the thirty minutes' wait for repairs I made my way into the room where the conductors, engineers and firemen met. On a little table I found a copy of the address given before the railroad men of El Paso, Texas, by Secretary McAdoo.

I called the attention of the different men to the address, to the clarity of the reasoning, the simplicity of the argument, the strength of the appeal and the glowing patriotism that filled all the pages. The pamphlet had been worn by much reading. It was covered with the black finger prints of busy men who had been working around the locomotives and tenders.

Plainly Mr. McAdoo's speech had made a profound impression upon these employees. Having first of all called the attention of the large group of men to the creative work of Alexander Hamilton, the first Secretary of the Treasury, who struck, as Daniel Webster said, "the dry rock of national credit and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth," I asked these men whether there had been in one hundred and twenty-five years any forward movement in finance that was comparable to the benefits derived from the national reserve bank law, under Secretary McAdoo, a law that not only had prevented a panic in this country during this war, but had raised more billions within four years than the total cost of the Government in the first century of our existence.

Late that afternoon, on the train, the conductor sought me out. In the midst of the discussion he drew out a roll of bills. He told me that in those mountain towns many of the ranchers did not buy their tickets at the stations.

To use his expression, "They had it in for the railroads." "They pay me their fare in cash, and when I give them the receipt they tear up the receipt and wink at me. I always feel," he said, "like resenting these actions, because I know that they are incitements to petty theft, but now," he said, "I have my chance. I always tell them," said the conductor, "that money belongs to Uncle Sam. He runs this railroad, Uncle Sam takes this money.

"With it he will buy guns for the American boys at the front and build ships to carry food that will feed these soldiers. I would rather lose that right arm than take one penny of money that belongs to Uncle Sam. This is my job to run this train. I tell my crew every day that we must make the coal produce every possible pound of steam, that every waste must be saved, and every pound of energy used and that we must run this train so as to help win this war."

From morning till night I found that conductor was preaching that sentiment. His words were directly traceable to the words of Secretary McAdoo at El Paso, Texas. That single speech transformed these men.

Measured by the results—truth that transforms life and changes conduct and character—that was a truly great speech. We must all hope much from this new sense of devotion to the interests of Uncle Sam.