on the certainty became an optimism, the optimism a dream which we
well-nigh knew to be impossible. We have always known that we would
beat Germany--we have never doubted that. But could we beat her so
thoroughly that she would never dare to reperpetrate this horror?
Could we prove to her that war is not and never was a paying way of
conducting business? Men began to smile when we spoke of this war as
the last. "There have always been wars," they said; "this one is not
the last--there will be others."
If it is not to be the last, we have cheated ourselves. We have
cheated the men who have died for us. Our chief ideal in fighting is
taken away. Many a lad who moulders in a stagnant trench, laid down
his life for this sole purpose, that no children of the future ages
should have to pass through his Gethsemane. He consciously gave
himself up as a scapegoat, that the security of human sanity should
be safeguarded against a recurrence of this enormity. The spirit-man,
framed in the dusky window above the applauding crowds in Quebec,
was typical of all these men who have made the supreme sacrifice. His
words utter the purpose that was in all their hearts, "I am setting
out to fight the last war--the war of humanity which will bring
universal peace and freedom to the world."
That promise was becoming a lie; it is capable of fulfilment now. The
dream became possible in April, 1917, when America took up her cross
of martyrdom. Great Britain, France and the United States, the
three great promise-keeping nations, are standing side by side. They
together, if they will when the war is ended, can build an impregnable
wall for peace about the world. The plunderer who knew that it was not
Great Britain, nor France, nor America, but all three of them united
as Allies that he had to face, no matter how tempted he was to prove
that armed force meant big business, would be persuaded to expand
his commerce by more legitimate methods. Whether this dream is to
be accomplished will be decided not upon any battlefield but in the
hearts of the civilians of all three countries--particularly in
those of America and Great Britain. The soldiers who have fought and
suffered together, can never be anything but friends.
My purpose in writing this account of America in France has been to
give grounds for understanding and appreciation; it has been to prove
that the highest reward that either America or Great Britain can gain
as a result of its heroism is an Anglo-American alliance, which will
fortify the world against all such future terrors. There never ought
to have been anything but alliance between my two great countries.
They speak the same tongue, share a common heritage and pursue the
same loyalties. Had we not blundered in our destinies, there would
never have been occasion for anything but generosity.
The opportunity for generosity has come again. Any man or woman
who, whether by design or carelessness, attempts to mar this growing
friendship is perpetrating a crime against humanity as grave as that
of the first armed Hun who stepped across the Belgian threshold. It
were better for them that mill-stones were hung about their necks and
they were cast into the sea, than ...
God is giving us our chance. The magnanimities of the Anglo-Saxon
races are rising to greet one another. If those magnanimities are
welcomed and made permanent, our soldier-idealists will not have died
in vain. Then we shall fulfil for them their promise, "We are setting
out to fight the last war."
THE END