AUGUSTA. She confessed to me that she had had letters from him.

DR. JONATHAN. And that she'd written letters in return?

AUGUSTA. What right have you to catechize me, Jonathan?

DR. JONATHAN. The same right, Augusta, that you have to catechize

Minnie. Only I wish to discover the truth, and apparently you do not.

She left me a letter, too, in which she said, "Don't try to find me--I

wouldn't come back if you did. Mrs. Pindar was right about me, after

all--I had to break loose again." Now, Augusta, I'd like to know what

you make of that?

AUGUSTA. It's pretty plain, isn't it?

DR. JONATHAN. If the girl were really "bad," as you insist, would she

say a thing like that?

AUGUSTA. I'm afraid I'm not an authority on Minnie's kind.

DR. JONATHAN. Well, I am. The only motive which could have induced her

to leave my laboratory and Foxon Falls--her father--is what you would

call a Christian motive.

AUGUSTA. What do you mean?

DR. JONATHAN. An unselfish motive. She went because she thought she

could help someone by going.

AUGUSTA. Why--do you discuss this with me?

DR. JONATHAN. Because I've come to the conclusion that you know

something about Minnie's departure, Augusta.

AUGUSTA (again on the verge of tears). Well, then, I do. I am

responsible for her going--I'm not ashamed of it. Her remaining here was

an affront to all right thinking people. I appealed to her, and she had

the decency to leave.

DR. JONATHAN. Decency is a mild word to apply to her sacrifice.

AUGUSTA. I suppose, with your extraordinary radical views, you mean that

she might have remained here and married George. One never can predict

the harm that a woman of that kind can do.

DR. JONATHAN (rising). The harm that a bad woman can do, Augusta,

is sometimes exceeded only by the harm a good woman can do. You are

unfortunately steeped in a religion which lacks the faith in humanity

that should be its foundation. The girl has just given you the strongest

proof of an inherent goodness, and you choose to call her bad. But if

you will not listen to Moses and the prophets, how will you listen to

Christ?

AUGUSTA. Jonathan! Where are you going?

DR. JONATHAN. To find Minnie Farrell and bring her back to Foxon Falls.

(He goes out, lower right. AUGUSTA sits for a while, motionless,

and then makes an attempt to go on with her knitting. A man's face

is seen pressed against the glass of the middle window. AUGUSTA

does not perceive him. He disappears, the glass door, upper right,

opens slowly and PRAG enters! His clothes are wet, he is unshaven,

he is gaunt and ill, and his eyed gleans. He leaves the door open

behind him. Once inside the room, he halts and stares at AUGUSTA,

who gathers up her knitting and rises. She does not lack courage.)

AUGUSTA. What do you want?

PRAG. I come to see Mr. Pindar.

AUGUSTA. The proper place to see Mr. Pindar is in his office. What do

you mean by forcing your way into this house?

PRAG (advancing). I have no right here--it is too fine for me, yes?

(Through the window the figure of a woman is seen running across the

lawn, and a moment later MINNIE FARRELL comes in through the open

doorway, upper right. She is breathless and somewhat wet.)

AUGUSTA. Minnie!

PRAG (turning and confronting MINNIE). So! You come back to Foxon

Falls, too!

MINNIE. You guessed it.

PRAG. You follow me?

MINNIE. But you're some sprinter! (She seizes him by the arm.) Come on,

Prag,--you haven't got any business here, and you know it.

PRAG (stubbornly). I come to see Mr. Pindar. I vill see him!

AUGUSTA. He isn't home.

PRAG. Then I vait for him.

MINNIE (glancing toward the study door, where she suspects ASHER is). No

you don't, either! You come along with me.

(She pulls him, and he resists. They begin to struggle. AUGUSTA

cries out and runs to MINNIE's assistance.)

Keep away, Mrs. Pindar. If Mr. Pindar's home, find him and tell him not

to come in here. This man's crazy.

PRAG (struggling with MINNIE). Crazy, is it? What is it to you--what

I do with Mr. Pindar. He is also your enemy--the enemy of all work-

peoples.

(AUGUSTA, after a second's indecision, turns and runs toward the

door, left, that leads into ASHER's study. MINNIE tries to push

PRAG toward the doorway, upper right, but she is no match for the

nervous strength he is able to summon up in his fanatical frenzy.

Just as AUGUSTA reaches the study door, it is flung open and ASHER

appears.)

ASHER. What's the matter?

(Then he sees MINNIE and PRAG struggling and strides toward them.

AUGUSTA tries to prevent him reaching them. PRAG wrenches himself

free from MINNIE and draws a pistol front his pocket. MINNIE flings

herself between him and ASHER, who momentarily halts, too astonished

to act.)

PRAG (to MINNIE). Get avay! He kill my wife, he drive me out of my

home--he will not have the unions. I shoot him! Get oudt!

ASHER. Stand aside, Minnie, I'll take care of him.

(AUGUSTA cries out. ASHER advances, seizes MINNIE by the shoulder

and thrusts her aside. PRAG has the pistol levelled at him.)

PRAG. Recognize the unions, or I shoot!

ASHER. Lower that pistol! Do you think you can intimidate me?

PRAG. They can hang me,--I die for freedoms!

(He is apparently about to pull the trigger, but he does not. His

eyes are drawn away from ASHER, toward the doorway, lower right,

where DR. JONATHAN is seen standing, gazing at him. Gradually his

arm drops to his side, and DR. JONATHAN goes up to him and takes the

pistol from his hand. PRAG breaks down, sobbing violently.)

It is no good! I can't--now.

DR. JONATHAN (his hand on PRAG'S shoulder). Come with me, Prag, to my

house.

(He leads PRAG, shaken by sobs, out of the doorway, upper right,

and they are seen through the windows crossing the lawn and

disappearing.)

AUGUSTA. Oh, Asher!

(She goes up to him and puts her hand on his arm, and then turns to

MINNIE.)

You saved him

MINNIE. Dr. Jonathan saved him. He'd save everybody, if they'd let him.

Ever since he took care of Prag's wife, when she died, he's got him

hypnotized.

ASHER. You've done a brave thing, Minnie. I shan't forget it.

MINNIE. I want you to forget it. I wouldn't like to see anybody hurt.

AUGUSTA. But--how did you happen to be here--in Foxon Falls?

MINNIE. Oh, I didn't mean to come back. I'm going away again.

AUGUSTA. I have no right to ask you to go away, now.

ASHER. What's this? Did you ask Minnie to leave Foxon Falls?

AUGUSTA. Asher, I'd like to talk with Minnie, if you don't mind.

ASHER (glancing at the two women). Well, I shan't forget what you've

done, Minnie.

(He goes out, lower right.)

MINNIE (who is on the verge of losing her self-control). I didn't come

back to Foxon Falls to talk to you again, Mrs. Pindar. I'm sorry, but

I've got to go.

AUGUSTA. Where?

MINNIE. You didn't care yesterday--why should you care today?

AUGUSTA (with an effort). I ought to tell you that Dr. Pindar has

declined Mr. Pindar's offer.

MINNIE. He isn't going to take charge of the hospital?

AUGUSTA. No.

MINNIE. But if he's so poor, how's he going to live? He can't afford to

hire me to help him.

AUGUSTA. I don't know. Dr. Pindar was about to leave in search of you.

MINNIE. I was afraid of that--when he ought to be going to New York to

test the discovery at the hospitals there. He meant to.

AUGUSTA. You must see him.

MINNIE. Oh, I'll see him now. That was what hurt me most, lying to him

about why I was leaving--letting him think I was sick of working with

him.

AUGUSTA. Minnie, I'm willing to say that I was mistaken about you. You

may have been unwise, but you never did anything wrong. Isn't it so?

MINNIE. Why do you think that now? What changed you? Just because I

might have helped to keep Mr. Pindar from being shot by a crazy man--that

didn't change you, did it?

AUGUSTA. I was mistaken!

MINNIE. If you thought I was bad yesterday, I'm bad today.

AUGUSTA. A bad woman couldn't have done what you did just now.

MINNIE. Don't you believe it, Mrs. Pindar. I knew a woman in Newcastle

--but there's no use going into that, I guess. There's worse kinds of

badness than what you call bad.

AUGUSTA. I--I can't discuss it. But I want to be just. I'm convinced

that I did you a wrong--and I'm sorry. Won't you believe me?

MINNIE. But you'll never forgive me--even if I hadn't done what you

thought--on account of what happened with George.

AUGUSTA. I--I'll try.

MINNIE. No, don't try--forgiveness doesn't come that way, Mrs. Pindar.

(With sudden acuteness.) It was on account of George, not Dr. Jonathan,

that you wanted to get me out of Foxon Falls.

AUGUSTA. I repeat--I shouldn't have asked you to go. Isn't that enough?

MINNIE. I told you not to worry about me and George. I ran away from

him once--I guess I won't have to do it again.

AUGUSTA. You--you ran away from him?

MINNIE. From the church, too, and from the Bible class and from you, and

from the shops. But I'm free now, there isn't any danger of my going

wrong,--I know what I can do, I've learned my job--Dr. Jonathan's taught

me. You needn't have me on your conscience, either. I'll go across and

see if I can help Dr. Jonathan take care of that poor wreck, Prag.

Life's been too tough for him--

AUGUSTA (starting forward to detain her). Wait a moment, Minnie,--tell

me how you happened to come back, to be here so--providentially.

MINNIE. There wasn't anything providential about it. I took the six

o'clock train to Newcastle this morning. Not that I had any notion of

staying there. I ran into Prag at the station. I nursed his wife, you

know--and he started in to tell me how he was coming up to Foxon Falls to

shoot Mr. Pindar because he'd closed down the works rather than recognize

the union. I knew that Prag was just about crazy enough to do it,

because I've heard Dr. Jonathan talk about the mental disease he's got.

That was about ten, and the train for Foxon Falls was leaving in a few

minutes. I ran into the booth to phone Dr. Jonathan, but the storm had

begun down there, and I couldn't get a connection. So I caught the

train, and when it pulled in here I saw Pray jump out of the smoking car

and start to run. I couldn't run as fast as he could, and I'd only got

to the other side of the Common when I saw him walk into the house.

AUGUSTA (after a pause). Minnie, you'll stay here now? Your father

needs you--I--I should never forgive myself if you left.

MINNIE. Tell me, Mrs. Pindar,--have you heard anything more from George?

AUGUSTA (hesitating). Yes--Mr. Pindar got a telegram this morning.

MINNIE. He's coming home! When will he get here?

AUGUSTA. I--don't know. Oh, I'm afraid he may never get here--alive.

MINNIE. Don't say that! George will live--he's got to live.

AUGUSTA (gazing, at her). What makes you think so?

MINNIE. Because he's needed so in the world--in Foxon Falls.

(She starts for the doorway, upper right.)

AUGUSTA. You're not going?

MINNIE. I couldn't stay here--now.

AUGUSTA. Why--why not?

MINNIE (in tears). I should think you'd know why not!

AUGUSTA. You mean--you care--you care that much?

MINNIE. I'm going.

(She turns to leave the room when the sound of an automobile is

heard without, the brakes going on, etc. MINNIE, who has got as far

as the doorway, upper right halts and stares.)

AUGUSTA (excitedly). What is it?

MINNIE. An automobile. Oh, Mrs. Pindar--it's him--it's George!

(She draws back from the doorway, her hands clasped.)

AUGUSTA. George! (She hurries toward the doorway, speaking as she

goes.) Where is he?

Why doesn't he come in?

MINNIE (staring out). He can't. Oh, I'll get Dr. Jonathan!

(She is speaking as AUGUSTA goes out.)

(Mingling with other voices, ASHER's resonant and commanding voice

is heard.)

ASHER (without). Bring him in through the library--it's easier for you,

George.

(MINNIE who obviously cannot now escape through the doorway, upper

right, without GEORGE seeing her, after a second's resolution dashes

across the room and out of the door, lower right. A moment later

GEORGE is brought in through the doorway, upper right, leaning

heavily on Dr. FRYE, a capable looking man, whose well fitting

business suit and general appearance indicate a prosperous city

practice. GEORGE is in uniform. He is much thinner, and his face

betrays acute suffering. His left arm hangs helpless at his side.)

(ASHER and AUGUSTA follow, ASHER with a look of pain which has been

increased by an incident which occurred at the automobile, where

GEORGE refused to allow ASHER to help support him.)

(GEORGE gets a little way into the room when he stops, sways a

little, and spasmodically puts his hand to his heart. ASHER, in a

frenzy of anxiety, again approaches to help him, but GEORGE repulses

him.)

GEORGE (protesting with what strength he has, as if in fear). N--no,

dad, I'd rather not--I--I can get along.

(ASHER halts and gazes at him mutely, and then looks at AUGUSTA.)

DR. FRYE. You'd better sit down here a minute and rest, Captain Pindar.

(ASHER starts to pull up an armchair, but AUGUSTA looks at him and

shakes her head, and pulls it up herself. GEORGE sinks into the

chair, leans back his head and closes his eyes. AUGUSTA hovers over

him, smoothing his hair.)

AUGUSTA. Is there nothing we can do, Dr. Frye? A little brandy--?

Dr. FRYE (who is evidently trying to hide his own concern by a show of

professional self-confidence), I think I'd wait a few moments.

GEORGE (murmuring). I--I'll be all right, mother

(DR. FRYE stands gazing down at him a few seconds and then comes

forward into the room to join ASHER.)

ASHER. For God's sake tell me what it is, doctor! Why did you leave New

York with him when he was in this condition? Was it because?

Dr. FRYE (speaking more rapidly than is his wont). He was surprisingly

well, considering everything, when we left New York, and the army medical

men advised taking him home. I thought an automobile better than a slow

train. I tried to telephone you, but the storm--

ASHER. I know.

Dr. FRYE. I sent you a wire.

ASHER. I didn't get it.

DR. FRYE. It was impossible to get a good nurse on account of the

influenza epidemic. In fact, I didn't think he needed one--but I thought

you'd feel more comfortable if I came. He seemed extraordinary well,

even cheerful until we got right into Foxon Falls. We were passing your

shops, and a big crowd of men were there, making a noise, shouting at a

speaker. Is there a strike on here?

ASHER. Yes. You say he got like this when he saw the crowd?

DR. FRYE (indicating GEORGE). As you see. He fell back on the cushions

as though he'd been hit--it all happened in a second. I have the history

of the case from the army people--he had an attack something like this

abroad.

ASHER. Did you notice how he avoided me?

DR. FRYE (with reluctance). That may not be anything. It's his heart,

at present,--and yet I'm convinced that this is a case for a psychologist

as well as for a medical man. I confess I'm puzzled, and as soon as we

can get a connection with New York I want to summon Barnwell.

ASHER. I'll see if I can get a wire through.

DR. FRYE. Telephone Plaza 4632.

(ASHER hurries out, lower right. Dr. FRYE returns to GEORGE to take

his pulse when DR. JONATHAN enters, upper right. He crosses the

room directly to GEORGE and stands looking down at him.)

AUGUSTA (who is a little behind GEORGE'S chair, gives DR. JONATHAN an

agonized glance, which she transfers to Dr. FRYE when he drops GEORGE'S

wrist). George! George, dear!

(DR. FRYE is silent Then ASHER reenters.)

ASHER (in a low tone, to Dr. FRYE). They think they can get New York

within half an hour.

(DR. FRYE nods. His attention is now fixed upon DR. JONATHAN, whose

gaze is still focussed on GEORGE. ASHER and AUGUSTA now begin to

look at DR. JONATHAN. Gradually, as though by the compulsion of DR.

JONATHAN'S regard; GEORGE slowly opens his eyes.)

GEORGE (stammering). Dr. Jonathan!

DR. JONATHAN. I'm here, George.

GEORGE. Is there-is there a strike in the shops?

(DR. JONATHAN glances at ASHER.)

ASHER (hesitating, speaking with difficulty). Don't worry about that

now, George.

GEORGE. Why--why are they striking?

ASHER. I'll tell you all about it later--when you feel better.

GEORGE (feebly, yet insistent). I--I want to know.

ASHER. We can't talk about it now, my boy--later.

GEORGE. Did--did you get my letter--the letter in which I begged you--

ASHER. Yes, yes--I'll explain it all tomorrow.

GEORGE. I--I may not be here--tomorrow. You didn't do what--I asked?

It's--so simple--when you've thought about it--when you've fought for it.

ASHER. I--I had a plan, George. We'll go over it

(He approaches GEORGE.)

GEORGE (shrinking). No--no!

(ASHER recoils. MINNIE FARRELL appears, upper right, from the

direction of the Common. She carries a phial, a dropper and some

water in a glass. Seeing the group gathered about GEORGE, she

hesitates, but DR. JONATHAN motions her to come forward.)

W--who is that? Minnie?

(GEORGE makes an attempt to sit up, but his head falls back and his

eyes close again. Then DR. JONATHAN lays his hand on Dr. FRYE's

arm, as though to draw him aside.)

Dr. FRYE. Is this Dr. Jonathan Pindar? I wondered if you were a

relation--(he glances at ASHER)--but I wasn't looking for you in Foxon

Falls. If you have something to suggest--?

DR. JONATHAN ( taking the phial and the dropper from MINNIE). With your

permission. In any case it can do no harm.

DR. FRYE. By all means: If I had realized you were here--!

(ASHER looks on in astonishment. DR. JONATHAN measures out a few

drops of the liquid from the phial into the glass of water, which

MINNIE holds.)

DR. JONATHAN. George, will you take this?

(He holds the glass while GEORGE drinks. To Dr. FRYE:)

There's a lounge in Mr. Pindar's study.

(To AUGUSTA:) Get a blanket.

(AUGUSTA goes toward the door, lower right, while MINNIE Starts to

retire.)

We'll need you, Minnie.

(He hands MINNIE the glass, dropper and phial. The two physicians

pick GEORGE up and carry him out, left, followed by MINNIE. ASHER

goes a little way and then halts with a despairing gesture. AUGUSTA

having gone for the blanket, ASHER is left alone, pacing, until she

returns.)

AUGUSTA (going through the room from right to left, with the blanket).

Ah, Asher!

(ASHER begins pacing again, when Dr. FRYE reenters from the left.)

ASHER. Is there--is there any hope?

DR. FRYE (his hand on ASHER'S sleeve). I can tell you more when I have

had a chance to talk with Dr. Pindar. This seems to be one of his cases

--but I confess, when I mentioned Barnwell, I didn't think of him. The

situation came so suddenly. And in spite of his name being yours, I

didn't expect to find him here.

ASHER. Then you know of Jonathan?

DR. FRYE. I didn't know of him until I read the book which he published

about a year ago. When I was in Baltimore in March, I asked for him at

Johns Hopkins's, and they told me that he had gone to New England for his

health. Extraordinary to meet him here--and today!

ASHER. What book? He's never spoken to me of any book.

DR. FRYE. On the Physical Effects of Mental Crises. There has been a

good deal of controversy about it in the profession, but I'm one of those

who believe that the physician must seek to cure, not only the body, but

the soul. We make a guess--though he's published no religion--the true

scientist is the minister of the future.

ASHER. I never realized that Jonathan--!

DR. FRYE (smiling a little). No prophet is without honour save in his

own country.

ASHER. What has he given George?

DR. FRYE. I can't tell you exactly, but I can make a guess--though he's

published no account of his recent experiments.

(As DR. JONATHAN reenters from the left.)

He will undoubtedly tell you himself. (Exit Dr. FRYE, left.)

ASHER. Will he live?

DR. JONATHAN. I'll be frank with you, Asher,--I don't know. All we can

do is to wait.

ASHER. I call God to witness there's nothing I wouldn't do, no

sacrifice I wouldn't make, if that boy could be saved!

DR. JONATHAN. Remember that, Asher.

ASHER. Remember what?

DR. JONATHAN. If his life is saved, you will be called upon to make a

sacrifice, to do your part.

ASHER. My part?

DR. JONATHAN. Yes. What I have given him--the medicine--is only half

the battle--should it succeed. My laboratory experiments were only

completed last night.

ASHER. This is what you have been working on?

DR. JONATHAN. It happens to be. But I have had no chance to test it

--except on animals. I meant to have gone to a war hospital in New York

today. If it works, then we shall have to try the rest of the

experiment,--your half of it.

ASHER. What's that?

DR. JONATHAN. You probably noticed that George avoided you.

ASHER. It's more than I can bear. You know what we've been to each

other. If he should die--feeling that way--!

DR. JONATHAN. George hasn't lost his affection for you; if it were so,

we shouldn't have that symptom. I will tell you, briefly, my theory of

the case. But first let me say, in justice to Frye, that he was in no

position to know certain facts that give the clue to George's condition

the mental history.

ASHER. I don't understand.

DR. JONATHAN. The day he left home, for France, certain things happened

to him to arouse his sympathy with what we call working people, their

lives and aspirations. As you know, George has a very human side,--he

loves his fellow men. He'd never thought of these things before. He

went with them, naturally, to you, and I infer that you suppressed him!

ASHER. I told him I couldn't discuss certain aspects. His emotional

state troubled me,--he was going away, and I imagined he would get over

it.

DR. JONATHAN. He didn't get over it. It was an emotional crisis. He

left home with a conflict in his mind,--a conflict between his affection

for you and that which he had suddenly come to see was right. I mean,

right for today, for the year and hour in which we are living. This

question of the emancipation of labour began a hundred years ago, with

the introduction of machinery and the rise of modern industry, and in

this war it has come to a head. Well, as the time approached for George

to risk his life for his new beliefs, his mental conflict deepened. He

talked with other young men who believed they were fighting for the same

cause. And then--it must have been shortly before he was wounded--he

wrote you that appeal.

ASHER. The letter I read to you!

DR. JONATHAN. The fact that in his own home, in the shops which bore his

name, no attempt had been made to meet the new issues for which he was

going into battle, weighed upon him. Then came the shell that shattered

his body. But the probabilities are that he was struck down,

unconscious, at the very moment when the conflict in his mind was most

acute. He was thinking of you, of the difference you and he had had, he

was lonely, he was afraid for the bravest men feel fear. To him the

bursting of the shell was the bursting of the conflict within him. I

won't go into the professional side of the matter, the influence of the

mental state on the physical--but after the wound healed, whenever

anything occurred to remind him of the conflict,--a letter from you, the

sight of the strikers this afternoon at the shops, meeting you once more,

a repetition came of what happened when the shell struck him. Certain

glands fail in their functions, the heart threatens to stop and put an

end to life. If my theory is correct, what I have given him may tide

over that danger, but only on one condition can he continue to live and

become a useful member of society.

ASHER. What condition?

DR. JONATHAN. That the mental conflict, the real cause of the trouble,

he resolved. The time has come, Asher, when you must make your choice

between your convictions and your son.

ASHER. Speak out.

DR. JONATHAN. I mean that you must be prepared to tell George, if he

recovers, that you have abandoned your attitude toward the workmen, that

you are willing to recognize their union, settle the strike, and go even

further than in their ignorance they ask. You must try the experiment in

the democratization of industry on which George's heart is set.

Otherwise I will not answer for his sanity, I cannot even give you the

hope that he will live.

ASHER. I never heard of a mental conflict producing such a state!

DR. JONATHAN. Remember, you have said that you will make any sacrifice

to save George's life.

ASHER (turning on DR. JONATHAN). You're not trying to play on my--my

superstition,--at a time like this!

DR. JONATHAN. I'm not dealing with superstition, Asher, but with

science. If George revives, he will wish to talk with you.

ASHER. When?

DR. JONATHAN. Probably this evening--or never. I ask you the question

--will you yield your convictions?

(ASHER bows his head. DR. JONATHAN gazes at him for a moment,

compassionately.)

I'll go back to him now. I think he'd better be moved to his room, and

put to bed.

(Exit DR. JONATHAN, left. For a minute ASHER remains alone, and

then DR. JONATHAN and Dr. FRYE reappear, carrying GEORGE. The

blanket is flung over his knees, and he seems lifeless. They are

followed by MINNIE, carrying the phial and the glass, and by

AUGUSTA. They cross the room and go out, lower right. ASHER walks

behind them as far as the door, hesitates, and then goes out.)

(THE CURTAIN falls and remains down a minute to indicate a lapse of

three hours. When it rises again night has come, the lamps are

lighted and the window curtains drawn. ASHER and AUGUSTA are

discovered standing together. ASHER has a black, leather covered

book in his hand, with one finger in the place where he has been

reading. Both show the effects of a strain.)

AUGUSTA (who has been speaking). And when we took him upstairs, I was

sure he was going to die--it seemed to me as if nothing could save him.

He's been sitting up and talking to us--of course he's pale and weak and

wasted, but in spite of that, Asher, he seems to have a strength, a force

that he didn't have before he went away. He isn't a boy any more.

I can't describe it, but I'm almost afraid of him--!

ASHER. He--he hasn't mentioned me?

AUGUSTA. No, my dear--and since Jonathan warned me not to, I've said

nothing about you. Why is it?

ASHER. Jonathan's the master now.

AUGUSTA. In spite of what I've felt about him, he has saved George for

us. It seems a miracle.

ASHER. A scientific miracle.

AUGUSTA (indicating the book ASHER holds). And yet you were reading the

Bible!

ASHER. I just took it down. (He lays it on the table, and touches

AUGUSTA, with an unwonted tenderness, on the shoulder). I think we may

hope, now, Augusta. But before we can be sure that he'll get well,

there's something else to be done.

AUGUSTA (anxiously). What?

ASHER. Go back to George,--I'll tell you later. It seems that we must

trust Jonathan. Here he is now.

(Enter DR. JONATHAN, lower right, as AUGUSTA departs.)

DR. JONATHAN. George wants to get dressed, and come down.

ASHER. You think it wise?

DR. JONATHAN. Under the circumstances yes. The heart is practically

normal again, we have done all that is physically possible. One half of

the experiment seems to have succeeded, and the sooner we try the other

half, the better. Are you still willing?

ASHER. I'm prepared. I've carried out your--instructions--sent for the

committee.

DR. JONATHAN (looking at him). Good!

ASHER (with an effort). Jonathan, I--I guess I misjudged you--

DR. JONATHAN (Smiling). Wait until you are sure. Nothing matters if we

can save that boy. By the way, he asked for Timothy, and I've sent for

him.

ASHER. He asked for Timothy, and not for me!

DR. JONATHAN. It seems he saw an officer of Bert's regiment, after the

boy was killed. Here's the committee, I think.

(The MAID enters, lower right. She does not speak, but ushers in

HILLMAN, RENCH and FERSEN, and retires.)

HILLMAN. |

RENCH. |-Good evening, Mr. Pindar. Good evening, doctor.

FERSEN. |

ASHER. Good evening.

(An awkward silence. From habit, ASHER stares at them defiantly, as

DR. JONATHAN goes out, lower right.)

HILLMAN (going up to ASHER). How's your son, Mr. Pindar?

RENCH. We're real anxious about the Captain.

FERSEN (nodding). The boys think a whole lot of him, Mr. Pindar.

ASHER. He's better, thank you. The medicine Dr. Pindar has given him

RENCH. Didn't I say so? When I heard how he was when he got back, I

said to Fred Hillman here,--if anybody can cure him, it's Dr. Jonathan,

right here in Foxon Falls!

(A pause.)

I'm sorry this here difference came up just now, Mr. Pindar, when the

Captain come home. We was a little mite harsh--but we was strung up,

I guess, from the long shifts. If we'd known your son was comin'--

ASHER. You wouldn't have struck?

RENCH. We'd have agreed to put it off. When a young man like that is

near dying for his country why--anything can wait. But what we're asking

is only right.

ASHER. Well, right or not right, I sent for you to say, so far as I'm

concerned, the strike's over.

RENCH. You'll--you'll recognize the union?

ASHER. I grant--( he catches himself)--I consent to your demands.

(After a moment of stupefaction, their faces light up, and they

approach him.)

RENCH. We appreciate it, Mr. Pindar. This'll make a lot of families

happy tonight.

FERSEN. It will that.

HILLMAN. Maybe you won't believe me, Mr. Pindar, but it was hard to see

the shops closed down--as hard on us as it was on you. We take pride in

them, too. I guess you won't regret it.

ASHER (waving them away). I hope not. I ought to tell you that you may

thank my son for this--my son and Dr. Pindar.

RENCH. We appreciate it,--just the same.

(ASHER makes a gesture as thought to dismiss the subject, as well as

the committee. They hesitate, and are about to leave when GEORGE,

followed by DR. JONATHAN, comes in, lower right. His entrance is

quite dramatic. He walks with the help of a stick, slowly, but his

bearing is soldierly, authoritative, impressive. He halts when he

perceives the committee.)

HILLMAN (going up to GEORGE). How are you, Captain?

FERSEN. Good to have you home once more.

RENCH (going up to GEORGE). Good to see you, Captain, on a day like

this. As Larz Fersen said when we were going to strike, "It's a fine day

for it." Well, this is a better day--you home and well, and the strike

off.

GEORGE (glancing from one to the other, and then at ASHER). What do you

mean?

RENCH. Why, Mr. Pindar--your father here's just made everybody happy.

He's recognized the union, and we're going back to work. We'll turn out

machines to make shrapnel enough to kill every Hun in France,--get square

with 'em for what they done to you.

(They all watch GEORGE, absorbed in the effect this announcement has

on him. An expression of happiness grows in his eyes. After a

moment he goes up to ASHER.)

GEORGE. Dad, why did you do this?

ASHER. I'll tell you, George. When you came home this afternoon I

realized something I hadn't realized before. I saw that the tide was

against me, that I was like that old English king who set his throne on

the sands and thought he could stay the waters. If--if anything had

happened to you, I couldn't have fought on, but now that you're here with

me again, now that you've risked your life and almost lost it for this

--this new order in which you believe, why, it's enough for me--I can

surrender with honour. I'm tired, I need a rest. I'd have gone down

fighting, but I guess you've saved me. I've been true to my

convictions,--you, who belong to the new generation, must be true to

yours. And as I told you once, all I care about this business is to hand

it over to you.

GEORGE. You'll help me!

ASHER. This seems to be Jonathan's speciality,--science. But I never

give my word half heartedly, my boy, and I'll back you to my last dollar.

Be prepared for disappointments,--but if you accomplish something, I'll

be glad. And if you fail, George,--any failure for a man's convictions

is a grand failure.

GEORGE. Well, it means life to me, dad. I owe it to you.

ASHER (turning toward DR. JONATHAN). No, you owe it to him,--to science.

(He puts one hand on GEORGE'S shoulder, and the other, with an

abrupt movement, on DR. JONATHAN'S.)

And if science will do as much for democracy, then--

GEORGE. Then, you're from Missouri. Good old dad!

ASHER (huskily, trying, to carry it off, and almost overcome by emotion

at the reconciliation). I'm from Missouri, my boy.

DR. JONATHAN. Then you're a true scientist, Asher, for science, too,

waits to be shown.

(ASHER goes out, lower right. Dr. JONATHAN, evidently in support

and sympathy, goes with him. GEORGE and the committee look after

them, and then GEORGE sits down, and smiles at the men.)

GEORGE. And we've got to be scientists, too. Are you fellows willing to

take your share in the experiment?

HILLMAN. What experiment's that, Captain?

GEORGE. Now that you've got your union, what's the good of it?

RENCH (after a pause). Why, I thought we'd made that pretty clear,

Captain. We've got something to fall back on in case the employers don't

live up to their agreements. I'm not speaking of you--

GEORGE. In other words, you've got a weapon.

RENCH. Well, you might call it that.

GEORGE. But weapons imply warfare,--don't they?

RENCH. We wouldn't fight with you.

GEORGE. Yes, you would,--if our interests conflicted. When I was in the

trenches I kept thinking of the quotation Lincoln used, "A house divided

against itself cannot stand." We're going to try to perpetuate that

house, just as he did.

HILLMAN. Lincoln had common sense.

GEORGE. Another name for intelligence. And what we've got to decide is

whether the old house will do--for democracy--industrial democracy? Can

we shore up the timbers--or shall we have to begin to build a new house?

RENCH (glancing at HILLMAN). The old one sure enough looks rotten to me.

I've said that all along.

GEORGE. It seems to have served its day. Has your union got the plans

of a new house ready--consulted an architect?

RENCH. I'm afraid we don't get you, Captain.

GEORGE. You belong to the American Federation of Labour, don't you?

Has it got a new house ready to move into?

RENCH. Well, I haven't seen any plans.

GEORGE. If the old structure's too small, one party or the other will

have to be shoved out. The capitalist or the employee. Which will it

be?

RENCH (laughing). If it comes to that--

GEORGE (smiling). There's no question in your mind. But you hadn't

thought about it--your Federation hasn't thought about it, or doesn't

want to think about it, and your employers don't want to, either.

HILLMAN (stroking his moustache). That's so

GEORGE. I'll tell you who have thought about it--the Bolshevists and the

I. W. W. And because they have a programme,--some programme, any

programme, they're more intelligent than we, for the time.

RENCH. Those guys?

GEORGE. Exactly,--those guys. At least they see that the house isn't

fit to live in. They want to pull it down, and go back to living in

trees and caves.

HILLMAN. That's about right.

GEORGE. But you're conservatives, you labour union people--the

aristocrats of labour, which means that you don't think. What you really

object to, when you come down to it, is that men like my father and me,

and the bankers,--we're all in the same boat, most of 'us own banks,

too,--control the conditions of life for you and men like you.

RENCH. I never heard it put in those words, but by gum, it's so.

GEORGE. And your Confederation, your unions are for the skilled workers,

whose conditions aren't so bad,--and they're getting better every time

you jack up the wages. You complain that we employers aren't thinking of

you, but are you thinking of the millions of the unskilled who live from

hand to mouth? The old structure's good enough for you, too. But what

will the miserable men, who don't sit in, be doing while we're squabbling

to see who'll have the best rooms?

RENCH. Blow the house up, I guess.

GEORGE. If they're rough with it, it'll tumble down like a pack of

cards--simply because we're asses. Can't we build a house big enough for

all--for a hundred million people and their descendants? A house in

which, after a while, there will be no capitalists and no exploiters and

no wreckers, only workers--each man and woman on the job they were fitted

for? It's a man-sized job, but isn't it worth tackling?

RENCH (enthused). It's sure worth tackling, Captain.

GEORGE. And can't we begin it, in a modest way, by making a little model

of the big house right here in Foxon Falls? Dr. Jonathan will help us.

RENCH. Go to it, Captain. We'll trust him and you.

GEORGE. Trust is all right, but you've got to go to it, too, and use

your headpieces. We've got to sit down together and educate ourselves,

who are now employers and employees, get hold of all the facts, the

statistics,--and all the elements, the human nature side of it, from the

theorists, the students, whom we've despised.

RENCH. Well, it's a fact, I hadn't thought much of them intellectuals.

GEORGE. They're part of the game--their theories are the basis for an

intelligent practice. And what should we be able to do without their

figures? Look at what we've worked out in large scale production and

distribution in this war! That's a new world problem. Shall we be

pioneers here in Foxon Falls in the new experiment?

RENCH. An experiment in human chemicals, as the doctor would say.

Pioneers! I kind of like that word. You can put me in the wagon,

Captain.

GEORGE. It will be a Conestoga with the curtains rolled up, so that

everybody can see in. No secrets. And it will be a wagon with an

industrial constitution.

FERSEN. Excuse me, Captain,--but what's that?

(RENCH laughs.)

GEORGE (smiling). Hasn't it struck you, Fersen, that unless a man has a

voice and an interest in the industry in which he works his voice, and

interest in the government for which he votes is a mockery?

(FERSEN nods.)

RENCH. We'll have to give Larz a little education.

GEORGE. Oh, I guess he'll make a good industrial citizen. But that's

part of the bargain.

RENCH. That's fair. Human nature ain't so rotten, when you give it a

chance.

GEORGE. Well, then, are you willing to try it out, on the level?

RENCH. I cal'late we'll stick, Captain.

HILLMAN. We sure will.

FERSEN. We'll be pioneers!

GEORGE. That's good American, Fersen, not to be afraid of an ideal.

Shake! We'll sit down with it in a day or two.

(They all shake. The members of the committee file out of the room,

lower right. GEORGE is left alone for a brief interval, when

MINNIE, in the white costume of a nurse, enters, lower right,

with a glass of medicine in her hand.)

MINNIE (halting). You're all alone? Where's Dr. Jonathan?

GEORGE. He's gone off with dad.

MINNIE. It's nine o'clock.

(She hands him the glass, he drinks the contents and sets the glass

on the table. Then he takes her hands and draws her to him and

kisses her. She submits almost passively.)

Why are you doing this, George?

GEORGE. Because I love you, because I need you, because I'm going to

marry you.

MINNIE (shaking her head: slowly). No you're not.

GEORGE. Why not?

MINNIE. You know why not, as well as I do.

(She gazes up at him. He is still holding her in his arms.

Suddenly she kisses him passionately, breaks away from him and

starts to fly from the room, when she runs into DR. JONATHAN, who is

entering, lower right.)

DR. JONATHAN. Where are you going, Minnie?

(MINNIE halts, and is silent. DR. JONATHAN lays a detaining hand on

her arm, and looks from one to the other, comprehendingly.)

GEORGE. I've asked her to marry me, Dr. Jonathan.

DR. JONATHAN. And what are your objections, Minnie?

MINNIE. You know why I can't, Dr. Jonathan. What kind of a wife would I

make for him, with his family and friends. I'd do anything for him but

that! He wouldn't be happy.

DR. JONATHAN. And what's your answer, George?

GEORGE. I don't want her for my family and friends,--I want her for

myself. This isn't a snap judgment--I've had time to think it over.

MINNIE. I didn't mean to be here when you got home. I know I'm not fit

to be your wife I haven't had any education.

GEORGE. Neither have I. We start level there. I've lived among people

of culture, and I've found out that culture chiefly consists of fixed

ideas, and obstruction to progress, of hating the President,--of knowing

the right people and eating fish with a fork.

MINNIE (smiling, though in tears). Well, I never ate fish with a knife,

anyway.

GEORGE. I spent my valuable youth learning Greek and Latin, and I can't

speak or read either of them. I know that Horace wrote odes, and Cicero

made orations, but I can't quote them. All I remember about biology is

that the fittest are supposed to survive, and in this war I've seen the

fittest killed off like flies. You've had several years of useful work

in the Pindar Shops and the Wire Works, to say nothing of a course in

biological chemistry, psychology and sociology under Dr. Jonathan. I'll

leave it to him whether you don't know more about life than I do--about

the life and problems of the great mass of people in this country. And

now that the strike's over--

MINNIE. The strike's over!

GEORGE. Yes. I've chosen my life. It isn't going to be divided

between a Wall Street office and Newport and Palm Beach. A girl out of

a finishing school wouldn't be of any use to me. I'm going to stay right

here in Foxon Falls, Minnie, I've got a real job on my hands, and I need

a real woman with special knowledge to help me. I don't mean to say we

won't have vacations, and we'll sit down and get our education together.

Dr. Jonathan will be the schoolmaster.

MINNIE. It's a dream, George.

GEORGE. Well, Minnie, if it's a dream worth dying for it's a dream worth

living for. Your brother Bert died for it.

CURTAIN

PG EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:

Economic freedom, without which political freedom is a farce

Flaming flag of a false martyrdom

It's money that makes you free

Often times principles is nothing but pride

We can't take Christianity too literally

A TRAVELLER IN WARTIME.

By Winston Churchill

PREFACE

I am reprinting here, in response to requests, certain recent experiences

in Great Britain and France. These were selected in the hope of

conveying to American readers some idea of the atmosphere, of "what it is

like" in these countries under the immediate shadow of the battle clouds.

It was what I myself most wished to know. My idea was first to send home

my impressions while they were fresh, and to refrain as far as possible

from comment and judgment until I should have had time to make a fuller

survey. Hence I chose as a title for these articles,--intended to be

preliminary, "A Traveller in War-Time." I tried to banish from my mind

all previous impressions gained from reading. I wished to be free for

the moment to accept and record the chance invitation or adventure,

wherever met with, at the Front, in the streets of Paris, in Ireland, or

on the London omnibus. Later on, I hoped to write a book summarizing the

changing social conditions as I had found them.

Unfortunately for me, my stay was unexpectedly cut short. I was able to

avail myself of but few of the many opportunities offered. With this

apology, the articles are presented as they were written.

I have given the impression that at the time of my visit there was no

lack of food in England, but I fear that I have not done justice to the

frugality of the people, much of which was self-imposed for the purpose

of helping to win the war. On very, good authority I have been given to

understand that food was less abundant during the winter just past;

partly because of the effect of the severe weather on our American

railroads, which had trouble in getting supplies to the coast, and partly

because more and more ships were required for transporting American

troops and supplies for these troops, to France. This additional

curtailment was most felt by families of small income, whose earners were

at the front or away on other government service. Mothers had great

difficulty in getting adequate nourishment for growing children. But the

British people cheerfully submitted to this further deprivation. Summer

is at hand. It is to be hoped that before another winter sets in,

American and British shipping will have sufficiently increased to remedy

the situation.

In regard to what I have said of the British army, I was profoundly

struck, as were other visitors to that front, by the health and morale of

the men, by the marvel of organization accomplished in so comparatively

brief a time. It was one of the many proofs of the extent to which the

British nation had been socialized. When one thought of that little band

of regulars sent to France in 1914, who became immortal at Mons, who

shared the glory of the Marne, and in that first dreadful winter held

back the German hosts from the Channel ports, the presence on the battle

line of millions of disciplined and determined men seemed astonishing

indeed. And this had been accomplished by a nation facing the gravest

crisis in its history, under the necessity of sustaining and financing

many allies and of protecting an Empire. Since my return to America a

serious reverse has occurred.

After the Russian peace, the Germans attempted to overwhelm the British

by hurling against them vastly superior numbers of highly trained men.

It is for the military critic of the future to analyse any tactical

errors that may have been made at the second battle of the Somme.

Apparently there was an absence of preparation, of specific orders from

high sources in the event of having to cede ground. This much can be

said, that the morale of the British Army remains unimpaired; that the

presence of mind and ability of the great majority of the officers who,

flung on their own resources, conducted the retreat, cannot be

questioned; while the accomplishment of General Carey, in stopping the

gap with an improvised force of non-combatants, will go down in history.

In an attempt to bring home to myself, as well as to my readers, a

realization of what American participation in this war means or should

mean.

A TRAVELLER IN WAR-TIME

CHAPTER I

Toward the end of the summer of 1917 it was very hot in New York, and

hotter still aboard the transatlantic liner thrust between the piers.

One glance at our cabins, at the crowded decks and dining-room, at the

little writing-room above, where the ink had congealed in the ink-wells,

sufficed to bring home to us that the days of luxurious sea travel, of

a la carte restaurants, and Louis Seize bedrooms were gone--at least for

a period. The prospect of a voyage of nearly two weeks was not enticing.

The ship, to be sure, was far from being the best of those still running

on a line which had gained a magic reputation of immunity from

submarines; three years ago she carried only second and third class

passengers! But most of us were in a hurry to get to the countries where

war had already become a grim and terrible reality. In one way or

another we had all enlisted.

By "we" I mean the American passengers. The first welcome discovery

among the crowd wandering aimlessly and somewhat disconsolately about the

decks was the cheerful face of a friend whom at first I did not recognize

because of his amazing disguise in uniform. Hitherto he had been

associated in my mind with dinner parties and clubs.

That life was past. He had laid up his yacht and joined the Red Cross

and, henceforth, for an indeterminable period, he was to abide amidst the

discomforts and dangers of the Western Front, with five days' leave every

three months. The members of a group similarly attired whom I found

gathered by the after-rail were likewise cheerful. Two well-known

specialists from the Massachusetts General Hospital made significant the

hegira now taking place that threatens to leave our country, like

Britain, almost doctorless. When I reached France it seemed to me that I

met all the celebrated medical men I ever heard of. A third in the group

was a business man from the Middle West who had wound up his affairs and

left a startled family in charge of a trust company. Though his physical

activities had hitherto consisted of an occasional mild game of golf, he

wore his khaki like an old campaigner; and he seemed undaunted by the

prospect--still somewhat remotely ahead of him--of a winter journey

across the Albanian Mountains from the Aegean to the Adriatic.

After a restless night, we sailed away in the hot dawn of a Wednesday.

The shores of America faded behind us, and as the days went by, we had

the odd sense of threading uncharted seas; we found it more and more

difficult to believe that this empty, lonesome ocean was the Atlantic in

the twentieth century. Once we saw a four-master; once a shy, silent

steamer avoided us, westward bound; and once in mid-ocean, tossed on a

sea sun-silvered under a rack of clouds, we overtook a gallant little

schooner out of New Bedford or Gloucester--a forthfarer, too.

Meanwhile, amongst the Americans, the socializing process had begun.

Many elements which in a former stratified existence would never have

been brought into contact were fusing by the pressure of a purpose, of a

great adventure common to us all. On the upper deck, high above the

waves, was a little 'fumoir' which, by some odd trick of association,

reminded me of the villa formerly occupied by the Kaiser in Corfu

--perhaps because of the faience plaques set in the walls--although I

cannot now recall whether the villa has faience plaques or not. The room

was, of course, on the order of a French provincial cafe, and as such

delighted the bourgeoisie monopolizing the alcove tables and joking with

the fat steward. Here in this 'fumoir', lawyers, doctors, business men

of all descriptions, newspaper correspondents, movie photographers, and

millionaires who had never crossed save in a 'cabine de luxe', rubbed

elbows and exchanged views and played bridge together. There were

Y. M. C. A. people on their way to the various camps, reconstruction

workers intending to build temporary homes for the homeless French,

and youngsters in the uniform of the American Field Service, going over

to drive camions and ambulances; many of whom, without undue regret,

had left college after a freshman year. They invaded the 'fumoir',

undaunted, to practise atrocious French on the phlegmatic steward; they

took possession of a protesting piano in the banal little salon and sang:

"We'll not come back till it's over over there." And in the evening, on

the darkened decks, we listened and thrilled to the refrain:

"There's a long, long trail a-winding

Into the land of my dreams."

We were Argonauts--even the Red Cross ladies on their way to establish

rest camps behind the lines and brave the mud and rains of a winter in

eastern France. None, indeed, were more imbued with the forthfaring

spirit than these women, who were leaving, without regret, sheltered,

comfortable lives to face hardships and brave dangers without a question.

And no sharper proof of the failure of the old social order to provide

for human instincts and needs could be found than the conviction they

gave of new and vitalizing forces released in them. The timidities with

which their sex is supposedly encumbered had disappeared, and even the

possibility of a disaster at sea held no terrors for them. When the sun

fell down into the warm waters of the Gulf Stream and the cabins below

were sealed--and thus become insupportable--they settled themselves for

the night in their steamer-chairs and smiled at the remark of M. le

Commissaire that it was a good "season" for submarines. The moonlight

filtered through the chinks in the burlap shrouding the deck. About

3 a.m. the khaki-clad lawyer from Milwaukee became communicative, the Red

Cross ladies produced chocolate. It was the genial hour before the final

nap, from which one awoke abruptly at the sound of squeegees and brooms

to find the deck a river of sea water, on whose banks a wild scramble for

slippers and biscuit-boxes invariably ensued. No experience could have

been more socializing.

"Well, it's a relief," one of the ladies exclaimed, "not to be travelling

with half a dozen trunks and a hat-box! Oh, yes, I realize what I'm

doing. I'm going to live in one of those flimsy portable houses with

twenty cots and no privacy and wear the same clothes for months, but it's

better than thrashing around looking for something to do and never

finding it, never getting anything real to spend one's energy-on. I've

closed my country house, I've sublet my apartment, I've done with teas

and bridge, and I'm happier than I've been in my life even if I don't get

enough sleep."

Another lady, who looked still young, had two sons in the army. "There

was nothing for me to do but sit around the house and wait, and I want to

be useful. My husband has to stay at home; he can't leave his business."

Be useful! There she struck the new and aggressive note of emancipation

from the restricted self-sacrifice of the old order, of wider service

for the unnamed and the unknown; and, above all, for the wider

self-realization of which service is but a by-product. I recall

particularly among these women a young widow with an eager look in clear

grey eyes that gazed eastward into the unknown with hope renewed. Had

she lived a quarter of a century ago she might have been doomed to slow

desiccation. There are thousands of such women in France today, and to

them the great war has brought salvation.

From what country other than America could so many thousands of pilgrims

--even before our nation had entered the war--have hurried across a wide

ocean to take their part? No matter what religion we profess, whether it

be Calvinism, or Catholicism, we are individualists, pragmatists,

empiricists for ever. Our faces are set toward strange worlds presently

to rise out of the sea and take on form and colour and substance--worlds

of new aspirations, of new ideas and new values. And on this voyage I

was reminded of Josiah Royce's splendid summary of the American

philosophy--of the American religion as set forth by William James:

"The spirit of the frontiers-man, of the gold-seeker or the

home-builder transferred to the metaphysical or to the religious

realm. There is a far-off home, our long lost spiritual fortune.

Experience alone can guide us to the place where these things are,

hence indeed you need experience. You can only win your way on the

frontier unless you are willing to live there."

Through the pall of horror and tragedy the American sees a vision;

for him it is not merely a material and bloody contest of arms and men,

a military victory to be gained over an aggressive and wrong-minded

people. It is a world calamity, indeed, but a calamity, since it has

come, to be spiritualized and utilized for the benefit of the future

society of mankind. It must be made to serve a purpose in helping to

liberate the world from sentimentalism, ignorance, close-mindedness, and

cant.

II

One night we entered the danger zone. There had been an entertainment in

the little salon which, packed with passengers, had gradually achieved

the temperature and humidity of a Turkish bath. For the ports had been

closed as tight as gaskets could make them, the electric fans, as usual,

obstinately "refused to march." After the amateur speechmaking and

concert pieces an Italian violinist, who had thrown over a lucrative

contract to become a soldier, played exquisitely; and one of the French

sisters we had seen walking the deck with the mincing steps of the

cloister sang; somewhat precariously and pathetically, the Ave Maria.

Its pathos was of the past, and after she had finished, as we fled into

the open air, we were conscious of having turned our backs irrevocably

yet determinedly upon an era whose life and convictions the music of the

composer so beautifully expressed. And the sister's sweet withered face

was reminiscent of a missal, one bright with colour, and still shining

faintly. A missal in a library of modern books!

On deck a fine rain was blowing through a gap in our burlap shroud, a

phosphorescent fringe of foam hissed along the sides of the ship, giving

the illusory appearance of our deadlights open and ablaze, exaggerating

the sinister blackness of the night. We were, apparently, a beacon in

that sepia waste where modern undersea monsters were lurking.

There were on board other elements which in the normal times gone by

would have seemed disquieting enough. The evening after we had left New

York, while we were still off the coast of Long Island, I saw on the poop

a crowd of steerage passengers listening intently to harangues by

speakers addressing them from the top of a pile of life rafts.

Armenians, I was told, on their way to fight the Turks, all recruited in

America by one frenzied woman who had seen her child cut in two by a

German officer. Twilight was gathering as I joined the group, the sea

was silvered by the light of an August moon floating serenely between

swaying stays. The orator's passionate words and gestures evoked wild

responses from his hearers, whom the drag of an ancient hatred had

snatched from the peaceful asylum of the west. This smiling, happy folk,

which I had seen in our manufacturing towns and cities, were now

transformed, atavistic--all save one, a student, who stared wistfully

through his spectacles across the waters. Later, when twilight deepened,

when the moon had changed from silver to gold, the orators gave place to

a singer. He had been a bootblack in America. Now he had become a bard.

His plaintive minor chant evoked, one knew not how, the flavour of that

age-long history of oppression and wrong these were now determined to

avenge. Their conventional costumes were proof that we had harboured

them--almost, indeed, assimilated them. And suddenly they had reverted.

They were going to slaughter the Turks.

On a bright Saturday afternoon we steamed into the wide mouth of the

Gironde, a name stirring vague memories of romance and terror. The

French passengers gazed wistfully at the low-lying strip of sand and

forest, but our uniformed pilgrims crowded the rail and hailed it as the

promised land of self-realization. A richly coloured watering-place slid

into view, as in a moving-picture show. There was, indeed, all the

reality and unreality of the cinematograph about our arrival; presently

the reel would end abruptly, and we should find ourselves pushing our way

out of the emptying theatre into a rainy street. The impression of

unreality in the face of visual evidence persisted into the night when,

after an afternoon at anchor, we glided up the river, our decks and ports

ablaze across the land. Silhouettes of tall poplars loomed against the

blackness; occasionally a lamp revealed the milky blue facade of a house.

This was France! War-torn France--at last vividly brought home to us

when a glare appeared on the sky, growing brighter and brighter until, at

a turn of the river, abruptly we came abreast of vomiting furnaces,

thousands of electric lights strung like beads over the crest of a hill,

and, below these, dim rows of houses, all of a sameness, stretching along

monotonous streets. A munitions town in the night.

One could have tossed a biscuit on the stone wharfs where the workmen,

crouching over their tasks, straightened up at sight of us and cheered.

And one cried out hoarsely, "Vous venez nous sauver, vous Americains"

--"You come to save us"--an exclamation I was to hear again in the days

that followed.

III

All day long, as the 'rapide' hurried us through the smiling wine country

and past the well-remembered chateaux of the Loire, we wondered how we

should find Paris--beautiful Paris, saved from violation as by a miracle!

Our first discovery, after we had pushed our way out of the dim station

into the obscurity of the street, was that of the absence of taxicabs.

The horse-drawn buses ranged along the curb were reserved for the

foresighted and privileged few. Men and women were rushing desperately

about in search of conveyances, and in the midst of this confusion,

undismayed, debonnair, I spied a rugged, slouch-hatted figure standing

under a lamp--the unmistakable American soldier.

"Aren't there any cabs in Paris?" I asked.

"Oh, yes, they tell me they're here," he said. "I've given a man a

dollar to chase one."

Evidently one of our millionaire privates who have aroused such burnings

in the heart of the French poilu, with his five sous a day! We left him

there, and staggered across the Seine with our bags. A French officer

approached us. "You come from America," he said. "Let me help you."

There was just enough light in the streets to prevent us from getting

utterly lost, and we recognized the dark mass of the Tuileries as we

crossed the gardens. The hotel we sought was still there, and its menu,

save for the war-bread and the tiny portion of sugar, as irreproachable

as ever.

The next morning, as if by magic, hundreds of taxis had sprung into

existence, though they were much in demand. And in spite of the soldiers

thronging the sunlit streets, Paris was seemingly the same Paris one had

always known, gay--insouciante, pleasure-bent. The luxury shops appeared

to be thriving, the world-renowned restaurants to be doing business as

usual; to judge from the prices, a little better than usual; the

expensive hotels were full. It is not the real France, of course, yet it

seemed none the less surprising that it should still exist. Oddly enough

the presence of such overwhelming numbers of soldiers should have failed

to strike the note of war, emphasized that of lavishness, of the casting

off of mundane troubles for which the French capital has so long been

known. But so it was. Most of these soldiers were here precisely with

the object of banishing from their minds the degradations and horrors of

the region from which they had come, and which was so unbelievably near;

a few hours in an automobile--less than that in one of those dragon-fly

machines we saw intermittently hovering in the blue above our heads!

Paris, to most Americans, means that concentrated little district de luxe

of which the Place Vendome is the centre, and we had always unconsciously

thought of it as in the possession of the Anglo-Saxons. So it seems

today. One saw hundreds of French soldiers, of course, in all sorts of

uniforms, from the new grey blue and visor to the traditional cloth

blouse and kepi; once in a while a smart French officer. The English and

Canadians, the Australians, New Zealanders, and Americans were much in

evidence. Set them down anywhere on the face of the globe, under any

conditions conceivable, and you could not surprise them; such was the

impression. The British officers and even the British Tommies were

blase, wearing the air of the 'semaine Anglaise', and the "five o'clock

tea," as the French delight to call it. That these could have come

direct from the purgatory of the trenches seemed unbelievable. The

Anzacs, with looped-up hats, strolled about, enjoying themselves, halting

before the shops in the Rue de la Paix to gaze at the priceless jewellery

there, or stopping at a sidewalk cafe to enjoy a drink. Our soldiers had

not seen the front; many of them, no doubt, were on leave from the

training-camps, others were on duty in Paris, but all seemed in a hurry

to get somewhere, bound for a definite destination. They might have been

in New York or San Francisco. It was a novel sight, indeed, to observe

them striding across the Place Vendome with out so much as deigning to

cast a glance at the column dedicated to the great emperor who fought

that other world-war a century ago; to see our square-shouldered officers

hustling around corners in Ford and Packard automobiles. And the

atmosphere of our communication headquarters was so essentially one of

"getting things done" as to make one forget the mediaeval narrowness of

the Rue Sainte Anne, and the inconvenient French private-dwelling

arrangements of the house. You were transported back to America. Such,

too, was the air of our Red Cross establishment in the ancient building

facing the Palace de la Concorde, where the unfortunate Louis lost his

head.

History had been thrust into the background. I was never more aware of

this than when, shortly after dawn Wednesday, the massive grey pile of

the Palace of Versailles suddenly rose before me. As the motor shot

through the empty Place d'Armes I made a desperate attempt to summon

again a vivid impression, when I had first stood there many years ago,

of an angry Paris mob beating against that grill, of the Swiss guards

dying on the stairway for their Queen. But it was no use. France has

undergone some subtle change, yet I knew I was in France. I knew it when

we left Paris and sped through the dim leafy tunnels of the Bois; when I

beheld a touch of filtered sunlight on the dense blue thatch of the

'marroniers' behind the walls of a vast estate once dedicated to the

sports and pleasures of Kings; when I caught glimpses of silent chateaux

mirrored in still waters.

I was on my way, with one of our naval officers, to visit an American

naval base on the western coast. It was France, but the laughter had

died on her lips. A few women and old men and children were to be seen

in the villages, a bent figure in a field, an occasional cart that drew

aside as we hurried at eighty kilometers an hour along deserted routes

drawn as with a ruler across the land. Sometimes the road dipped into a

canyon of poplars, and the sky between their crests was a tiny strip of

mottled blue and white. The sun crept in and out, the clouds cast

shadows on the hills; here and there the tower of lonely church or castle

broke the line of a distant ridge. Morning-glories nodded over lodge

walls where the ivy was turning crimson, and the little gardens were

masses of colours--French colours like that in the beds of the Tuileries,

brick-red geraniums and dahlias, yellow marigolds and purple asters.

We lunched at one of the little inns that for generations have been

tucked away in the narrow streets of provincial towns; this time a Cheval

Blanc, with an unimposing front and a blaze of sunshine in its heart.

After a dejeuner fit for the most exacting of bon viveurs we sat in that

courtyard and smoked, while an ancient waiter served us with coffee that

dripped through silver percolators into our glasses. The tourists have

fled. "If happily you should come again, monsieur," said madame, as she

led me with pardonable pride through her immaculate bedrooms and salons

with wavy floors. And I dwelt upon a future holiday there, on the joys

of sharing with a friend that historic place. The next afternoon I

lingered in another town, built on a little hill ringed about with

ancient walls, from whose battlements tide-veined marshes stretched away

to a gleaming sea. A figure flitting through the cobbled streets, a

woman in black who sat sewing, sewing in a window, only served to

heighten the impression of emptiness, to give birth to the odd fancy that

some alchemic quality in the honeyed sunlight now steeping it must have

preserved the place through the ages. But in the white close surrounding

the church were signs that life still persisted. A peasant was drawing

water at the pump, and the handle made a noise; a priest chatted with

three French ladies who had come over from a neighbouring seaside resort.

And then a woman in deep mourning emerged from a tiny shop and took her

bicycle from against the wall and spoke to me.

"Vous etes Americain, monsieur?"

I acknowledged it.

"Vous venez nous sauver"--the same question I had heard on the lips of

the workman in the night. "I hope so, madame," I replied, and would have

added, "We come also to save ourselves." She looked at me with sad,

questioning eyes, and I knew that for her--and alas for many like her--we

were too late. When she had mounted her wheel and ridden away I bought a

'Matin' and sat down on a doorstep to read about Kerensky and the Russian

Revolution. The thing seemed incredible here--war seemed incredible, and

yet its tentacles had reached out to this peaceful Old World spot and

taken a heavy toll. Once more I sought the ramparts, only to be reminded

by those crumbling, machicolated ruins that I was in a war-ridden land.

Few generations had escaped the pestilence.

At no great distance lay the little city which had been handed over to us

by the French Government for a naval base, one of the ports where our

troops and supplies are landed. Those who know provincial France will

visualize its narrow streets and reticent shops, its grey-white and ecru

houses all more or less of the same design, with long French windows

guarded by ornamental balconies of cast iron--a city that has never

experienced such a thing as a real-estate boom. Imagine, against such a

background, the bewildering effect of the dynamic presence of a few

regiments of our new army! It is a curious commentary on this war that

one does not think of these young men as soldiers, but as citizens

engaged in a scientific undertaking of a magnitude unprecedented. You

come unexpectedly upon truck-loads of tanned youngsters, whose features,

despite flannel shirts and campaign hats, summon up memories of Harvard

Square and the Yale Yard, of campuses at Berkeley and Ithaca. The

youthful drivers of these camions are alert, intent, but a hard day's

work on the docks by no means suffices to dampen the spirits of the

passengers, who whistle ragtime airs as they bump over the cobbles. And

the note they strike is presently sustained by a glimpse, on a siding, of

an efficient-looking Baldwin, ranged alongside several of the tiny French

locomotives of yesterday; sustained, too, by an acquaintance with the

young colonel in command of the town. Though an officer of the regular

army, he brings home to one the fact that the days of the military

martinet have gone for ever. He is military, indeed-erect and soldierly

--but fortune has amazingly made him a mayor and an autocrat, a builder,

and in some sense a railway-manager and superintendent of docks. And to

these functions have been added those of police commissioner, of

administrator of social welfare and hygiene. It will be a comfort to

those at home to learn that their sons in our army in France are cared

for as no enlisted men have ever been cared for before.

IV

By the end of September I had reached England, eager to gain a fresh

impression of conditions there.

The weather in London was mild and clear. The third evening after I had

got settled in one of those delightfully English hotels in the heart of

the city, yet removed from the traffic, with letter-boxes that still bear

the initials of Victoria, I went to visit some American naval officers in

their sitting-room on the ground floor. The cloth had not been removed

from the dinner-table, around which we were chatting, when a certain

strange sound reached our ears--a sound not to be identified with the

distant roar of the motor-busses in Pall Mall, nor with the sharp bark of

the taxi-horns, although not unlike them. We sat listening intently, and

heard the sound again.

"The Germans have come," one of the officers remarked, as he finished his

coffee. The other looked at his watch. It was nine o'clock. "They must

have left their lines about seven," he said.

In spite of the fact that our newspapers at home had made me familiar

with these aeroplane raids, as I sat there, amidst those comfortable

surroundings, the thing seemed absolutely incredible. To fly one hundred

and fifty miles across the Channel and southern England, bomb London,

and fly back again by midnight! We were going to be bombed! The

anti-aircraft guns were already searching the sky for the invaders. It is

sinister, and yet you are seized by an overwhelming curiosity that draws

you, first to pull aside the heavy curtains of the window, and then to

rush out into the dark street both proceedings in the worst possible

form! The little street was deserted, but in Pall Mall the dark forms of

busses could be made out scurrying for shelter, one wondered where?

Above the roar of London, the pop pop pop! of the defending guns could

be heard now almost continuously, followed by the shrieks and moans of

the shrapnel shells as they passed close overhead. They sounded like

giant rockets, and even as rockets some of them broke into a cascade of

sparks. Star shells they are called, bursting, it seemed, among the

immutable stars themselves that burned serenely on. And there were other

stars like November meteors hurrying across space--the lights of the

British planes scouring the heavens for their relentless enemies.

Everywhere the restless white rays of the searchlights pierced the

darkness, seeking, but seeking in vain. Not a sign of the intruders was

to be seen. I was induced to return to the sitting-room.

"But what are they shooting at?" I asked.

"Listen," said one of the officers. There came a lull in the firing and

then a faint, droning noise like the humming of insects on a still summer

day. "It's all they have to shoot at, that noise."

"But their own planes?" I objected.

"The Gotha has two engines, it has a slightly different noise, when you

get used to it. You'd better step out of that window. It's against the

law to show light, and if a bomb falls in the street you'd be filled with

glass." I overcame my fascination and obeyed. "It isn't only the

bombs," my friend went on, "it's the falling shrapnel, too."

The noise made by those bombs is unmistakable, unforgetable, and quite

distinct from the chorus of the guns and shrapnel--a crashing note,

reverberating, sustained, like the E minor of some giant calliope.

In face of the raids, which coincide with the coming of the moon, London

is calm, but naturally indignant over such methods of warfare. The

damage done is ridiculously small; the percentage of deaths and injuries

insignificant. There exists, in every large city, a riffraff to get

panicky: these are mostly foreigners; they seek the Tubes, and some the

crypt of St. Paul's, for it is wise to get under shelter during the brief

period of the raids, and most citizens obey the warnings of the police.

It is odd, indeed, that more people are not hurt by shrapnel. The Friday

following the raid I have described I went out of town for a week-end,

and returned on Tuesday to be informed that a shell had gone through the

roof outside of the room I had vacated, and the ceiling and floor of the

bedroom of one of the officers who lived below. He was covered with dust

and debris, his lights went out, but he calmly stepped through the

window. "You'd best have your dinner early, sir," I was told by the

waiter on my return. "Last night a lady had her soup up-stairs,

her chicken in the office, and her coffee in the cellar." It is worth

while noting that she had all three. Another evening, when I was dining

with Sir James Barrie, he showed me a handful of shrapnel fragments.

"I gathered them off the roof," he informed me. And a lady next to whom

I sat at luncheon told me in a matter-of-fact tone that a bomb had fallen

the night before in the garden of her town house. "It was quite

disagreeable," she said, "and broke all our windows on that side."

During the last raids before the moon disappeared, by a new and ingenious

system of barrage fire the Germans were driven off. The question of the

ethics of reprisals is agitating London.

One "raid," which occurred at midday, is worth recording. I was on my

way to our Embassy when, in the residential quarter through which I

passed, I found all the housemaids in the areas gazing up at the sky, and

I was told by a man in a grocer's cart that the Huns had come again. But

the invader on this occasion turned out to be a British aviator from one

of the camps who was bringing a message to London. The warmth of his

reception was all that could be desired, and he alighted hastily in the

first open space that presented itself.

Looking back to the time when I left America, I can recall the

expectation of finding a Britain beginning to show signs of distress.

I was prepared to live on a small ration. And the impression of the

scarcity of food was seemingly confirmed when the table was being set

for the first meal at my hotel; when the waiter, who chanced to be an

old friend, pointed to a little bowl half-full of sugar and exclaimed:

"I ought to warn you, sir, it's all you're to have for a week, and I'm

sorry to say you're only allowed a bit of bread, too." It is human

perversity to want a great deal of bread when bread becomes scarce; even

war bread, which, by the way, is better than white. But the rest of the

luncheon, when it came, proved that John Bull was under no necessity of

stinting himself. Save for wheat and sugar; he is not in want.

Everywhere in London you are confronted by signs of an incomprehensible

prosperity; everywhere, indeed, in Great Britain. There can be no doubt

about that of the wage-earners--nothing like it has ever been seen

before. One sure sign of this is the phenomenal sale of pianos to

households whose occupants had never dreamed of such luxuries. And

not once, but many times, have I read in the newspapers of workingmen's

families of four or five which are gaining collectively more than five

hundred pounds a year. The economic and social significance of this

tendency, the new attitude of the working classes, the ferment it is

causing need not be dwelt upon here. That England will be a changed

England is unquestionable.

The London theatres are full, the "movies" crowded, and you have to wait

your turn for a seat at a restaurant. Bond Street and Piccadilly are

doing a thriving business--never so thriving, you are told, and presently

you are willing to believe it. The vendor beggars, so familiar a sight a

few years ago, have all but disappeared, and you may walk from Waterloo

Station to the Haymarket without so much as meeting a needy soul anxious

to carry your bag. Taxicabs are in great demand. And one odd result of

the scarcity of what the English are pleased to call "petrol," by which

they mean gasoline, is the reappearance of that respectable, but almost

obsolete animal, the family carriage-horse; of that equally obsolete

vehicle, the victoria. The men on the box are invariably in black.

In spite of taxes to make the hair of an American turn grey, in spite

of lavish charities, the wealthy classes still seem wealthy--if the

expression may be allowed. That they are not so wealthy as they were

goes without saying. In the country houses of the old aristocracy the

most rigid economy prevails. There are new fortunes, undoubtedly,

munitions and war fortunes made before certain measures were taken to

control profits; and some establishments, including a few supported by

American accumulations, still exhibit the number of men servants and

amount of gold plate formerly thought adequate. But in most of these

great houses maids have replaced the butlers and footmen; mansions have

been given over for hospitals; gardeners are fighting in the trenches,

and courts and drives of country places are often overgrown with grass

and weeds.

"Yes, we do dine in public quite often," said a very great lady. "It's

cheaper than keeping servants."

Two of her three sons had been killed in France, but she did not mention

this. The English do not advertise their sorrows. Still another

explanation when husbands and sons and brothers come back across the

Channel for a few days' leave after long months in the trenches, nothing

is too good for them. And when these days have flown, there is always

the possibility that there may never be another leave. Not long ago I

read a heart-rending article about the tragedies of the goodbyes in the

stations and the terminal hotels--tragedies hidden by silence and a

smile. "Well, so long," says an officer "bring back a V. C.," cries

his sister from the group on the platform, and he waves his hand in

deprecation as the train pulls out, lights his pipe, and pretends

to be reading the Sphere.

Some evening, perchance, you happen to be in the dark street outside of

Charing Cross station. An occasional hooded lamp throws a precarious

gleam on a long line of men carrying--so gently--stretchers on which lie

the silent forms of rich and poor alike.

CHAPTER II

For the student of history who is able to place himself within the stream

of evolution the really important events of today are not taking place on

the battle lines, but behind them. The key-note of the new era has been

struck in Russia. And as I write these words, after the Italian retreat,

a second revolution seems possible. For three years one has thought

inevitably of 1789, and of the ensuing world conflict out of which

issued the beginnings of democracy. History does not repeat itself,

yet evolution is fairly consistent. While our attention has been focused

on the military drama enacted before our eyes and recorded in the

newspapers, another drama, unpremeditated but of vastly greater

significance, is unfolding itself behind the stage. Never in the history

of the world were generals and admirals, statesmen and politicians so

sensitive to or concerned about public opinion as they are today.

From a military point of view the situation of the Allies at the present

writing is far from reassuring. Germany and her associates have the

advantage of interior lines, of a single dominating and purposeful

leadership, while our five big nations, democracies or semi-democracies,

are stretched in a huge ring with precarious connections on land, with

the submarine alert on the sea. Much of their territory is occupied.

They did not seek the war; they still lack co-ordination and leadership

in waging it. In some of these countries, at least, politicians and

statesmen are so absorbed by administrative duties, by national rather

than international problems, by the effort to sustain themselves, that

they have little time for allied strategy. Governments rise and fall,

familiar names and reputations are juggled about like numbered balls in a

shaker, come to the top to be submerged again in a new 'emeute'. There

are conferences and conferences without end. Meanwhile a social ferment

is at work, in Russia conspicuously, in Italy a little less so, in

Germany and Austria undoubtedly, in France and England, and even in our

own country--once of the most radical in the world, now become the most

conservative.

What form will the social revolution take? Will it be unbridled,

unguided; will it run through a long period of anarchy before the

fermentation begun shall have been completed, or shall it be handled, in

all the nations concerned, by leaders who understand and sympathize with

the evolutionary trend, who are capable of controlling it, of taking the

necessary international steps of co-operation in order that it may become

secure and mutually beneficial to all? This is an age of co-operation,

and in this at least, if not in other matters, the United States of

America is in an ideal position to assume the leadership.

To a certain extent, one is not prepared to say how far, the military and

social crises are interdependent. And undoubtedly the military problem

rests on the suppression of the submarine. If Germany continues to

destroy shipping on the seas, if we are not able to supply our new armies

and the Allied nations with food and other things, the increasing social

ferment will paralyze the military operations of the Entente. The result

of a German victory under such circumstances is impossible to predict;

but the chances are certainly not worth running. In a, sense, therefore,

in a great sense, the situation is "up" to us in more ways than one, not

only to supply wise democratic leadership but to contribute material aid

and brains in suppressing the submarine, and to build ships enough to

keep Britain, France, and Italy from starving. We are looked upon by all

the Allies, and I believe justly, as being a disinterested nation, free

from the age-long jealousies of Europe. And we can do much in bringing

together and making more purposeful the various elements represented by

the nations to whose aid we have come.

I had not intended in these early papers to comment, but to confine

myself to such of my experiences abroad as might prove interesting and

somewhat illuminating. So much I cannot refrain from saying.

It is a pleasure to praise where praise is due, and too much cannot be

said of the personnel of our naval service--something of which I can

speak from intimate personal experience. In these days, in that part of

London near the Admiralty, you may chance to run across a tall, erect,

and broad-shouldered man in blue uniform with three stars on his collar,

striding rapidly along the sidewalk, and sometimes, in his haste, cutting

across a street. People smile at him--costermongers, clerks, and

shoppers--and whisper among themselves, "There goes the American

admiral!" and he invariably smiles back at them, especially at the

children. He is an admiral, every inch a seaman, commanding a devoted

loyalty from his staff and from the young men who are scouring the seas

with our destroyers. In France as well as in England the name Sims is a

household word, and if he chose he might be feted every day of the week.

He does not choose. He spends long hours instead in the quarters devoted

to his administration in Grosvenor Gardens, or in travelling in France

and Ireland supervising the growing forces under his command.

It may not be out of place to relate a characteristic story of Admiral

Sims, whose career in our service, whose notable contributions to naval

gunnery are too well known to need repetition. Several years ago, on a

memorable trip to England, he was designated by the admiral of the fleet

to be present at a banquet given our sailors in the Guildhall. Of course

the lord mayor called upon him for a speech, but Commander Sims insisted

that a bluejacket should make the address. "What, a bluejacket!"

exclaimed the lord mayor in astonishment. "Do bluejackets make speeches

in your country?" "Certainly they do," said Sims. "Now there's a

fine-looking man over there, a quartermaster on my ship. Let's call on

him and see what he has to say." The quartermaster, duly summoned, rose

with aplomb and delivered himself of a speech that made the hall ring,

that formed the subject of a puzzled and amazed comment by the newspapers

of the British Capital. Nor was it ever divulged that Commander Sims had

foreseen the occasion and had picked out the impressive quartermaster to

make a reputation for oratory for the enlisted force.

As a matter of fact, it is no exaggeration to add that there were and are

other non-commissioned officers and enlisted men in the service who could

have acquitted themselves equally well. One has only to attend some of

their theatrical performances to be assured of it.

But to the European mind our bluejacket is still something of an anomaly.

He is a credit to our public schools, a fruit of our system of universal

education. And he belongs to a service in which are reconciled,

paradoxically, democracy and discipline. One moment you may hear a

bluejacket talking to an officer as man to man, and the next you will

see him salute and obey an order implicitly.

On a wet and smoky night I went from the London streets into the

brightness and warmth of that refuge for American soldiers and sailors,

the "Eagle Hut," as the Y. M. C. A. is called. The place was full, as

usual, but my glance was at once attracted by three strapping,

intelligent-looking men in sailor blouses playing pool in a corner.

"I simply can't get used to the fact that people like that are ordinary

sailors," said the lady in charge to me as we leaned against the

soda-fountain. "They're a continual pride and delight to us Americans

here--always so willing to help when there's anything to be done, and so

interesting to talk to." When I suggested that her ideas of the navy

must have been derived from Pinafore she laughed. "I can't imagine using

a cat-o'-nine-tails on them!" she exclaimed--and neither could I. I heard

many similar comments. They are indubitably American, these sailors,

youngsters with the stamp of our environment on their features, keen and

self-reliant. I am not speaking now only of those who have enlisted

since the war, but of those others, largely from the small towns and

villages of our Middle West, who in the past dozen years or so have been

recruited by an interesting and scientific system which is the result of

the genius of our naval recruiting officers. In the files at Washington

may be seen, carefully tabulated, the several reasons for their

enlisting. Some have "friends in the service"; others wish to "perfect

themselves in a trade," to "complete their education" or "see the world"

--our adventurous spirit. And they are seeing it. They are also engaged

in the most exciting and adventurous sport--with the exception of aerial

warfare ever devised or developed--that of hunting down in all weathers

over the wide spaces of the Atlantic those modern sea monsters that prey

upon the Allied shipping. For the superdreadnought is reposing behind

the nets, the battle-cruiser ignominiously laying mines; and for the

present at least, until some wizard shall invent a more effective method

of annihilation, victory over Germany depends primarily on the airplane

and the destroyer. At three o'clock one morning I stood on the crowded

deck of an Irish mail-boat watching the full moon riding over Holyhead

Mountain and shimmering on the Irish Sea. A few hours later, in the

early light, I saw the green hills of Killarney against a washed and

clearing sky, the mud-flats beside the railway shining like purple

enamel. All the forenoon, in the train, I travelled through a country

bathed in translucent colours, a country of green pastures dotted over

with white sheep, of banked hedges and perfect trees, of shadowy blue

hills in the high distance. It reminded one of nothing so much as a

stained-glass-window depicting some delectable land of plenty and peace.

And it was Ireland! When at length I arrived at the station of the port

for which I was bound, and which the censor does not permit me to name, I

caught sight of the figure of our Admiral on the platform; and the fact

that I was in Ireland and not in Emmanuel's Land was brought home to me

by the jolting drive we took on an "outside car," the admiral perched

precariously over one wheel and I over the other. Winding up the hill by

narrow roads, we reached the gates of the Admiralty House.

The house sits, as it were, in the emperor's seat of the amphitheatre

of the town, overlooking the panorama of a perfect harbour. A ring of

emerald hills is broken by a little gap to seaward, and in the centre is

a miniature emerald isle. The ships lying at anchor seemed like

children's boats in a pond. To the right, where a river empties in, were

scattered groups of queer, rakish craft, each with four slanting pipes

and a tiny flag floating from her halyards; a flag--as the binoculars

revealed--of crimson bars and stars on a field of blue. These were our

American destroyers. And in the midst of them, swinging to the tide,

were the big "mother ships" we have sent over to nurse them when, after

many days and nights of hazardous work at sea, they have brought their

flock of transports and merchantmen safely to port. This "mothering" by

repair-ships which are merely huge machine-shops afloat--this trick of

keeping destroyers tuned up and constantly ready for service has inspired

much favourable comment from our allies in the British service. It is an

instance of our national adaptability, learned from an experience on long

coasts where navy-yards are not too handy. Few landsmen understand how

delicate an instrument the destroyer is.

A service so hazardous, demanding as it does such qualities as the

ability to make instantaneous decisions and powers of mental and physical

endurance, a service so irresistibly attractive to the young and

adventurous, produces a type of officer quite unmistakable. The day I

arrived in London from France, seeking a characteristically English meal,

I went to Simpson's in the Strand, where I found myself seated by the

side of two very junior officers of the British navy. It appeared that

they were celebrating what was left of a precious leave. At a

neighbouring table they spied two of our officers, almost equally

youthful. "Let's have 'em over," suggested one of the Britishers; and

they were "had" over; he raised his glass. "Here's how--as you say in

America!" he exclaimed. "You destroyer chaps are certainly top hole."

And then he added, with a blush, "I say, I hope you don't think I'm

cheeking you!"

I saw them afloat, I saw them coming ashore in that Irish port,

these young destroyer captains, after five wakeful nights at sea,

weather-bitten, clear-eyed, trained down to the last ounce. One, with

whom I had played golf on the New England hills, carried his clubs in his

hand and invited me to have a game with him. Another, who apologized for

not being dressed at noon on Sunday--he had made the harbour at three

that morning!--was taking his racquet out of its case, preparing to spend

the afternoon on the hospitable courts of Admiralty House with a fellow

captain and two British officers. He was ashamed of his late rising, but

when it was suggested that some sleep was necessary he explained that, on

the trip just ended, it wasn't only the submarines that kept him awake.

"When these craft get jumping about in a seaway you can't sleep even if

you want to." He who has had experience with them knows the truth of

this remark. Incidentally, though he did not mention it, this young

captain was one of three who had been recommended by the British admiral

to his government for the Distinguished Service Order. The captain's

report, which I read, is terse, and needs to be visualized. There is

simply a statement of the latitude and longitude, the time of day, the

fact that the wave of a periscope was sighted at 1,500 yards by the

quartermaster first class on duty; general quarters rung, the executive

officer signals full speed ahead, the commanding officer takes charge and

manoeuvres for position--and then something happens which the censor may

be fussy about mentioning. At any rate, oil and other things rise to the

surface of the sea, and the Germans are minus another submarine. The

chief machinist's mate, however, comes in for special mention. It seems

that he ignored the ladder and literally fell down the hatch, dislocating

his shoulder but getting the throttle wide open within five seconds!

In this town, facing the sea, is a street lined with quaint houses

painted in yellows and browns and greens, and under each house the kind

of a shop that brings back to the middleaged delectable memories of

extreme youth and nickels to spend. Up and down that street on a bright

Saturday afternoon may be seen our Middle-Western jackies chumming with

the British sailors and Tommies, or flirting with the Irish girls, or

gazing through the little panes of the show-windows, whose enterprising

proprietors have imported from the States a popular brand of chewing-gum

to make us feel more at home. In one of these shops, where I went to

choose a picture post-card, I caught sight of an artistic display of a

delicacy I had thought long obsolete--the everlasting gum-drop. But when

I produced a shilling the shopkeeper shook his head. "Sure, every day

the sailors are wanting to buy them of me, but it's for ornament I'm

keeping them," he said. "There's no more to be had till the war will be

over. Eight years they're here now, and you wouldn't get a tooth in

them, sir!" So I wandered out again, joined the admiral, and inspected

the Bluejackets' Club by the water's edge. Nothing one sees, perhaps, is

so eloquent of the change that has taken place in the life and fabric of

our navy. If you are an enlisted man, here in this commodious group of

buildings you can get a good shore meal and entertain your friends among

the Allies, you may sleep in a real bed, instead of a hammock, you may

play pool, or see a moving-picture show, or witness a vaudeville worthy

of professionals, like that recently given in honour of the visit of the

admiral of our Atlantic fleet. A band of thirty pieces furnished the

music, and in the opinion of the jackies one feature alone was lacking

to make the entertainment a complete success--the new drop-curtain had

failed to arrive from London. I happened to be present when this curtain

was first unrolled, and beheld spread out before me a most realistic

presentation of "little old New York," seen from the North River,

towering against blue American skies. And though I have never been

overfond of New York, that curtain in that place gave me a sensation!

Such is the life of our officers and sailors in these strange times that

have descended upon us. Five to eight days of vigilance, of hardship and

danger--in short, of war--and then three days of relaxation and enjoyment

in clubs, on golf-courses and tennis-courts, barring the time it takes to

clean ship and paint. There need be no fear that the war will be

neglected. It is eminently safe to declare that our service will

be true to its traditions.

III

"Dogged does it" ought to be added to "Dieu et mon droit" and other

devices of England. On a day when I was lunching with Mr. Lloyd George

in the dining-room at 10 Downing Street that looks out over the Horse

Guards' Parade, the present premier, with a characteristic gesture, flung

out his hand toward the portrait of a young man in the panel over the

mantel. It was of the younger Pitt, who had taken his meals and drunk

his port in this very room in that other great war a hundred years ago.

The news of Austerlitz, brought to him during his illness, is said to

have killed him. But England, undismayed, fought on for a decade, and

won. Mr. Lloyd George, in spite of burdens even heavier than Pitt's,

happily retains his health; and his is the indomitable spirit

characteristic of the new Britain as well as of the old. For it is a new

Britain one sees. Mr. Lloyd George is prime minister of a transformed

Britain, a Britain modernized and democratized. Like the Englishman who,

when he first witnessed a performance of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," cried out,

"How very unlike the home life of our dear Queen!" the American who

lunches in Downing Street is inclined to exclaim: "How different from

Lord North and Palmerston!" We have, I fear, been too long accustomed to

interpret Britain in terms of these two ministers and of what they

represented to us of the rule of a George the Third or of an inimical

aristocracy. Three out of the five men who form the war cabinet of

an empire are of what would once have been termed an "humble origin."

One was, if I am not mistaken, born in Nova Scotia. General Smuts,

unofficially associated with this council, not many years ago was in arms

against Britain in South Africa, and the prime minister himself is the

son of a Welsh tailor. A situation that should mollify the most exacting

and implacable of our anti-British democrats!

I listened to many speeches and explanations of the prejudice that

existed in the mind of the dyed-in-the-wool American against England,

and the reason most frequently given was the "school-book" reason;

our histories kept the feeling alive. Now; there is no doubt that the

histories out of which we were taught made what psychologists would call

"action patterns," or "complexes," in our brains, just as the

school-books have made similar complexes in the brains of German children

and prepared them for this war. But, after all, there was a certain

animus behind the histories. Boiled down, the sentiment was one against

the rule of a hereditary aristocracy, and our forefathers had it long

before the separation took place. The Middle-Western farmer has no

prejudice against France, because France is a republic. The French are

lovable, and worthy of all the sympathy and affection we can give them.

But Britain is still nominally a monarchy; and our patriot thinks of its

people very much as the cowboy used to regard citizens of New York. They

all lived on Fifth Avenue. For the cowboy, the residents of the dreary

side streets simply did not exist. We have been wont to think of all the

British as aristocrats, while they have returned the compliment by

visualizing all Americans as plutocrats--despite the fact that one-tenth

of our population is said to own nine-tenths of all our wealth!

But the war will change that, is already changing it.

'Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner'. We have been soaked in the same

common law, literature, and traditions of liberty--or of chaos, as one

likes. Whether we all be of British origin or not, it is the mind that

makes the true patriot; and there is no American so dead as not to feel a

thrill when he first sets foot on British soil. Our school-teachers felt

it when they began to travel some twenty years ago, and the thousands of

our soldiers who pass through on their way to France are feeling it

today, and writing home about it. Our soldiers and sailors are being

cared for and entertained in England just as they would be cared for and

entertained at home. So are their officers. Not long ago one of the

finest town houses in London was donated by the owner for an American

officers' club, the funds were raised by contributions from British

officers, and the club was inaugurated by the King and Queen--and Admiral

Sims. Hospitality and good-will have gone much further than this. Any

one who knows London will understand the sacredness of those private

squares, surrounded by proprietary residences, where every tree and every

blade of grass has been jealously guarded from intrusion for a century or

more. And of all these squares that of St. James's is perhaps the most

exclusive, and yet it is precisely in St. James's there is to be built

the first of those hotels designed primarily for the benefit of American

officers, where they can get a good room for five shillings a night and

breakfast at a reasonable price. One has only to sample the war-time

prices of certain hostelries to appreciate the value of this.

On the first of four unforgettable days during which I was a guest behind

the British lines in France the officer who was my guide stopped the

motor in the street of an old village, beside a courtyard surrounded

by ancient barns.

"There are some of your Americans," he remarked.

I had recognized them, not by their uniforms but by their type. Despite

their costumes, which were negligible, they were eloquent of college

campuses in every one of our eight and forty States, lean, thin-hipped,

alert. The persistent rains had ceased, a dazzling sunlight made that

beautiful countryside as bright as a coloured picture post-card, but a

riotous cold gale was blowing; yet all wore cotton trousers that left

their knees as bare as Highlanders' kilts. Above these some had an

sweaters, others brown khaki tunics, from which I gathered that they

belonged to the officers' training corps. They were drawn up on two

lines facing each other with fixed bayonets, a grim look on their faces

that would certainly have put any Hun to flight. Between the files stood

an unmistakable gipling sergeant with a crimson face and a bristling

little chestnut moustache, talking like a machine gun.

"Now, then, not too lidylike!--there's a Bosch in front of you! Run 'im

through! Now, then!"

The lines surged forward, out went the bayonets, first the long thrust

and then the short, and then a man's gun was seized and by a swift

backward twist of the arm he was made helpless.

"Do you feel it?" asked the officer, as he turned to me. I did.

"Up and down your spine," he added, and I nodded. "Those chaps will do,"

he said. He had been through that terrible battle of the Somme, and he

knew. So had the sergeant.

Presently came a resting-spell. One of the squad approached me, whom I

recognized as a young man I had met in the Harvard Union.

"If you write about this," he said, "just tell our people that we're

going to take that sergeant home with us when the war's over. He's too

good to lose."

IV

It is trite to observe that democracies are organized--if, indeed, they

are organized at all--not for war but for peace. And nowhere is this

fact more apparent than in Britain. Even while the war is in progress

has that internal democratic process of evolution been going on,

presaging profound changes in the social fabric. And these changes must

be dealt with by statesmen, must be guided with one hand while the war is

being prosecuted with the other. The task is colossal. In no previous

war have the British given more striking proof of their inherent quality

of doggedness. Greatness, as Confucius said, does not consist in never

falling, but in rising every time you fall. The British speak with

appalling frankness of their blunders. They are fighting, indeed, for

the privilege of making blunders--since out of blunders arise new truths

and discoveries not contemplated in German philosophy.

America must now contribute what Britain and France, with all their

energies and resources and determination, have hitherto been unable to

contribute. It must not be men, money, and material alone, but some

quality that America has had in herself during her century and a half of

independent self-realization. Mr. Chesterton, in writing about the

American Revolution, observes that the real case for the colonists is

that they felt that they could be something which England would not help

them to be. It is, in fact, the only case for separation. What may be

called the English tradition of democracy, which we inherit, grows

through conflicts and differences, through experiments and failures and

successes, toward an intellectualized unity,--experiments by states,

experiments by individuals, a widely spread development, and new

contributions to the whole.

Democracy has arrived at the stage when it is ceasing to be national and

selfish.

It must be said of England, in her treatment of her colonies subsequent

to our Revolution, that she took this greatest of all her national

blunders to heart. As a result, Canada and Australia and New Zealand

have sent their sons across the seas to fight for an empire that refrains

from coercion; while, thanks to the policy of the British Liberals--which

was the expression of the sentiment of the British nation--we have the

spectacle today of a Botha and a Smuts fighting under the Union Jack.

And how about Ireland? England has blundered there, and she admits it

freely. They exist in England who cry out for the coercion of Ireland,

and who at times have almost had their way. But to do this, of course,

would be a surrender to the German contentions, an acknowledgment of the

wisdom of the German methods against which she is protesting with all her

might. Democracy, apparently, must blunder on until that question too,

is solved.

V

Many of those picturesque features of the older England, that stir us by

their beauty and by the sense of stability and permanence they convey,

will no doubt disappear or be transformed. I am thinking of the great

estates, some of which date from Norman times; I am thinking of the

aristocracy, which we Americans repudiated in order to set up a

plutocracy instead. Let us hope that what is fine in it will be

preserved, for there is much. By the theory of the British constitution

--that unwritten but very real document--in return for honours,

emoluments, and titles, the burden of government has hitherto been

thrown on a class. Nor can it be said that they have been untrue to

their responsibility. That class developed a tradition and held fast to

it; and they had a foreign policy that guided England through centuries

of greatness. Democracy too must have a foreign policy, a tradition of

service; a trained if not hereditary group to guide it through troubled

waters. Even in an intelligent community there must be leadership. And,

if the world will no longer tolerate the old theories, a tribute may at

least be paid to those who from conviction upheld them; who ruled,

perhaps in affluence, yet were also willing to toil and, if need be,

to die for the privilege.

One Saturday afternoon, after watching for a while the boys playing fives

and football and romping over the green lawns at Eton, on my way to the

head master's rooms I paused in one of the ancient quads. My eye had

been caught by a long column of names posted there, printed in heavy

black letters. 'Etona non, immemora'! Every week many new names are

added to those columns. On the walls of the chapel and in other quads

and passages may be found tablets and inscriptions in memory of those who

have died for England and the empire in by-gone wars. I am told that the

proportion of Etonians of killed to wounded is greater than that of any

other public school--which is saying a great deal. They go back across

the channel and back again until their names appear on the last and

highest honour list of the school and nation.

In one of the hospitals I visited lay a wounded giant who had once been

a truckman in a little town in Kent. Incidentally, in common with his

neighbours, he had taken no interest in the war, which had seemed as

remote to him as though he had lived in North Dakota. One day a Zeppelin

dropped a bomb on that village, whereupon the able-bodied males enlisted

to a man, and he with them. A subaltern in his company was an Eton boy.

"We just couldn't think of 'im as an orficer, sir; in the camps 'e used

to play with us like a child. And then we went to France. And one night

when we was wet to the skin and the Boschs was droppin' shell all around

us we got the word. It was him leaped over the top first of all,

shouting back at us to come on. He tumbled right back and died in my

arms, 'e did, as I was climbin' up after 'im. I shan't ever forget 'im."

As you travel about in these days you become conscious, among the people

you meet, of a certain bewilderment. A static world and a static order

are dissolving; and in England that order was so static as to make the

present spectacle the more surprising. Signs of the disintegration of

the old social strata were not lacking, indeed, in the earlier years of

the twentieth century, when labour members and north-country radicals

began to invade parliament; but the cataclysm of this war has accelerated

the process. In the muddy trenches of Flanders and France a new

comradeship has sprung up between officers and Tommies, while

time-honoured precedent has been broken by the necessity of giving

thousands of commissions to men of merit who do not belong to the

"officer caste." At the Haymarket Theatre I saw a fashionable audience

wildly applaud a play in which the local tailor becomes a major-general

and returns home to marry the daughter of the lord of a mayor whose

clothes he used to cut before the war.

"The age of great adventure," were the words used by Mr. H. G. Wells to

describe this epoch as we discussed it. And a large proportion of the

descendants of those who have governed England for centuries are

apparently imbued with the spirit of this adventure, even though it may

spell the end of their exclusive rule. As significant of the social

mingling of elements which in the past never exchanged ideas or points

of view I shall describe a week-end party at a large country house of

Liberal complexion; on the Thames. I have reason to believe it fairly

typical. The owner of this estate holds an important position in the

Foreign Office, and the hostess has, by her wit and intelligent grasp of

affairs, made an enviable place for herself. On her right, at luncheon

on Sunday, was a labour leader, the head of one of the most powerful

unions in Britain, and next him sat a member of one of the oldest of

England's titled families. The two were on terms of Christian names.

The group included two or three women, a sculptor and an educator,

another Foreign Office official who has made a reputation since the

beginning of the war, and finally an employer of labour, the chairman of

the biggest shipbuilding company in England.

That a company presenting such a variety of interests should have been

brought together in the frescoed dining-room of that particular house is

noteworthy.

The thing could happen nowhere save in the England of today. At first

the talk was general, ranging over a number of subjects from that of the

personality of certain politicians to the conduct of the war and the

disturbing problem raised by the "conscientious objector"; little by

little, however, the rest of us became silent, to listen to a debate

which had begun between the labour leader and the ship-builder on the

"labour question." It is not my purpose here to record what they said.

Needless to add that they did not wholly agree, but they were much nearer

to agreement than one would have thought possible. What was interesting

was the open-mindedness with which, on both sides, the argument was

conducted, and the fact that it could seriously take place then and

there. For the subject of it had long been the supreme problem in the

lives of both these men, their feelings concerning it must at times have

been tinged with bitterness, yet they spoke with courtesy and restraint,

and though each maintained his contentions he was quick to acknowledge a

point made by the other. As one listened one was led to hope that a

happier day is perhaps at hand when such things as "complexes" and

convictions will disappear.

The types of these two were in striking contrast. The labour leader was

stocky, chestnut-coloured, vital, possessing the bulldog quality of the

British self-made man combined with a natural wit, sharpened in the

arena, that often startled the company into an appreciative laughter.

The ship-builder, on the other hand, was one of those spare and hard

Englishmen whom no amount of business cares will induce to neglect the

exercise of his body, the obligation at all times to keep "fit";

square-rigged, as it were, with a lean face and a wide moustache

accentuating a square chin. Occasionally a gleam of humour, a ray of

idealism, lighted his practical grey eyes. Each of these two had managed

rather marvellously to triumph over early training by self-education: the

labour leader, who had had his first lessons in life from injustices and

hard knocks; and the ship-builder, who had overcome the handicap of the

public-school tradition and of Manchester economics.

"Yes, titles and fortunes must go," remarked our hostess with a smile as

she rose from the table and led the way out on the sunny, stone-flagged

terrace. Below us was a wide parterre whose flower-beds, laid out by a

celebrated landscape-gardener in the days of the Stuarts, were filled

with vegetables. The day was like our New England Indian summerthough

the trees were still heavy with leaves--and a gossamer-blue veil of haze

stained the hills between which the shining river ran. If the social

revolution, or evolution, takes place, one wonders what will become of

this long-cherished beauty.

I venture to dwell upon one more experience of that week-end party. The

Friday evening of my arrival I was met at the station, not by a limousine

with a chauffeur and footman, but by a young woman with a taxicab--one of

the many reminders that a war is going on. London had been reeking in a

green-yellow fog, but here the mist was white, and through it I caught

glimpses of the silhouettes of stately trees in a park, and presently saw

the great house with its clock-tower looming up before me. A fire was

crackling in the hall, and before it my hostess was conversing amusedly

with a well-known sculptor--a sculptor typical of these renaissance

times, large, full-blooded, with vigorous opinions on all sorts of

matters.

"A lecturer is coming down from London to talk to the wounded in the

amusement-hall of the hospital," our hostess informed us. "And you both

must come and speak too."

The three of us got into the only motor of which the establishment now

boasts, a little runabout using a minimum of "petrol," and she guided us

rapidly by devious roads through the fog until a blur of light proclaimed

the presence of a building, one of some score or more built on the

golf-course by the British Government. I have not space hereto describe

that hospital, which is one of the best in England; but it must be

observed that its excellence and the happiness of its inmates are almost

wholly due to the efforts of the lady who now conducted us across the

stage of the amusement-hall, where all the convalescents who could walk

or who could be rolled thither in chairs were gathered. The lecturer had

not arrived. But the lady of the manor seated herself at the speaker's

table, singling out Scotch wits in the audience--for whom she was more

than a match--while the sculptor and I looked on and grinned and resisted

her blandishments to make speeches. When at last the lecturer came he

sat down informally on the table with one foot hanging in the air and

grinned, too, at her bantering but complimentary introduction. It was

then I discovered for the first time that he was one of the best

educational experts of that interesting branch of the British Government,

the Department of Reconstruction, whose business it is to teach the

convalescents the elements of social and political science. This was not

to be a lecture, he told them, but a debate in which every man must take

a part. And his first startling question was this:

"Why should Mr. Lloyd George, instead of getting five thousand pounds a

year for his services as prime minister, receive any more than a common

labourer?"

The question was a poser. The speaker folded his hands and beamed down

at them; he seemed fairly to radiate benignity.

"Now we mustn't be afraid of him, just because he seems to be

intelligent," declared our hostess. This sally was greeted with

spasmodic laughter. Her eyes flitted from bench to bench, yet met

nothing save averted glances. "Jock! Where are you, Jock? Why don't

you speak up?--you've never been downed before."

More laughter, and craning of necks for the Jocks. This appeared to be

her generic name for the vita. But the Jocks remained obdurately modest.

The prolonged silence did not seem in the least painful to the lecturer,

who thrust his hand in his pocket and continued to beam. He had learned

how to wait. And at last his patience was rewarded. A middleaged

soldier with a very serious manner arose hesitatingly, with encouraging

noises from his comrades.

"It's not Mr. Lloyd George I'm worrying about, sir," he said, "all I

wants is enough for the missus and me. I had trouble to get that before

the war."

Cries of "Hear! Hear!"

"Why did you have trouble?" inquired the lecturer mildly.

"The wages was too low."

"And why were the wages too low?"

"You've got me there. I hadn't thought."

"But isn't it your business as a voter to think?" asked the lecturer.

"That's why the government is sending me here, to start you to thinking,

to remind you that it is you soldiers who will have to take charge of

this country and run it after the war is over. And you won't be able to

do that unless you think, and think straight."

"We've never been taught to think," was the illuminating reply.

"And if we do think we've never been educated to express ourselves, same

as you!" shouted another man, in whom excitement had overcome timidity.

"I'm here to help you educate yourselves," said the lecturer. "But first

let's hear any ideas you may have on the question I asked you."

There turned out to be plenty of ideas, after all. An opinion was

ventured that Mr. Lloyd George served the nation, not for money but from

public spirit; a conservative insisted that ability should be rewarded

and rewarded well; whereupon ensued one of the most enlightening

discussions, not only as a revelation of intelligence, but of complexes

and obsessions pervading many of the minds in whose power lies the

ultimate control of democracies. One, for instance, declared that--"if

every man went to church proper of a Sunday and minded his own business

the country would get along well enough." He was evidently of the

opinion that there was too much thinking and not enough of what he would

have termed "religion." Gradually that audience split up into liberals

and conservatives; and the liberals noticeably were the younger men who

had had the advantages of better board schools, who had formed fewer

complexes and had had less time in which to get them set. Of these,

a Canadian made a plea for the American system of universal education,

whereupon a combative "stand-patter" declared that every man wasn't fit

to be educated, that the American plan made only for discontent.

"Look at them," he exclaimed, "They're never satisfied to stay in their

places." This provoked laughter, but it was too much for the sculptor

--and for me. We both broke our vows and made speeches in favour of

equality and mental opportunity, while the lecturer looked on and smiled.

Mr. Lloyd George and his salary were forgotten. By some subtle art of

the chairman the debate had been guided to the very point where he had

from the first intended to guide it--to the burning question of our day

--education as the true foundation of democracy! Perhaps, after all, this

may be our American contribution to the world's advance.