Слике страница
PDF
ePub

WH

A POLL OF OPINIONS

ITH but half an hour's notice, the two houses of Congress assembled on January 8 to hear President Wilson read a Message on which he had been working ever since Germany began her peace negotiations with Russia. While this address has been called the "Magna Charta of Peace," it is a new statement of war aims. Last week we printed verbatim the President's proposed "arrangements and covenants." We here, for convenience of reference, state them in outline:

1. No more secret treaties.

2. Freedom of the seas except as closed by international action. 3. Equality of trade conditions.

4. Reduction of national armaments.

5. Impartial adjustment of all colonial claims.

6. Evacuation of Russia.

7. Evacuation of Belgium.

8. Evacuation of France, and righting the wrong done in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine.

9. Readjustment of Italian frontiers.

10. Autonomous development of Austro-Hungarian peoples. 11. Evacuation of Rumania, Serbia, and Montenegro; guarantees of economic and political independence of the Balkan States.

12. Autonomous development of non-Turkish nationalities in Turkey; the Dardanelles opened to all nations.

13. Establishment of an independent Poland.

14. Associations of nations with guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to large and small states alike. This pronouncement was immediately seen to have several purposes. One was to develop further the principles of peace for which America stands. Another was to induce Russia to return to the democracy of law and order. Another was to drive a further wedge between the German people and their rulers. As the Chicago "Herald" points out, the reactionaries of German officialdom tried to make it appear that this was an attempt, not to rid the German people of their autocratic and military elements bent on conquest, but to separate the German people from their Emperor. Concerning this ruse of the reactionaries in Germany, the Chicago " Herald" adds:

By limiting its meaning they worked very effectively on the popular sentiment of loyalty to the individual ruler and thus saved themselves a lot of argument. Those tactics will be impossible as an answer to President's Wilson's latest pronouncement. He is unquestionably trying to drive a wedge, but it is a much sharper wedge than before-that is the significance of his demand to know for whom the German delegations at Brest-Litovsk were speaking, "for the majorities of their respective Parliaments or for the minority parties, that military and imperialistic minority which has so far dominated their whole policy."

FREEDOM OF TRADE AND FREEDOM OF THE SEAS Two adverse criticisms of the Message concern the demands for equality of trade and freedom of the seas. Criticism as to the first came from America. Conservative Republicans were aroused by the fear that the President's statement implied an abandonment of the tariff policy. Their fears were allayed by assurances from official quarters that it did not imply an abandonment of such a policy, and that unless there should be further development of direct taxation a tariff is practically inevitable as an economic policy.

More pointed, however, was the comment concerning freedom of the seas. This came naturally from the nation of the world whose power and safety rest almost entirely on her sea strength. Lord Northcliffe's "Evening News," a widely read afternoon newspaper in London, at once declared that President Wilson's declaration concerning the freedom of the seas needed further elucidation. Sharper were the words of the London "Daily Graphic:""As President Wilson's proposal stands, it would lead to the absurdity that Germany should be free to send her armies across the sea to invade England, and we could do nothing to stop the transports until they reached the three-mile limit." Even the very liberal "Westminster Gazette" adds that in such a world as that to which the President looks forward his aspirations could have no terrors for the British, but that in the fighting world of to-day it would mean

disarming the sea power without any corresponding diminution of military power on land.

GENERAL APPROVAL

Aside from these criticisms the speech met with general acclaim in America, England, and France. It could have received no greater tribute here than in the decision of the National Security League to translate it at once into German, Russian, Polish, Swedish, Dutch, Danish, Hungarian, and Yiddish, for circulation in pamphlet form among the foreign-born citizens.

Abroad there was like approval, and from highest authori ties. No two names, we believe, command more respect in Eng land than do those of Balfour, the Conservative, and Bryce, the Liberal. Mr. Balfour, making it evident that he believes the President's statements express the known objects of the Allies, said, "I do not think that these views. . . could have been introduced in a nobler manner;" and Viscount Bryce declared, "The address is admirable in spirit and contents." Like all his chief utterances since America entered the war, the President's Message took the leading place in both the news and editorial columns of the London press. Coming, as it did, hard on the heels of Mr. Lloyd George's similar address, the words of the heads of the American and British Governments were compared, and no disagreement as to essentials was found.

SECRET DIPLOMACY

By his denunciation of secret treaties Mr. Wilson outdoes even the Russian radicals, because he puts it first in his statement of peace terms. This, says the New York "Evening Post," is the most pronounced step in the direction of world democracy ever put forth by the head of an important nation. The London "Pall Mall Gazette" declares that the Message itself constitutes an effective model of frank and open diplomacy.

ALSACE-LORRAINE

This is the first time that the President of the United States has declared himself on the Alsace-Lorraine question, the Paris "Temps" tells its readers, and adds: "We have no doubt as to his sentiments, but we are profoundly glad that he has expressed them. We thank him also for placing the problem on its true ground, . . . as a necessary condition for a general peace and not only as a special claim of the French people."

RUSSIA

Although certain Russians felt that the President had appar ently identified the Bolsheviki with the democracy of Russia, there were other opinions, summarized by one of the American Red Cross mission workers to Russia, who has just returned from a four months' stay there. "In no state paper written during the war," he said, "has any one shown such broad vision or such splendid imagination as has the President in his opportune treatment of the Russian situation." The Bolshevik newspapers ("The News") said that President Wilson's recognition of the seem divided in their opinion. The Petrograd "Isvestia services of the Workmen's and Soldiers' government is clearly seen, while the Petrograd "Pravda" (“Truth") snappishly reAmerican bourse found it necessary, not only to reckon with marked that "President Wilson's confession indicates that the the Bolshevik authority, but to curtsey to it.'

GERMANY AND AUSTRIA

[ocr errors]

Perhaps the real significance of the Message can best be ascertained by noting the comments on it in the enemy countries of Germany and Austria. As might be expected, such liberal papers as the "Berliner Tageblatt," the Berlin "Vorcertain demands, while the reactionary papers agree in subwärts," and the "Frankfurter Zeitung " recognize the justice of stance with the opinion expressed as follows by the Berlin "Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung:"

The fourteen points do not form a programme for world peace, but a real symphony of will to no peace. Beginning with the joyful fanfare of freedom of the seas and other things on which the whole world is agreed, even if diversity of opinion exists regarding the method of realization, Mr. Wilson,... having the

of a liberal interpretation. Yet he continues slandering and war baiting.

opportunity of serving peace, has not only failed but has clearly expressed a contrary intention.

In Austria, the Vienna " Neue Freie Presse"

says:

President Wilson is superior even to Lloyd George in his capacity for deceiving the nation. President Wilson intersperses his fourteen points with popular principles in order to deceive the masses who do not know our conditions. The Message also, of course, aims at breaking up the negotiations at Brest-Litovsk. President Wilson says that the time for conquest and aggrandizement has gone by-of course for the Central Powers, not for the Entente. He admits that Russia is impotent and helpless. He cannot deny that the Central Powers' proposals are capable

"CARRY ON "

As the Paris "Liberté " declares, President Wilson was right in ending with the declaration of America's determination to fight until her objects are attained. "Arms alone," it adds, " not speeches, will convince Germany." And the New York "Times" concludes in like spirit: "There is no other way in which the foundations of peace can be laid." Germany is indeed still, as the President has said, under" the menace and the actual power of a vast military establishment controlled by an irresponsible Government."

NEW ROCHELLE: A FINE TYPE OF THE AMERICAN IN WAR TIME

T

SMALL TOWN

HE average newspaper pricks up its journalistic ears, so to speak, when crime or sensation is reported. This may be the fault of the newspaper readers rather than that of the editors. At all events, it is a fact. Hence the American small town does not often "break on to the first page," in newspaper parlance, unless it has a scandal, a lurid crime, or a public nuisance of magnitude in its borders. It may have done splendid work in municipal government, in patriotic effort, and in war service, and yet never have been heard of by most people. So, almost every one not long ago heard of the charges made against the town of New Rochelle, New York, in its alleged evil influence over American soldiers, while very few know of the fine efforts of the town to help the soldiers, to support the war, and to furnish an example in these respects to other towns.

As a matter of fact, the result of investigations by the Grand Jury of Westchester County, the Councilmen of the city of New Rochelle, and disinterested private citizens, all lead to the conclusion that the lurid characterizations of conditions in New Rochelle were extreme exaggerations of fact.

The assembly hall raided by the marshals was not a low dive, but a typical small town assembly hall, with a restaurant and bar below, and a room above in which all sorts of entertainments and meetings are held, including meetings of the women's clubs, social dances, and amateur plays. A sound comment made by a citizen is: "The serious civic lesson of the raid on Germania Hall is the need, in every modern community for a community hall in which all kinds of social affairs, entertainments, and meetings may be held under refined, respectable, and comfortable surroundings, without the sale of liquor on or near the premises."

It appeared in the investigation that, although there have been too many saloons in New Rochelle, their number has been lately reduced by over a third. No doubt soldiers have patronized these saloons. Fort Slocum, which is situated on Long Island Sound practically within the boundaries of New Rochelle, has been an army post and receiving station for many years, and soldiers cannot be forbidden to go into the town; but the increase in the number of soldiers under the influence of liquor or acting in a disorderly way has been almost unnoticeable despite the enormous increase in the total number of soldiers near the town. The so-called raid was followed by the closing of saloons in the town, and if this is fully enforced the benefit to both soldiers and townspeople will be great. Here is the opportunity for the municipal authorities. But we are more interested in the friendly and cordial relations between citizens and soldiers than we are in the raid. The spirit of New Rochelle towards the soldiers, and the soldiers' spirit towards the people of New Rochelle, have been totally misinterpreted by the sensational newspaper stories. As an illustration of this spirit, a citizen of New Rochelle, Mr. Frank Tucker, Vice-President of the Provident Loan Society of New York, who has been in intimate contact with the public life of New Rochelle as well as of New York City for fifteen years, has, at our request, supplied us with the following narrative, based on his own observation':

“Just previous to December 15, on which date expired the privilege of enlisting in the regular army, due to the surpris ingly large number of enlistments in all parts of the country

and the failure of the War Department to advise the recruiting officers in many of the large centers to hold the enlisted men until provision had been made for them, a very large number of recruits suddenly arrived in New Rochelle, in numbers far exceeding the capacity of Fort Slocum to care for them. This created a situation in which from four to six thousand men had to be fed and lodged while the authorities at the Fort could send the recruits who were already crowding the garrison quarters to other military depots and prepare for the reception and distribution of the overwhelming number of new arrivals. The action of the whole community in responding to this need was immediate, spontaneous, and efficient. Such organizations as the Y. M. C. A., the Knights of Columbus, the Elks, and other fraternal organizations threw open their clubhouses; the schools were commandeered, the Public Library was used, and the churches; and in addition hundreds of private houses were opened to the men. This condition lasted for about a week. The difficulties were aggravated by a great snow-storm. "As an illustration of the way the citizens of New Rochelle responded to this extraordinary demand I may perhaps tell what happened in my own personal experience. My boy, who is a lieutenant of Field Artillery, came out from New York on the midnight train, arriving in New Rochelle at two o'clock in the morning. He called me out of my bed by telephone and said he wanted to bring several of these recruits whom he had picked up on the train, wholly unknown to him, to the house for shelter for the night. I told him to come along, and waked the household, including the maids. The maids said, without any hesitation, 'Ask just as many as you like, Mr. Tucker. This is the way we will do our bit.' We all turned to and rearranged the bedrooms and the beds and took in six men. In one room where there were two single beds we pushed the beds close together and four men slept in this way very comfortably on the two single beds. Three of the men stayed twenty-four hours and three for forty-eight hours before they could be taken care of at the Fort. They lived with us as members of our family. Three of them were college men and three of the mechanic type coming from Scranton, Pennsylvania.

"This particular group was succeeded in my house by another group of three who came from the shoe factories at Brockton, Massachusetts. They were all fine, upright, wholesome American boys. They responded in every way to the hospitality which we were able to show them, and we were sorry to lose them and they expressed regret at having to leave us. This was the uni versal report throughout New Rochelle. It seems to me to reflect credit not only on the spirit of the community, but on the spirit of the men who are making our new American Army. I have not heard of a single instance in which the hospitality of this kind extended by the private families in New Rochelle was in any way encroached upon or abused."

A city of thirty-five thousand inhabitants, like New Rochelle, which can, in the hospitable way described by Mr. Tucker, take under its roof-trees at a moment's notice, even in the middle of the night, four or five thousand young American army recruits, and report that it liked it and that the recruits liked it, certainly cannot be accused of a vicious relationship either to the Govern

ment or to our soldiers and sailors.

THE END OF A DAY

BY HERMAN SCHNEIDER

Arthur McQuaid "sairved the Lord," as he would have phrased it, as a cobbler in a Pennsylvania mining town. Physically and mentally he was outstanding; he radiated a lasting impression of a jovial man of strong convictions. His controlling passions were the destiny of the United States and a personal God to whom he could talk about daily affairs. He rarely argued or defined these, but he lived them every day. He phrased his thoughts in archaic form as the result of reading the Bible and Matthew Henry's "Commentaries" daily while he worked. Sometimes when he was pegging away he would comment on matters in general to his dog, MeTague, and occasionally his observations would drift into a story. The first Arthur McQuaid story appeared in The Outlook, May 23, 1917, and the second, August 22, 1917. smile of that bairn; and then I'd preach it. And if I had a

H, there ye are, McTague. Ye've been chasin' that auld

A fox again. Ill warrant ye pawed up a barrowful of airth sairmon to preach on the damnation of the wicked. I'd read the

the other side and was sittin' up on the brow of the hill combin' his whiskers and watchin' ye dig. And while ye pawed and ye blew and used outrageous language, bein' hardly able to wait till ye'd lay hold of him, he got all slicked up and hopped on about his foxy business without as much as doin' ye the credit of glancin' back to see were ye comin'. That's what he thinks of ye. And to-morrow he'll do the same. 'Tis a pleasin' divairsion to him and fattens his vanity. Ye think ye're chasin' him, but he has a satisfaction beyond yer ken.

Belike he wants a hole dug there, McTague, and uses yer honest dog indignation to get it done. He's a politician. That trick's been turned on me many a time. Ye're a fine dog, McTague, but the ways of a fox are too roundabout for ye.

Now there's Mose Hontz's dog Spot-a fine resairved auld wise lad with a gift for fox-chasin' that makes it his proper callin'. The fox that gets away from him is humbled in his pride, and thanks his lucky stars he got no worse than a bad scare. Aye, it takes a deal of crafty contrivin' to catch a fox or to thwart the devil.

There, there, now; get ye down and let me finish Father Nolan's boots. He'll be after them at sundown, and if they're ro ready he'll quip me with what the Scriptures say about the sluggard and the slothful.

66

Do they no teach the Holy Waird in yer kirk?" he'll ask, twinklin'. "Now listen, man, to what the wise King says." Ah, he's a broth of a man, is Father Nolan-a County Derry

man.

He's wishful for a joke on me, anyhow, since the time I had him and the dominie in confusion. Ye'll mind, MeTague, they both came at the same time one Saturday evenin' for their boots, and the three of us had it back and forth about intairpretin' the Scriptures. My, but that was a lusty give and take! And ye'll mind the dominie fair stumped me on the meanin' of the twenty-ninth vairse of the Fourteenth Chapter of Isaiah. And I said, "I'll answer ye that if ye'll answer me this: Why did Jacob lift up his voice and weep when he kissed Rachel?" Ye'll recall, MeTague, Father Nolan laughed so that ye barked yerself with contagion.

And then the two of them went at it mightily on the eighteenth and nineteenth vairses of the Sixteenth Chapter of Matthew. 'Twas grand! The lairnin' of the two! I know the Scriptures and I know Matthew Henry's Commentaries, but the wairds they used and the books they strove over were beyond me comprehension. And as I finished Father Nolan's boots he said to me," Have ye no opinion on the subject at all, Arthur?" "That I have," I answered him.

"Will ye no give a Lazarus a crumb from the table of yer mind?"

"That I will," I says. "I'm thinkin' that we'll all see the day when green shoes will stand in orange pulpits, and orange shoes in green pulpits."

And with that, while they scoffed me, the two of them, I gave the dominie's shoes to Father Nolan and Father Nolan's shoes to the dominie, both havin' feet a man could be proud of. Look at that shoe, now, the length and breadth and heft of it! And they went out together, laughin' about Jacob and Rachel, till they spied little Mary, next door, and went over to blarney her. MeTague, if I had a sairmon to preach on the mairey and lovin'-kindness of God Almighty, I'd read the One Hundred and Seventh Psalm and watch, were it but for a moment, the

Fifty-first of Jeremiah and think of little Mary's smile, and I'd no preach it.

Ye'll mind how she comes hobblin' in here now and then to get the straps fixed on the heavy leg-brace she has to drag around, and sits there while ye paw her and tell her in yer dog talk what the tongue of man can't find wairds to say; and how she straightens her wee dress down and folds her hands like a trim auld lady, and smiles at ye and at me, with every merry twinkle of her sayin', "Now ain't this the finest wairld that ever was; and ain't the sunshine beautiful, and ain't the rain beautiful, and ain't the snow beautiful, and ain't the warmth beautiful, and ain't the cold beautiful, and ain't everybody and everything beautiful?"—and hardly ever utterin' a waird! And the way she meets any one-man, woman, child, or dog, aye, even a cat-on the street, and stands still, sayin' nothing at all, but fair challengin' them with her eyes to find anything that ain't just as it should be in the wairld! She even melted that auld curmudgeon the doctor with the straight look that puts all her trust in ye and no questions asked. Ye'll mind she fell down the steps and wrenched her arm out o' place; the doctor was fair tremblin' with fear o' hurtin' her by the time he got it back, and growled about the light bein' bad-and it was broad noon, and the sky as clear as Mary's eyes.

Will ye ever forget, MeTague, how the tempestuous woman with the hard visage, that moved into the house down the street, started to chase the bairn out with a broom when she spied her hobblin' up the walk, and how little Mary just kept on, smilin' and lookin' up at her; and the auld flint-face, not knowin' what to make of it, ended by hidin' the broom behind her and askin' the bairn what did she want. Mary said she came to call, and sat down on the doorstep, straightenin' out her wee skairt properly; and the auld sinner sat down too and fixed her dress trim, and put her hair to rights, convairsin' like a Christian, till the bairn said she must go. And every day since they have a chat, and every day the stormy woman is less tempestuous.

More than once when the auld scold was offendin' a peaceful afternoon, I could only hold meself by obsairvin' the wairds of the wise man: A continual droppin' in a rainy day and a contentious woman are alike; he that would restrain her restraineth the wind, and his right hand encountereth oil.

Aye, greater men than Father Nolan and the dominie would turn aside from weighty matters to make an ado over little Mary Collins.

And the next mornin', McTague, as we went to the kirk together, in a wairshipful frame of mind, ye'll note, but a wee bit airly on account of the green shoes-I haird a voice call me by name, and count out to me a string of hideous sins, which, thank God, I never committed.

'Twas Tim Furey back in town again. There he stood in the middle of the street, long and lean and caved in as a man hard smitten in the lungs, wavin' his loose-jointed arms like a scare crow in the wind, and rollin' every "r"in the terrible blasphemy he uttered, with the nasty satisfaction that can come only to an easy talker from the auld sod, filled with the wairds of many books and driven by the devils of drink in a bedlam brain.

If

"Pay no heed to him," Paddy McGuire said from his door yard, for the whole of me rose in indignation. "Only the hand of death can still his tongue, and his time has not yet come. ye'd beat him to within a gasp of bein' dead, he'd rise up to revile ye the more. For fifteen years he's cursed his way up and down the coal regions, and neither jail nor honest fists have

silenced him the space of an oath. 'Tis better ye'd go to yer kirk and mind him in yer devotions, as I'll do in mine."

"Twas good counsel, but hard. For when the sairvice was started he came and stood before the door blasphemin' outrageous; ye'll mind ye were waitin' on the steps for me, MeTague, and ye did not withhold yer Christian feelin's. Twas providential the dominie gave out the hymn, "From every stormy wynd that blows." "Tis a hymn that would steady the tumblin' senses of any one not possessed of all the fiery furies of drink.

He went to all the kirks that Sabbath morn, blasphemin' worse and worse and endin' up at Father Nolan's, where the filthiness of his fumes knew no bounds, and Paddy McGuire beat him and threw him in a puddle of muddy water; and there he lay starin' at the sun, revilin' God to his face.

66

Twas righteous indignation," said Paddy, tellin' me about it. "The way he abused the name of Father Nolan ye'd not believe. And then he slurred the McGuires in the auld country beyond what a law-abidin' man ought to stand. The town should have a constable and a jail for such as break the peace of the Sabbath day."

The saloon-keepers gave Tim Furey drink that afternoon to keep him from hurlin' stones through the windows-'twas his way of gettin' food and drink-and that evenin' as we went to the kirk he lay prone in the gutter before the manse, heedless of the flies that covered him, sputterin' slow and distinct, with a deep roll to every "r," what the dominie told me was Mark Antony's oration.

The dominie limped a bit and said, "Aye, Arthur, any kind of shoes in any kind of a pulpit could not wrest him from the devils that possess him."

I shivered as one with the palsy, for a besotted and blasphemin' wreck of a man that was created in the image of his Maker fair daunts me. And yet Tim showed now and then the marks of a man. Ye'll mind the time he rose from a drunken sleep in the rain as the dominie's wife came by, and how he took off his coat and put it in the mud, and said, with a sweepin' bow, ""Tis not as fine as Raleigh's, but 'tis the best I have." And will ye ever forget how he went up and down the township when that sly wee fox Joshua Gill was runnin' for county treasurer, tellin' in mockery of Joshua's mighty gifts of mind, and endin' the speech by sayin' that his grandest wairk was "bein' sole supervisor of the labor of one consecutive easy chair in the sun." That speech ended Joshua.

'Twas on me mind durin' the sairvice and 'twas on me mind the next noontide when I obsairved Father Nolan comin' up the street carryin' the dominie's shoes. And about fifteen paces behind him Tim Furey jerked along, wavin' his scarecrow arms and revilin' so that he spat.

And I looked again, and there was little Mary asleep against the apple tree. She'd been sellin' green apples. Ye'll mind how she does it, McTague. She gets a wee box and dresses it up with paper cut like lace, and on top of it she arranges some green apples that she's hobbled about pickin' with care to see they're all nice and green; and alongside she puts her gay wee bank that bows "Thank ye" when ye drop a coin in. Then she sits behind her fine array and tidies her dress and smiles in contentment even if nobody comes by at all. Many a time I've sat here watchin' her wait in the empty way till I could stand it no longer and took off me apron and went out busy-like on an errand, just to see her give her wee dress a tug and snuggle herself up prim and proper tryin' to be unconsairned. All of a sudden she discovers ye comin' and looks at ye, entirely trustful that ye'll buy a nice green apple. Aye, McTague, ye know what a picture it is, for in the fullness of yer feelin's ye've often overturned the orderly display.

Ye were out chasin' the auld fox that day and ye didn't see Father Nolan go softly and take a green apple and put a bright dollar in the slot of the wee bank. It was a slot for pennies, and the dollar stood up in plain sight.

Father Nolan hastened over here and Tim Furey stood stock still eyein' the collar. He ceased revilin', and the suddenness of his stoppin' woke the bairn. She sat up and busied herself to be neat and tidy for customers, and then she folded her hands and looked up at Tim as trustful and invitin' as she would at her own mother.

[merged small][ocr errors]

"Take these heterodox boots, ye son of Belial," said Father Nolan, quickly," and come with me, for mayhap I'll need a stout man of God on this business!"

He led the way briskly through the house and into Tom Collins's back yard, and then behind the lilac bushes hard by the apple tree.

"Whatever befalls," he whispered, breathin' deep, "ye'll restrain me, and I you. He'll no harm the child; we'll see to that." I'll confess, McTague, me heart was hammerin', for there stood that man possessed of a multitude of devils, swayin' and jerkin' and twitchin' like one seized in a fit, and eyein' the child and the dollar and the green apples, and the bairn smilin' and primpin' like it was all a fine new game. His befouled mind was strugglin' to sense the meanin' of the lass and her wares. He contorted himself toward the dollar, and then, lookin' at Mary, he stopped and smeared his hand over his face like a drunken man considerin'. I was about to spring out, and Father Nolan was humped like a cat ready to jump, when Tim backed, twistin' to the center of the road, and spat. He tried to grip his hair and gripped his hat instead, castin' it in the dust. A nice green apple dropped from the tree, and the child limped over to get it, with Tim Furey's befogged eyes followin' her. che hob bled back and made a showy place for it on the wee box, and then she patted her dress to rights and dimpled up at Tim as much as to say, "There now, how's that for a fine green apple?"

The face of the man was terrible to behold. Ye could see his disordered brain was glimpsin' the bairn's playful fancy, and all his devils were ragin' against the little remnant of his Maker's image left in him. Man, dear, ye could fair watch the battle! The fiends of drink had swarmed at will in the foul mind of him for years, and they fought like the furies they are, when the bairn's smile and trustin' look shone through and brought some glimmerin' of bygone days. He tore his hair and his body heaved, and the sweat streamin' down his face left streaks in the grime. The child snuggled herself a bit tidier, and her eyes fair danced with the play she thought he was makin'. A glint of light struck through the leaves, and the silver dollar flashed a bolder temptation.

'Twas the etairnal struggle-money against a man's own self-but may I never see such a soul-rackin' one again!

While he was clutchin' at his shirt collar his demons tore him with a mighty effort, his arms shot out, and before we knew it he flung himself to the wee bank and snatched the dollar. The bairn just chuckled with the joy within her, and Father Nolan and I jumped out lest harm befall her. But Furey never saw us. He was back in the road again holdin' the dollar in his palsied fingers. He looked at the child. Her smile was as much as to say, "Ain't we gettin' a'quainted just fine?" Father Nolan got behind the tree, and I got behind him.

I don't know what frightful fury was rackin' through the man's mind-the hosts of heaven must have rushed at the devils within him-but all of a sudden he gave a terrible shriek, threw the dollar from him, and fell prone in the street, grovelin' and clutchin' handfuls of dust and throwin' them on his head. He tore his clothes and twisted like one in unbearable pain.

The sobs of a man overwhelmed and prostrate shook him, and he beat his head in anguish on the ground. From the depths of his degradation he cried out to be spared the judgment of a just God, and he fair crawled in his abasement to the Maircy Seat. Then the black vileness of his lost years piled up before him, and he lay there diggin' his fingers in the dirt and pleadin' to be struck dead.

Father Nolan straightened up with a deep sigh and wiped the sweat from his brow.

"Take you the child, Arthur," he said. ""Tis my wairk now." Ah, he's a broth of a man, is Father Nolan-a County Derry man. There, his shoes are done, and the whistles are blowin six o'clock at the mines. Mary'll be over in a minute for evenin prayers. Aye, there she is now! Come in, lassie, come in.

Shall I get the Grand Army flag out, Mary? I shall so. There ye are! I'll hold it where the settin' sun can find it, and you and McTague stand over against me and bow yer heads. There, there, McTague, cease plaguin' the lass with yer pawin' and nosin', and put yer head down like Mary. So. And now we'll have a waird of prayer.

'Tis a wonderful wairld ye've made, Father, for Mary,

:

McTague, and meself. Every day is the unfoldin' of a fairy tale, and every night the curtain of a new chapter. In the flood of each sunrise the miracles and melodies overflow to us from the fullness of the border-land beyond. A measurin'-line can tell the boundaries of Mary's garden, but what line can measure the length of her mother's devotion? Aye, the land can be bought for a price, but where is the gold that can buy the caressin' croon of her slumber-song at eventide? The Christmas toys bend and break, but the sunbeams under the apple tree shine brighter every day. Did ever the mightiest king have subjects that came for sheer love of him to buy green apples for a penny? And did ever a shoemaker fix so many shoes that wear out, for so many

A

stout friends that do not? There's a deal of dogs in the land, but is there one with such a merry wag, that enjoys chasin' a fox without ever catchin' it, like McTague? (Hush, lad, ye mustn't bark.) Aye, Father, the things that have substance perish, but the things that have not endure. For all these gifts and for the boundless blessin's that flow freely from the beyond, under this flag, to the least of these thy children, we bow our heads like the wee bank to say, "Thank ye." Amen and amen. Ah, here's Father Nolan for his boots. And there come Tim Furey and Paddy McGuire home from wairk. Go you out, lassie, so Tim can see ye; he's slantin' around for a glimpse of yer smile.

THE NEW SPIRIT OF THE NEW
THE MIRACLE OF DEMOCRACY

ARMY

SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE FROM THE CAMPS BY JOSEPH H. ODELL

N old-time Regular Army officer stood watching thousands of drafted men straggle into camp. It was pouring a cold, unintermittent rain from leaden skies. The men were cluttered with suitcases and bundles; they were drenched to the skin and in a stunned and surly mood; some of them, from the industrial centers, were in the moral and physical reaction of heavy farewell drinking. And the cantonment was scarcely half finished; the barracks were bleak and desolate barns; the roads were ankle deep in mud; one of the disheveled batches of men wandered for miles about the camp before it could find quarters; most of the officers were as remote from orientation as the men. The Regular Army man knitted his brows and there was anxiety in his eyes. "We shall have to build a barbed-wire entangle ment twenty feet high and ten feet deep around the camp to keep these men from deserting in a body," he said.

Undoubtedly the outlook was ominous enough. Forty thousand men torn from their familiar haunts, their accustomed ways, their lifelong environment, and pitched together into a wilderness of unsightly and comfortless shacks, under orders, which they could not dispute and from which they could not appeal, to do things they had never done before and which they would never do of their own accord surely it was a perilous venture for democracy. A callow youth from the farm sat next at mess to the habitué of the Tenderloin, mother's darling from the suburb bunked beside the gunman from the underworld, the exclusive fraternity man from the exclusive college stood at attention between two grimy immigrants who could speak no English, the bootblack and the bartender flanked the immaculate banker. Forty thousand of them, and in their midst every centrifugal element of personality known to a complex and experimental social organism, yet with nothing to keep them from Hying into forty thousand separate human atoms except an Act of Congress.

The Regular Army officer is not to be called a fool for thinking that barbed wire would have to supplement legislation. He was wrong, utterly and emphatically wrong, and probably no one rejoices more than he over the falsifying of his prophecy. That welter of dissimilar, divergent, and dangerous units of humanity has been made to coalesce into an obedient and cheerful army. Within thirty days each regiment and battalion and company had an esprit de corps which was obvious even to the casual observer. At Camp Devens three men from the Depot Brigade, after seven weeks of training, revealed their minds to

me without reserve:

"We are moving out next week," they said; "going to one of the Southern cantonments."

I congratulated them, telling them of the warm climate, the blue skies, and the beautiful scenery. To my surprise, they were in a mood of resentment.

"But we don't want to go," they objected. "It's awfully cold here and no heat in the barracks, but we like it. We know our way around, we've got lots of pals in the camp, the Y always has something good going on, and the officers are white. Why can't they let us stay?"

One of them had been a shipping clerk in a wholesale grocery,

another was a member of the Typographical Union, and the third had worked in an automobile repair shop.

"What do you like best about the life here?" I asked. The answers were dissimilar in form, but the substance was the same, translated thus: "We started out to learn to do something and to be something, and we can see that we are making progress.'

[ocr errors]

The shipping clerk made an illuminating contribution: "Everybody at home sympathized with me when I was drafted. They said the officers would grind me down with drills and orders until I was only a mechanical number. You bet I hated to come, but the scare tales were all fakes; if a fellow does his duty, he's treated like a man, exactly the same as in business."

But the most important remark came from the linotype man: “Back home I didn't pay much attention to the war, because it seemed so far away. The man who worked on the machine next to mine was a Socialist. He was a great reader. He said he had read everything on both sides, and that Germany wasn't under stood in this country because all our news was doctored by English influence. His conclusion was that the war was a rivalry between competing monopolies, and this country sided with England because our monopolists stood to win most if Ger many lost. Well, when I came here I wanted to know what kind of a job I'd got into. I've read everything I could find, and 1 know now what we are up against. We're not fighting the Huns, we're fighting hell; and if we chaps don't know our business the devils will crucify us as they did the Canadian soldiers and the nuns in Belgium. Lots of fellows here are beginning to understand that too, and that's why they are putting their hearts into the work. But if you are going to write up these camps, tell the Government, or the Y, or the folks at home, to send us more war books, books full of the real stuff. The high society novels they send are punk for men in camp.

Comparatively few of the men, however, have sensed the seriousness of their job from books. Nor did it come to many of them from the formal drills, the setting-up exercises, or the acquisition of military terms and habits. The reality—the grim but thrilling reality-of their business came from the bayonet. Men can stand at attention without paying attention; they can form columns of fours automatically; they can salute as a matter of easily acquired habit; they can learn the bugle calls by subconscious absorption; but no man can wield the bayonet without visualizing death. The first and chief duty of the bayonet in structor is to make men visualize death-their own or their foe's. "You must get him before he gets you ; it's him or you, him or you, him or you!" Then the ghastly seriousness of the business comes over the recruit; the dreadful alternative flashes along every nerve, and commands the muscles of the eyes, the legs, and the arms as they have never been commanded before. It searches his soul and marks him as a coward or a man; it puts deep lines on his face and galvanizes his will; it changes him almost instantaneously from a civilian to a soldier.

When the soldier is once made, discipline is simple. One of the most astounding things about the cantonments is the ease with which the heterogeneous mob has settled down into orderly.

« ПретходнаНастави »