War derives its full meaning. To German Imperialism, to that final return to their ancestral barbarism which we thought we could look upon as definitely checked by civilization, the United States inflexibly opposes the great dam of its men, its armament, and its gold. It says to this devilish force: Thou shalt go no further. It is forcing it back, and forever, into the darkness of the Middle Ages from which by an incomprehensible anachronism it burst forth to lay waste the world.

"This does not belong to our day," M. Clemenceau, now Premier of France, wrote in an article in L'Homme Libre just after the war broke out. "This does not belong to our day," repeated after him Mr. Wilson, and with its President spoke the whole American Union; and it is "our day" that has just brought into being the young American army, the army of liberty, to drive back the day of the past, the day of medieval slavery.

This army has but just entered the fight, where it has shown to a wondering world and an astounded Germany of what achievement it is capable. Against professional soldiers, against veterans trained in all the devices of war, it has tested the strength of its young volunteers-perhaps still somewhat inexperienced, but fighting for an ideal and not for a master. In conjunction with the other Allied combatants it has checked at its first blow the German force, and to-morrow it will shatter it.

But if the military effort of the United States has been beyond compare it has its double in a civil effort which is not less so. The population of this country, which overflows with riches, where harvests and provisions are spread broadcast in their abundance, has voluntarily imposed upon itself the severest privations. It has stinted itself of bread in order to feed those nations beyond the Atlantic which the submarine blockade was trying to starve. It has experienced, more than France and very largely for the sake of France, crises in coal and other necessary products; it has accepted very severe restrictions, I will not say patiently but joyously, with a smile upon its lips.

Toward our country especially it has shown an admirable devotion, and I may

as is its custom, and in giving it has taken the attitude not of a benefactor but of one fulfilling an obligation. The American Red Cross, the Rockefeller mission, the Young Men's and the Young Women's Christian Associations-to mention only the most important among its charitable institutions have all rivalled one another in generosity, ingenuity, and industry. The American has one virtue and a rare one-he remembers services that have been done him; he is never ungrateful. "We of the United States are a grateful nation," said General Allaire, provost marshal of the American forces in France. "Lafayette and Rochambeau are names that an American speaks with reverence and affection, are heroes whose memory he cherishes in his heart. And, as his fashion is, he is bringing back to you a hundredfold that which he received from you.”

However, at the same time that the American gives, he asks; and what he asks above all from France is an intellectual and moral collaboration and continuous exchange of opinions, ideas, and sentiments.

From this springs the daily and hourly co-operation that exists everywhere and in all fields of action. Examples are the "Foyers du Soldat," where the Young Men's Christian Association joins its endeavors to those of our French citizens and of our high command in placing its immense resources at the service of the troops. Such also is the "Foyer des Alliées," which the young women of the Y. W. C. A. have established for our employees and ammunition workers, with the intimate and constant support of some devoted Frenchwomen and of some leaders of industry. A further instance is the "Collège des Etats-Unis," which a Franco-American committee, made up of intellectual leaders of the two countries, is establishing in Paris, and which is proposing as the first point of its active programme the concerted study of progress made in war surgery, in war medicine, in war radiology. Still another is the ceaseless activity of the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris, which, under the urgent leadership of its president, Mr. Walter Berry, is exerting itself to bring about in the future following the war the closest and most productive commercial rela

Yes, that which America asks of France above all else is the means of obliging her, the most certain and most effective methods of making her "greater than ever," to quote once more from General Allaire. She expects also that which we are able to give her and which we shall bring to her joyfully-I mean the "culture de l'esprit," that refinement of thought which has always been an attribute of the French race. To replace the German teachers in her universities, she appeals to ours. Young and still without pretension, she believes that she can get at our school that which she lacks, and that to make the complete man she can add to her qualities of action and of matter-of-factness the charm and, as it were, the perfume of French culture.

Thus there is everything to expect and everything to hope not only for the

two nations but for all civilization from a Franco-American rapprochement-and even more from a Franco-American intimacy. This rapprochement and this intimacy come about by the very nature of things, and they will become every day more real. They arouse on all hands, besides efforts at practical realization, other attempts at propaganda of which what I have written is only a very inconsiderable sample. The future, we may be sure, belongs to a great union of free peoples, and at the head of this union we may look to see especially the two great peoples which, one in the old world and one in the new, have been the unquestioned champions of the rights of man and of the rights of nations.

This is what I desire to say to our American friends.

PARIS, August 15, 1918.

300 often a foreigner," says Chesterton, "is simply a man who laughs at everything except jokes."

T

The French poilu and the American soldier are no longer foreigners to each other. They laugh at the same things. They have built their friendship upon a foundation of smiles and laughs..

"In this war," observed a very astute American, "a laugh is as good as a bullet." He was thinking of laughter as a factor in winning wars, he said, and as a means of serving the ends of liaisondrawing together the French and the Americans. And he illustrated his belief by telling how there came a new fashion in men's hats along the Marne.

The French and the Americans had just taken a certain town, one at which their operations had been directed for weeks. It was a bloody fight when they drove out the Boches and their nerves were taut as they occupied the crumpled buildings and twisting, littered streets. Yet a great wave of exultation swept over the troops as they entered.

A few minutes later a French sentry burst into a loud laugh. After four years of what the poilu has endured, it is unusual to hear him laugh outright. He smiles many times a day, sometimes sadly, sometimes gayly; often he laughs. softly; but a genuine, whole-hearted laugh is rare.

He was looking down a narrow street. Advancing toward him were three American soldiers. They wore their regulation shoes and spiral puttees, their khaki breeches and olive-drab shirts. gas-masks were at the alert. But on their heads, instead of their steel helmets, they wore-straw hats!

From the other direction came two more Americans. They wore broadbrimmed panamas. More Americans appeared with more straw hats. There were assorted styles and sizes, but all were made of straw. And beneath each hat was a broad American grin.

Then, picking his way carefully through the mud and proceeding with studied deliberation, appeared a six-foot Westerner. He wore the broadest-brimmed hat of all and above it he carried a black-and-white

striped parasol. He was met by three friends who wore silk hats and who paused to greet him with ceremony. From every direction appeared more high hats, operahats, felt hats, derbies, more straws even one of the sort that is associated with portraits of Napoleon.

Anything but steel helmets! That seemed to be the idea and that was exactly the idea. These American boys had had enough of warfare for a few minutes and they decided to make a holiday of it. With nothing to work with but a shell-torn hat store, they made that old town take on an air of gayety that warmed their own hearts and spread warmth and cheer into the hearts of every Frenchman who entered it with them.

It was the sort of thing that the poilu expects in his American friends, and when he finds it he is delighted beyond measure. There is an American courier in France who is giving hundreds of French people a thrill of pleasure every day. He rides a motorcycle, but he rides it in his own way. Behind the saddle he has fashioned a small platform upon which a pillow is lashed against a chair-back. It is so placed that he can lean back and put his feet on the handle-bars. He glides through the countrysides of France at a breakneck rate in this luxurious way, controlling his speed by push-buttons at his side and steering with his feet!

Two or three kilometres behind the American front lines a cow was observed quietly grazing in a field studded with shell-craters. She seemed to be a normal cow in every way but one. She had only three legs. The fourth, it was learned, was a casualty when there was a lively time in her sector a few months before the Americans occupied it.

They approached this cow in twos and threes at the risk of being observed by enemy planes. They discovered that she was thoroughly normal, even to the extent of being quite willing and able to supply them with fresh milk. In return for this unusual luck, the Americans lavished upon her a degree of care which must have been unprecedented in this cow's life. They induced her to hobble over to the shelter of their own clump of trees, they tethered her securely to keep her from straying not only toward the

Allied outfit in that region, and they vied with one another in bringing her the choicest grasses in the neighborhood. For several days their cook prepared bread puddings and other milk-made dishes long denied them. And then the order came to move.

A council of war was held. The cow was led on practice marches. It was no use. Hobble though she would, it was apparent that she could not hike over any great distance. Then some one had a bright idea. An ambulance was brought and for the greater part of an hour that detachment worked with might and main to lift or wheedle the cow to enter their ambulance. She not only couldn't, she wouldn't. So they had no choice; they had to abandon her as they marched off with their thoroughly amused French comrades.

"They certainly do hate to leave anything behind," said one of their officers. "You know the saying: 'The English fight for honor, the French for glory, but the Americans fight for souvenirs!

the

One of the greatest tasks of the moralemaking organizations, such as Y. M. C. A., is to keep alive the native good cheer with which the Americans leave home. There is recognized military value, you are told in France to-day, in the entertainments which keep the American fund of humor well supplied. Motion-pictures work wonders with warweary brains. Just to see again the funny feet, the bamboo stick, flat derby, and acrobatic mustache of Mr. Chaplin; just to ride and swagger and shoot again on the Western plains with Mr. Hart; just to steep oneself in the joys and miseries of the decorative Miss Pickford; just to follow Mr. Fairbanks through his perilous daily life-these are the adventures which mean recreation to the men who are engaged in the greatest of all adventures.

Much of their satisfaction comes from seeing living beings moving in the familiar backgrounds of American cities. The news films never fail to bring a shout of "There's Forty-second Street!" or "That's right in front of the Union Depot!" One lad who had heard his friends break into exclamations of delight murmured sadly:

"I'd give six months' pay right this minute just to see a close-up of Tenafly,

Home is never far away from the thoughts of these men overseas. When they find a Y. M. C. A. girl or man who has even so much as passed through their own town, it is a red-letter day. They will lean over the canteen counter for an hour of reminiscence. And-oh, day of days!-when they find a girl who actually knows their families, present or future!

If the people at home realized how much cheer is brought by letters, they would always give their messages a ring of optimism. Unfortunately there is a certain type of mind to which news means the small disasters of daily life. Father is ailing, or little Johnnie fell down-stairs, or Cousin Elsie has the pleurisy-these are the events which slip into the soldiers' letters. The men don't want real trouble kept from them, but they long to hear about the little pleasant events that may seem trivial here but loom up like lighthouses at a distance of three thousand miles. Keep the humor alive-that is a piece of war work which every person at home can do.

'You have no idea what it means to us," said a French gentleman of high responsibility, "to have these millions of smiling faces here in France. They have brought us a new spirit. They have made us see that our dark days are gone!" "Ah, those Americans!" exclaimed a little poilu, a soldier from the slums of Paris. "They are our brothers! They smile!"

There you have it, from each end of the social scale. Perhaps the poilu was thinking of the fun which he had when he and his comrades heard of the American way of naming guns.

It is a sport over there which the Americans share with the poilus. Here, too, humor is a saving grace. Much of the sting of the long-range gun firing into Paris was removed when the gun itself was christened for the German lady who is reputed to make explosives. You can't be wholly stricken with terror by a gun which causes people to say whenever its shells break: "There goes Bertha again!" In the same way, you feel a personal sense of affection for your own guns when you call them, as the French do, by such names as Yvette, Marianne, Jeanne, Yvonne, Henriette, Hélène, and Adèle. Or perhaps you have a special feeling of

respect and admiration for certain guns, and you call them Fraternité, Egalité, and Liberté. And then your American friends come along, and what do they do? They christen theirs Ignatz, Krazy Kat, and Elsie Janis!

It is highly probable that a commission will have to be appointed after the war to sort out from each language the French and English words which are being intermingled. You may have seen pictures of American soldiers and French children in your illustrated papers. Perhaps you thought that they were specially posed by a photographer who wanted to please the folks back home. They weren't. There are pictures like that all over France. The way the American soldiers and the French children understand one another is one of the pleasantest parts of America's visit overseas.

Outside any Y. M. C. A. canteen behind the lines you will see American soldiers breaking off pieces of the chocolate bars which they have just bought and handing them around to the circle of small, upstretched hands.

"You got to give it to 'em when they want it so bad!" laugh the Americans. And then they get acquainted. The first expression that the French children learn from the Americans is "Thank you!" And, curiously enough, the next is "Good night!" It is the apparently accepted greeting. You are a little disconcerted at first when you meet a French child on the street just after breakfast and hear him exclaim "Good night!"

The Americans learn, too. There are some French words which have completely displaced their English equivalents in the army's vocabulary.

"Can I get beaucoup cigarettes?" asks the American as he enters a Y. M. C. A. hut.

"Toot sweet!" answers the secretary.

But without question the most useful word in France to-day is one called "fineesh!" It is a combination of finis and finish. Literally it means all gone. If you ask for jam and there is no jam, the jam is fin-eesh. If you get to a station too late to catch your train, the train is fin-eesh. In a country where the unexpected is to be expected, it fits a limitless number of occasions. It has met the situation. It is as useful as "C'est la guerre !"

That, of course, is the expression which carries with a smile the gay courage that stirs American admiration. After four years of war there is still nothing which the French will not take with a shrug and a smile. It contains the hope, the philosophy, the inspiration, and the determination of the race.

In a little French village the town crier beat upon his drum and cleared his throat to make an announcement. The old people of the place, and there were none but old people there, leaned from their windows to catch his words. He told them that for the present it would be necessary for them to curtail their ration of bread. Americans are coming to know what bread means to the French peasant. They have seen laborers work hard in the fields from daylight till dark with only a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine. They have seen children standing in doorways eating bread as our children at home eat candy. They have seen French people make special trips to a store for bread, carrying it home in triumph in their arms, or riding on bicycles with circular loaves around the handle-bars. They know, in a measure, what bread means to the French. And those who heard the town crier's announcement turned to watch the faces of the people who heard it. They saw first surprise, then a little sadness, then-a smile! The old people nodded to one another and then they laughed and called out "C'est la guerre!" as if they were hearing the best of news.

"Is there anything that is too much to do for a country like this?" asked one of the Americans.

They, too, have put their philosophy into words.

"Oh, this is a rotten war!" some one will exclaim when something has gone wrong.

"Sure, but it's better than no war at all!" is the answer.

Ability to joke over a situation which is intended to be terrifying is binding the French and the Americans closer together every day. Air-raids on Paris are very likely designed to strike fear into the hearts of those who experience them. But what has been the most characteristically French effect of the visiting

ridiculous little knitted dolls held together by a string of worsted!

You see them all over Paris. Their names are Nenette and Rintintin. They are sometimes half an inch high and sometimes as much as an inch. They are made in the brightest colors, they hang in all the shop-windows, they appear in the pages of the humorous papers, and they are absolute protection against air-raids!

They are always perky and gay. Often they are quite elaborately made of silk. They are even used as trimming on women's hats. Their pictures are on postcards everywhere. Sometimes they have an offspring who is called either Radadou or simply Gus. You aren't supposed to have a Radadou or a Gus with your Nenette and Rintintin until you have been in Paris for some time, and have safely lived through many raids.

Silly? Of course it is silly. No one knows that better than the Parisians, and the Americans, who wonder how in the world people can have such spirits after four solid years of this infernal business. But how little the Germans know about psychology, after all, when they think they can scare a nation like that!

The Americans hear about Nenette and Rintintin as soon as they reach Paris, enjoy the joke thoroughly, and provide themselves with this simple remedy at once. Nothing could make a greater appeal to the American imagination.

Even the shelters from aerial torpedoes are the subject of jokes. There is one theatre, itself in a cellar, where the whole musical revue is devoted to lampooning the Hun. A very popular duet is sung by two young women dressed as Sand-bag and Saccharine. A comedian appears wearing tortoise-rimmed spectacles, on the lenses of which are pasted crossed strips of paper in the way that the plateglass windows of Paris are protected. A topical song is devoted to the efforts of the gothas.

And as you sit there laughing at all this make-believe, you suddenly realize that it isn't make-believe at all—that, for all you know, there may be one of those Hun planes high above your head at that very minute ready to release its aerial torpedo to make a shambles of this theatre.