Any nation whose men are unwilling to die in its defense is unfit to exist as a separate political unit. Robert G. Ingersoll declared that "such a nation is a blot on the map of the world." If our country had failed to enter this war, we should thereafter have advocated the annexation of the United States by some stronger nation.

As matters now stand, this war can be fully won only through the efforts of the United States; and those efforts are two years behind time. To-day at least 51 per cent. of the final result depends upon us. The marvelous and complete mobilization of every man, woman and child in Germany will yet win the war for the Huns unless the American people similarly arouse and quickly pour into Europe resistless tides of

MEN, MONEY, MUNITIONS, SHIPS, COAL
AND FOOD,

sufficient to wear out and beat down Germany, and turn the scale. It is the side with the strongest grip and the longest staying power that will win this war!

Our government is striving to handle the first five of those six factors. In time, the best men of the Nation will be called to the job. The sixth factor depends upon the Private Individual! If he fails, as an individual, then the government will have to mobilize Him and Her, and win out through the food-card and the compulsory ration system. Depend upon it, the private individual will not be permitted to wreck the cause of Humanity by drowsiness, slothfulness, folly or greed; and the slackers of America can take that fact or leave it.

This war must be won for Liberty and Humanity.

"go without," Both as a nation die. But as yet,

And we must fight, and work, and long enough to win 51 per cent. of it. and as individuals we must win or fully one-half the people of this country are half asleep, and untouched by the great conflict. One-half our people are pursuing their pleasures and their rockribbed extravagances just as if the world were not on fire, and just as if there were no traitors surrounding us at home.

In the tremendous crisis that has been forced upon us, the first essential is broad wakefulness to the dangers and the duties of the situation. If this nation ONLY had been awake in the winter, spring and summer of 1915, and the winter of 1916,— even as much as it is now! Had it been so, the lives of 500,000 gallant soldiers of England, France and our other allies would have been saved! There would have been no collapse and chaos in Russia, no German victory in northern Italy, and a finish would come in 1918.

Do you doubt this? If so, stop and think for just one moment.

Had we been as ready to fight on April 6, 1917, even as much as we will be ready by April 6, 1918, this terrible war would have been shortened by at least one year!

It is heartbreaking to think now what our sleepiness and supineness of 1915 and 1916 has cost England, France, Russia and Italy in men, saying nothing of the billions of money. And our sleepiness and our slowness on the draw has not lessened our own losses of life, or lightened our own financial burdens, by so much as one American soldier or one twenty-dollar bill! Our folly has been a colossal injury to our best

friends and defenders, and of no earthly benefit to ourselves.

At this moment (January 1, 1918), outside the largest cities an appallingly large majority of the American people are not yet fully awake, and are not in any sense mobilized for our struggle with Germany. The people of the large cities who have plenty of good newspapers are alert, but a large percentage of those who dwell in towns, in villages and in the country are far from being wide awake.

The finest way in the world to wake up any man is to give him something helpful to do. Thus far the only calls that have reached every man have been just four in number: (1) to enlist in the Army, (2) to increase the food supply, (3) to subscribe to Liberty bonds, and (4) to subscribe to the Red Cross fund.

The campaign for Liberty bonds has reached and aroused a far greater number of individuals than any other call thus far made. About 9,500,000 persons subscribed to the second loan. But, notwithstanding all that has been done in those three ways, there are yet millions of people who have not yet been reached and aroused by any one of them! There are millions of American men and women who as yet have not begun to realize the fact that the nation is in the initial stages of a great struggle, and that the war MUST be won by the Allies, even though to accomplish it we may have to throw the whole nation into the struggle, just as Germany has done!

We can equal the devotion and efficiency of the Huns, if we will!

Let me now offer a bit of evidence by way of illustration.

I have before me seventeen very abusive letters that have come to Charles Noel Douglas, of Brooklyn, who edits a department in "Comfort," a magazine having a very wide circulation in the West and South. These letters were written to Mr. Douglas, a former Socialist, because he is a thoroughly patriotic American, because he hates the Bloody Kaiser, and because he writes with the inspired Punch of Conviction and Courage.

These letters are extremely interesting, partly because of their wide geographical distribution. Here are the localities represented:

Without one exception, these 17 letters indicate a remarkable depth of ignorance regarding the real causes of the war, of the reasons why America has joined the Allies, of the reasons why President Wilson is no longer for "peace," and of the danger to liberty and human rights. Several of them violently express the same old hatred of England that was fairly common during the first ten years after the Civil War, but which