Have you formed a picture in your imagination of what this war is
doing for us and for the world? In my own mind I am convinced that
not a hundred years of peace could have knitted this nation together
as this single year of war has knitted it together, and better even
than that, if possible, it is knitting the world together. Look at the
picture. In the centre of the scene, four nations engaged against the
world, and at every point of vantage, showing that they are seeking
selfish aggrandizement; and, against them, twenty-three Governments
representing the greater part of the population of the world, drawn
together into a new sense of community of interest, a new sense of
community of purpose, sense of unity of life. The Secretary of War
told me an interesting incident the other day. He said when he was in
Italy a member of the Italian Government was explaining to him the many
reasons why Italy felt near to the United States.
He said: "If you want to try an interesting experiment go up to any one
of these troop trains and ask in English how many of them have been in
America, and see what happens." He tried the experiment. He went up to
a troop train and he said, "How many of you boys have been in America?"
and he said it seemed to him as if half of them sprang up. "Me from
San Francisco"; "Me from New York"; all over. There was part of the
heart of America in the Italian Army. People that had been knitted to
us by association, who knew us, who had lived among us, who had worked
shoulder to shoulder with us, and now friends of America, were fighting
for their native Italy.
Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.
And this intimate contact of the great Red Cross with the peoples who
are suffering the terrors and deprivations of this war is going to be
one of the greatest instrumentalities of friendship that the world ever
knew, and the centre of the heart of it all, if we sustain it properly,
will be this land that we so dearly love.