us who had been swimming received anonymous P. C's. from religious
persons. Mine, I remember, commenced in large letters: "UNLESS YE REPENT
YE SHALL LIKEWISE PERISH." Then followed stories of Sabbath breakers
upon whom the wrath of God had fallen. It depressed us slightly, but we
recovered. The friend, a fine chap, took up the boy's work; and we have
since learned that his death has proved more glorious than his life
could have been.
When the war broke out in Europe, there were not wanting in England
persons who sought to find a cause for the expression of God's wrath as
they deemed the war to be. England had sinned and God was about to
punish her. God was angry and the beautiful youth of England had to be
sacrificed to His wrath. One by one, and in thousands, God would kill
them, until we should repent, and then all would be well, until we
should once more be steeped in worldliness. Isn't the idea terrible; the
yearning of the mother for her boys whom she only thinks of now as
children when they played around her and confided their every trouble,
the loneliness of the friend who has lost a wonderful thing,
friendship--all part of God's punishment! And the people who go to
church place above the chimney piece in the servant's hall, "God is
Love"--and sometimes even in the day nursery.
I once saw five soldiers killed by one unlucky shot from a whizz-bang.
The place was unhealthy, so I did not wait long, but I had just time to
think of the feelings of mothers and sweethearts when the official
notification should arrive. They lay there as though sleeping, for men
newly killed don't always look terrible. I can't blame God for it. You
can't.
Now that we know what war is we are all seeking for an antidote--trying
to find something that will prevent its recurrence, and we haven't found
it yet. Leagues of nations are suggested, which is quite an old idea and
one practised by the Highland clans. General disarmament comes to the
fore again. Who is going to disarm first? Can the nations trust one
another? Of course they can't. Peace of long duration will, of course,
follow this war. The disease will have run its course and the patient
exhausted will have a long convalescence and then--God! what will the
next war be like?
History seems to teach us that war is a kind of disease that breaks out
at regular intervals and spreads like an epidemic. Hence we must find
some serum that will inoculate us against it.
Like all obvious things the antidote is around us, staring us in the
face. We feel it when we look upon the mountains clothed in green with
their black rocks pointing to the God who made them. We see it in the
pansy turning its wee face up to the sun until its stalk nearly breaks,
so great is its devotion. We can see it when by accident we tread upon
the foot of a favourite dog, when, with many tail waggings, in spite of
groans difficult to hold back, he approaches with beseeching eyes,
begging that the cause of all the trouble will not take it too hardly.
We see it on the face of a mother; it is the thing longed for on the
face of a friend; it was on the face of Jesus when he said to the
prostitute, "Neither do I condemn thee." It is the greatest thing in the
world, for it is love.
The very remark "God is Love" at once suggests church. We see at once
the elderly father, all his wild oats sown, walking home from church
with stately tread, followed by the wife who is not deceived if she
stops to think. The old tiresome remark, "He goes to church on Sunday,
but during the week--Mon Dieu," at once springs to our minds. Why is it
that quite a number of healthy young men dislike church so much? Watch
these same young men playing with a little sister or a favourite dog.
See the cowboy, not on the movie screen where a poor old bony hack gets
his mouth pulled to bits by certain screen favourites, but the real
thing. See the good wheel driver in the artillery, especially if he is a
wheel driver, sitting back when no one is looking and preventing his
gees from doing too much work, or the centre driver giving the lead
driver hell when the traces in front are hanging in festoons, at once
showing that the leaders are not doing their work. It is all love. But
in its home, the church, of a truth, it is stiffly clothed, if it is not
taught by a person whose vocation is really a candy store. Yet if we are
to prevent war from recurring we have got to introduce love into the
world. It is truly our only chance.
Do you see, this world is the product of love. There seem to have been
applied but few rules and regulations. The mountains are not squares,
the hills are not cubes, the rivers don't run straight. They are all
irregular and they are all lovely. So man, the product of love, is
hopelessly irregular at times. He just cannot live according to rules or
regulations, but he can love if he is allowed to.
Of course, no one will believe this. It is just a wallow in sentiment I
suppose, but I learnt about it on the battlefields of France and
Flanders--a strange place to learn a strange lesson.
Some dear old lady will say, "How beautiful"; and some old fellow with
many a cheery party to his credit, not always nice, will say as he sits
back, "Very true, but how hopelessly impracticable."
And so this thing that I am daring to talk about is the life-buoy thrown
out to us, and it seems so ridiculous, even to write about it. Just
imagine a statesman searching for an antidote for war and after careful
consideration deciding to apply the antidote I have suggested. In three
days he would be placed in a lunatic asylum. And yet it could be done.
Perhaps it could be applied in America.
"There are many things in the commonwealth of Nowhere which I rather
wish, then hope, to see adopted in our own," wrote Thomas More after
finishing Utopia. Yet America has approached very close to Utopia,
according to reports. America will learn a great lesson from our
struggles and suffering. War is a rotten sort of occupation. Just
imagine all the men who have been killed in this war marching down
Piccadilly. Even if they marched in close formation it would take an
awfully long time. Yet the whole thing is Love's inferno, but of course
we are not going to change, but rather we will continue to build huge
battleships, equip huge armies, fight, die, live unnaturally and take
our just deserts, and we will get them.
PHILADELPHIA, January, 1918.
I am now definitely employed by Uncle Sam to go about the country giving
talks about the war. He must have been pleased with the result of our
first effort in Pennsylvania. At any rate it has become my job to go
from county capital to county capital, in every state, giving addresses
in the Court Houses.
We started off on Wednesday the 15th at 9.15 A.M. in the Lehigh
Valley Railroad's charming train called the "Black Diamond." Our party
consisted of my senator, an ex-congressman of Irish extraction, a
British Tommy camouflaged as a sergeant, and myself. The British Tommy's
job was to bag any Britishers who desired to enlist. Strangely enough
everybody wanted him to talk, but he was told _not_ to do any talking. I
should have had no objection to his obliging our American friends if he
had had anything to say, but he had never been to the front, much to his
own disappointment, and I disliked the responsibility.
We arrived at a little city called Towanda sometime after lunch and
dined in state with the members of the local committee. They all seemed
to be judges, so far as I can remember. This may have been owing to the
beauty of architecture displayed in the local Court House. We spoke to a
fairly large audience. The proceedings were opened by a young lady who
advanced with tightly clenched lips, and an air of determination, to a
large black and handsomely decorated piano. She struck a chord or two
and then a choir of maidens, assisted by some young men, commenced to
sing some patriotic airs. They sang very well and then my senator,
having been fittingly introduced by one of the leading citizens,
addressed the people. I came next, and enjoyed myself thoroughly, for
none of my jokes missed fire. Then the congressman spoke and none of his
jokes missed fire. At the end of this meeting a suspicion commenced to
possess my mind. I began to wonder whether it were not true that the
folks living in the country towns were more awake to the situation than
their brethren in the cities.
I loved the congressman's effort. The lovely part about his remarks lay
in the fact that all the time he felt that he ought to be careful not to
introduce too much about Ireland's wrongs.
After the meeting we retired to the hotel and in the night a party of
young people returned from a sleighing expedition and commenced to
whisper in the room next to mine, which was a sitting-room. They
succeeded in waking us up but, by merely whispering, refused to satisfy
any curiosity that we possessed. It is a curious thing that ill-bred
curiosity seems the predominant quality in a man when he is awakened at
night and cannot go to sleep.
The next day we arrived at Tunkhannock, a charming little town, and we
addressed a meeting in the Court House. It was freezing, and the ground
was covered with snow, but that did not prevent the place of meeting
from being crammed with eager, earnest people. I suggested to the
congressman that we should talk from the bench, as it gave one more
control over the people who were crowded close up to where we were
sitting. He looked at me with a twinkle in his Irish eyes and said,
"Yes, quite so--the old British spirit coming out again. If you get up
there on the bench, in ten seconds you'll have me in the dock." Of
course, amidst laughter, he confided the whole thing to the audience.
The people were fine, as keen as mustard. They were all possessed with a
firm desire to get along with the job.
That same evening we arrived at Wilkes-Barre and addressed a fairly
large meeting in the Y. M. C. A. auditorium. I must honestly admit that
I missed the wonderful spirit displayed at Towanda and Tunkhannock. This
may be owing to the fact that the city is a large one, and visited a
good deal by war lecturers. However, the men we met impressed us
greatly, as we all chatted after the meeting in the local club.
The next morning we took a trolley car for Scranton. Scranton! If every
town in France, England, Italy, and the United States possessed the
spirit displayed by the citizens of Scranton, the war would go with a
rush. I had friends in Scranton,--a boy and a girl married to one
another, and now possessing a wee friendly baby, and they insisted upon
my staying with them. At 7.45 we motored down to the Town Hall, towards
which a great stream of people was advancing.
I mounted the platform and found my senator and the congressman safely
seated amidst a number of officials and ladies. At eight o'clock some
members of the Grand Army of the Republic took their seats well up to
the front, amidst cheers. They were fine looking men, hale and hearty. I
wish public speakers would not address these soldiers by telling them
that their numbers are dwindling, and so on. They always do it, and the
veterans are patient; but when I am eighty I shall object very strongly
to anyone suggesting to me that soon I shall descend into the grave. The
mere fact that their numbers are dwindling is true, alas, but they have
faced death before, and even now they must feel the same irritation with
public speakers that Tommy feels when, just before a charge, a chaplain
preaches to him about the life to come. However, the ladies feel sobs in
their throats and I daresay the soldiers don't mind very much. They have
got hardened to it.
At this meeting there were three choirs numbering in all about six
hundred voices. An energetic gentleman stood on the stage and commanded
the singing, which all the people liked; and smilingly obeyed him when
he urged different sections of the audience to sing alone.
Of course we sang the "Star Spangled Banner," and at the chorus one of
the men of the Grand Army of the Republic stepped forward, like the
soldier he was, and waved a beautiful heavy silk flag gracefully and
slowly. The effect was fine.
After some remarks on the part of the chairman, in which he said that
the "peaks in the distance shone with a rosy light," my senator spoke.
He introduced a remark which I liked very much but had not heard before.
It was something about his great-grandfather dying in New York on a
British pest ship. His idea was of course to bring out a contrast in
regard to the present friendship for Great Britain. I spoke for over an
hour, and when I had finished the whole vast audience of nearly four
thousand men and women rose to their feet and sang "For He's a Jolly
Good Fellow." I felt a little miserable but very proud. It was all very
easy, really. The war is a serious business to the Scranton folk and
they wanted to hear about things: they have all got a sense of humour,
and I have lived with the British Tommy.
The next day we arrived at Mauch Chunk and addressed a wonderful
audience of people, some of whom I believe were Pennsylvania Dutchmen
and consequently my friends. I wish I could pronounce the name of their
town. The local clergyman showed me an application form he had filled in
for admittance to the U. S. A. in which he remarked that he was a
citizen of the United States by birth, talent and inclination. He is
about sixty years old, but he will be a soldier of some sort before this
war is over, I am quite sure.
That evening we addressed the citizens of Easton. Apparently the
audience consisted of mostly workmen. After the meeting I went to a
reception at the house of some people of consequence. The very rich folk
of Easton were all here and beautifully dressed. They were awfully nice
folk, but I suspect that they ought to have been at the meeting, for, of
course, it was arranged by the men keenly interested in the war. I
daresay that they felt that they knew all that was to be known about the
war, but it seemed to me that they ought to have seized this opportunity
to let the folk with fewer opportunities see that they were keenly
interested. As a matter of fact, they all knit a great deal and do what
they can. Actually, the outstanding fact is this: There were two
meetings in Easton. One took place in a school auditorium and was filled
with men and women keen as far as one could judge to "carry this thing
through." The other took place in a very charming house which was filled
with men and women in full evening dress, also keen to "carry this thing
through." It is a pity that they could not have met.
We returned to Philadelphia, very tired, but buoyed up with enthusiasm
which had been given to us by the people who live in the Susquehanna and
Wyoming Valleys. There are other beauty spots in this world, but the man
who follows the trail of the Black Diamond up the Wyoming and
Susquehanna Valleys sees much that he can never forget.
People in Philadelphia sometimes say that the country is still asleep to
the situation. They speak vaguely of the outlying counties. The folk
there may be asleep, but to my mind they are giving a very effective
sleep-walking performance and I should shrink from waking them up.
After a day's rest in Philadelphia we once more started off and
addressed audiences in court houses all crammed to overflowing at York,
Gettysburg, Chambersburg, Carlisle, Lewistown, and Middleburg. It would
be difficult to say which of these towns displayed the most enthusiasm.
York is a fine town with some beautiful buildings, and an excellent
hotel. I lunched with a friend who lives in a country house, a little
way out. The landscape was covered with snow but it had rained during
the morning, and the thaw had been followed by a sudden frost. The water
therefrom running along the branches of the trees became glistening ice.
The effect in the sunlight was beautiful as we motored along the chief
residential street,--an avenue called after one of the kings of England.
The next day we boarded a local train that carried us to Gettysburg. It
was drawn along by one of those beautiful old locomotives that must have
dazzled the eyes of children forty years ago. It reached Gettysburg five
minutes before its time. I had hoped to spend some time viewing the
battlefield, but there were several feet of snow, so it was difficult.
However, we drove to the cemetery and saw the many thousands of graves
occupied by the young men who fought and died in a great battle. The
weather was bad but the Court House was crammed with people, including
some soldiers of the Grand Army of the Republic.
The next day I met the Roman Catholic priest, who had been present, and
he told me how he had liked my remark about the Tommies thinking it
"rather cute" of the little French children to be able to speak French.
Chambersburg was our next stopping place and here my senator rejoined
us, for business had compelled him to go to New York during the first
days of the week. The congressman had found it impossible to come with
us and we missed him a great deal. Chambersburg seems a bustling
community and the Committee of Public Safety had aroused much
enthusiasm: the large Court House could not hold all the people who
desired to enter.
The next day we arrived in Carlisle. Carlisle is precisely like an
English country town. It possesses a Presbyterian church which was built
before the Revolution. We were entertained by some friends of the
senator. During the day we motored out to the Carlisle School for the
American Indians. This was interesting to me since I have read so many
stories around the Red Indians. The school forms a pleasant group of
buildings.
We approached a large drill hall or gymnasium and at the moment of our
entrance a band broke into "God Save the King." In the hall the braves
were drawn up on one side and the squaws on the other. I had the honour
of inspecting them and later I spoke a few words to them, but my effort
seemed stilted and weak compared with the things that filled my mind.
The meeting in Carlisle showed the same enthusiasm that had marked all
the meetings throughout the week. I felt at home a little, for the
inhabitants are all alleged to be Scotch Irish. The town is sweet and
pretty and we regretted that more time could not be spent walking about
its streets and examining the quaint old houses, but we had to get on to
Middleburg.
The suspicion that had possessed my mind at the beginning of this my
last tour of Pennsylvania that the people in the small country towns are
very wide-awake to the situation became more insistent after my visit to
Middleburg. The temperature was several degrees below zero, and the
ground had at least a foot of snow on its surface. The meeting was held
at 12.30 but by the time we were ready to start there was not a vacant
seat in the whole building and people were standing at the back of the
hall. They "wanted to know." It was quite unnecessary to catch their
interest by telling them amusing stories. They desired strong meat. To
me there seemed in this charming little community the spirit of the men
of Valley Forge who drilled with blood-stained feet in order that the
British Empire might gain its freedom. They didn't know that they were
fighting for us. They might even have spurned the idea. It is true,
nevertheless, and I told the folk at Middleburg this, and they believed
me. They believed me, too, when I told them that once more the British
people and the American people were allied with the same purpose in
view--the downfall of futile autocracy.
The old determined spirit of '76 still exists in America. It lives in
the cities where it is difficult for the traveller to see, but in little
towns like Middleburg even a Britisher can see it and a feeling of pride
creeps over him when he makes the discovery.
How clever our cousins are when it comes to the actual pinch. They were
in a criminal state of unpreparedness, just like ourselves; but when
they established their Committees of Public Safety throughout the length
and breadth of this huge country they showed us something that we might
do well to copy. The heart of the organization exists at the capital.
Arteries run to the big cities, smaller blood-vessels tap the towns, and
little capillaries go out even to the small villages where local orators
address the people in the tiny schoolhouses. Hence the people will know
about everything; their loyalty and keenness will be kept at the right
pitch and the Government will then have a certain quantity to base
their plans upon.
At the moment the men at the head of affairs are getting the criticism
that is so good for them, but no one seems to realise as yet that all
mistakes at the moment are not really new mistakes but part of the great
big composite mistake of unpreparedness.
I am able to observe the feelings of the people as I go from town to
town and I am possessed not merely with a knowledge that we are going to
win in our fight against Germany (that is a foregone conclusion), but
that the friendship that can be seen arising between my country and this
is going to be a wonderful help to us.
I can see this country travelling over some very difficult ground during
the next few months, but as the gentleman said at Scranton, the "peaks
in the distance shine with a very rosy light."
And so to my own countrymen I can say, "Criticise the American statesman
if you desire, since you are well practised in the art; laugh at Uncle
Sam's mistakes if you dare, but trust the American boy!" Your trust will
not be in vain, for with your own British Tommy, the French Poilu, and
the Italian soldier (I don't know what they call him), he will be there,
smiling and good-looking, and glad to see the gratitude and love for him
too which you will not be able to prevent from appearing on your face
when the people of the world can cry at last, "Victory!!!"
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