look.. Gopight]^^ lL AMERICA AT WAR PROFESSOR W. F. OSBORNE AMERICA AT WAR BY PROFESSOR W. F. OSBORNE UNIVERSITY OF MANITOBA, WINNIPEG, CANADA NEW YORK GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY ^^'^A COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPAMT PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA NOV -2 1917 ' ©G!.A4 7G902'.V TO JOHN W. DAFOE, THE ABLE EDITOR OF THE MANITOBA FREE PRESS, WHOSE ADVOCACY OF CANADA'S FULL l^ARTICIPATION IN THE WORLD STRUGGLE FOR DEMOCRACY HAS BEEN SO CONSISTENT AND SO POWERFUL, THIS RECORD OF A MEMORABLE MONTH IS INSCRIBED PREFACE Early in April, 1917, I was asked by tlie Manitoba Free Press to go to Washington as Special Correspondent to report upon the move- ment of the United States into the great world war. Never before had I witnessed so absorbing or so exhilarating a spectacle. Two features about the American situation affected me most strongly. One was the readiness and the ca- pacity of the American people for organized effort on a great scale. The other was the ex- tent to which Ideality is now the outstanding characteristic of the American Eepublic. One hundred million free citizens advancing into the most desolating of struggles with no thought or prospect of ulterior advantage is one of the most inspiring incidents in the history of the world. At the same time I cannot help record- ing my conviction that, as a by-product of the war, great national advantage will accrue to the United States as a result of its participa- tion. Upon the vast, conglomerate America that has grown up since the Civil War, the seal vii viii PREFACE of a unified Americanism will now finally be set. All classes, conditions, and races of America henceforth know that they can live and prosper under the Aonerican flag only on the condition of an unreserved devotion to the self-deter- mined purposes of the Nation. For the achiev- ing of this great result the immediate adoption of Selective Conscription will be largely to thank. I therefore heartily applaud the wisdom of that policy. Into the American atmosphere, thus created by the Declaration of a State of War against Germany, came the two great Missions, the French and the British. Never were National delegations more admirably timed, never were they more admirably constituted. To the work and character of these Missions I have paid somewhat large attention in the course of this Correspondence. The variety and the power of great personality were never better illus- trated than in the persons of Joffre, Viviani, and Balfour. The coming of Viviani and Joffre offered an opportunity for the expression of America's traditional and fully justified cordial- ity to France. The character and the deliver- ances of Balfour disclosed to the United States, as it had never been disclosed before, the splen- didly democratic spirit of modern Britain. The only consequence of this war that can be PREFACE ix an adequate compensation for tlie disastrous losses it has made necessary, will be '^a world made safe for Democracy," a world rationally and legally organised on the basis and for the purposes of Peace. The intervention of the United States makes it finally inevitable that this end shall be the end that will be preponder- atingly safeguarded in the negotiations that will ultimately terminate hostilities. In themselves, and so far as my part is con- cerned, the contents of this volume are not worthy of being put in book form. They are so published simply as a contemporary picture of a momentous event. A photograph may be negligible in itself and yet be useful, and even precious, as a more or less permanent record of an absorbing moment. The reading of the proofs has been made delightful by the comradeship and assistance of my friend, Salem Goldworth Bland. W. F. 0. Minaki, Ont. Aug. 25th, 1917. CONTENTS PAOE I The Campaign for the Making of Public Opin- ion 15 n A Talk With A German- American 21 III To Free the World of Brigandage £8 IV Press AND Pulpit Fusing PtTBLic Opinion 34 V War Feeling in Congress 40 VI The British Ambassador. A Day in the Senate 46 VII Some Public Men in Action 62 Vin Americanism Now in the Saddle 68 IX Public Opinion Stern Against Sedition 64 X Senator Lodge: Compliments To Canada 70 XI Red-hot Army Debate in the House of Rep- resentatives r. 76 XII Balfour and Joffre 82 XIII Champ Clark Throws Down the Gauntlet To Wilson 88 XIV A German-born Supporter of Wilson 96 XV Interview With Hovelaque, Intellectual Representative of France 102 XVI The Relation of America To the Orphans and Universities of France 107 XVn The Victor of the Marne — ^Joffre at Short Range 113 XVIII Joffre and Vivlani in the American Senate. . . 118 XIX Speeding-up of American Production For War-time. 1 122 XX Speeding-up of American Production For War-time. II 129 xi xii CONTENTS PAas XXI Organization of the Nation On War Basis Proceeds Apace 134 XXII WooDRow Wilson and Arthur Balfour in the House of Representatives 140 XXIII America Rallying in a Ferment of Activity . . 146 XXIV Maryland's Capital in War-time. 152 XXV Penn's City En Fete for the French Envoys . . 158 XXVI Wilson and Roosevelt 164 XXVII The Banquet of All the Talents at the Waldorf 173 XXVIII British Preachers in New York: Hugh Black AND Jowett 181 XXIX An Ensemble View of America's First Month AND A Half of War 190 AMERICA AT WAR AMERICA AT WAR THE CAMPAIGIsr FOE THE MAKING OP PUBLIC OPINION" Chicago, April 14, 1917. A T the entrance to the Union depot at Mil- ■^*- waukee I found the following recruiting appeal : ' ' To all brave, healthy, able-bodied and well-disposed young men in this neighbourhood who have any inclination to join the troops now raising under Gen. Washington in the defence of the liberties and independence of the United States, against the hostile desigTis of foreign enemies, take notice:" — (Beneath is the laconic injunction) "Do as our forefathers did in 1776." What I saw in Milwaukee serves to confirm the analysis of German-American psychology made by Woehlke and Kuno Francke in the cur- rent issue of The Century Magazine. The lat- ter 's pronunciamento concludes with the words : '/My oath of loyalty to America knows no con- 15 16 AMERICAATWAR dition or reservations." This morning's issue of the Germania-Herold contains a report of certain recommendations ahont to be made by the Association of Milwaukee School Principals f o-r the betterment of the system. Among these is one to the effect that instruction in foreign languages should be suppressed in the four low- est grades of the Public Schools. Of course it will doubtless be easier to recommend this than to get it carried through. The big headline of the Chicago Daily Trib- une to-day is symptomatic : ' ' The U. S. to Win "War — Lloyd George." Here we have an illus- tration of the perfectly legitimate national pride of America, which will lead her, now she is in the war, to wage it in a way and on a scale worthy of her resources. The Tribune takes a strong line for compulsory service. A front page cartoon represents Uncle Sam sitting per- plexed in a stalled car, — Volunteer system ; two men, representing Army and Navy, have got out and got under and are doing their best to ■ eliminate the trouble, but the car won't budge. The legend underneath is: ''This car never works when I want it to. ' ' The newspapers all up and down the country are pouring in hot shot that no population could resist. The head- lines are full of thrust and of cordiality for the Allies. * ' British Battle Snow and Germans, and Whip Both," is an example to-day. AMERICA AT WAR IT The trutli is, a campaign of extraordinary vigour for the manufacturing of public opinion is proceeding all up and down the country. The welkin is ringing with clarion calls of all sorts. The Ministerial Associations of Chicago have proposed that Sunday, April 22nd, be set aside as "Sow and Save Sunday." Economy and increased production are on every lip. Gover- nors of states, state legislatures or commit- tees appointed by these, and agricultural col- leges, are assuming the leadership of this move- ment. The potato expert of the Southern Pa- cific Railway to-day issues an appeal for re- trenchment in potatoes. ''Every decent potato in the country will be needed for seed," he says. He adds that an acre of potatoes represents ten times as much food* value as an acre of wheat. Here one sees the outcome of America's prac- tice in nation-wide campaigns of one sort and another. "Safety First," "Clean-up Week" propagandas, and all that kind of thing have accustomed this vast people to respond almost as one man to specific incitements. The people will now apply this method to war measures. The fact is, in comparison with them we Ca- nadians are the merest tyros in knowing how to achieve nation-wide action. The agricultural colleges and the universities have at one bound sprung into a position of leadership in prob- lems connected with the war. Ninety college 18 AMERICAATWAR and university presidents are meeting in Chi- cago to concert measures as to how their insti- tutions can best contribute to meet the national exigencies. Day before yesterday 100 Illinois legislators visited the state university at Cham- paign. They wanted to find out what warrant there was for the large grants being asked for by the university. The university is asking five million dollars for the biennium and a ten mil- lioi; dollar building appropriation. The point I want to make is that the whole case advanced by the president and staff was conceived in na- tional terms. The demonstrations put on be- fore the legislators culminated in a review of two university regiments who are ready to serve their country. To realise the vigour of the collective action being taken in view of war, note the peremptory orders issued yesterday for the closing of all radio-stations or wireless equipments in and about Chicago. The order is said to have reference to no less than 4,000 such installations in Chicago and in the terri- tory tributary to it. The apparatus will be confiscated if not taken out of commission with- in forty-eight hours. Running into Chicago I had a most illuminat- ing conversation with a traveller representing a Chicago steel firm. He expressed great satis- faction that at last the middle west was catch- ing up to the east in the matter of war delibera- AMERICAATWAR 19 tion. When I referred to my gratification over the apparent state of feeling in Milwaukee, he said that, of course, as yet in states like Wis- consin this is a matter of the large towns. The small towns are still apathetic, and in some instances hostile. He cited the case of Sheboy- gan, a town 85 miles up the lake from Milwau- kee, 80 or 90 per cent, of the population Ger- man. Short time ago, referendum submitted on the war. Out of a population of 18,000, 12,000 voted. Less than 100 voted for war with Ger- many. ''But,'* said he, *'the question was wro-ngly put : ' Are you, or are you not in favour of war?' Good heavens, who wants war? I don't, and yet I know we ought to go into this one." He cited the analogous case of Monro, a small Swiss-German town in the same state. The fact seems to be this. The overwhelming majority of the intellectual elements of the country have been hostile to Germany from the outset. From them it has spread to the general population, above all in the east. From the east this sentiment has spread west, where it has seized first the large towns and cities. The country is now in process of a movement that is destined rapidly to inoculate the population of small towns and of the agricultural districts. This movement of ideas is perfectly natural and normal, and I think we should be satisfied with it. 20 AMERICAATWAR I have now to give you wliat I think much the best part of this Milwaukee-Chicago conversa- tion. My companion proceeded to tell me about his employer, Donald Ryerson, vice-president of the Ryerson Steel Company. He is thirty-three years of age. Has now and always had all that a man need desire in the way of wealth. He has resigned as vice-president of the company, has subscribed $85,000 to equip a submarine chaser, and is training for a lieutenant's com- mission. He will take charge of his own boat. Incidentally he is giving recruiting speeches. One of his 1,500 employees said, after hearing him speak: ''I wouldn't like to be a submarine if he comes up with it. He'd jump on it with a knife, if he hadn't anything else!" Talking to his employee, my interlocutor, Ryerson has said that what above all stung him into action was what he aptly called ''curb-stone criticism of the rich man's son." In other words he is going to do his part to show that rich America is not degenerate. We may take off our hats to wealthy America, so far -as he represents its spirit. A little latex as, standing on Michigan avenue, I watched the myriads of sumptuous motors roll past with dizzying swiftness, I said to myself: ''This war if America really par- takes of its agony will save the great soul of this country." And, really, one wonders what else would have achieved that salvation. n A TALK WITH A GEEMAN-AMEEICAK Earrishurg, Pa., April 16. WALKING down the streets of Pittsburg tliis morning I found them aglow — as much as anything could be aglow in that murky atmosphere — ^with flags. Yesterday a picture theatre proprietor, Coss- man by name, somewhat narrowly escaped lynching in Pittsburg. He scattered posters in- viting the public to visit his theatre to see a film that would show them why they should not participate in the European war. Being set on by the crowd, a policeman rescued him and at the same time took him into custody. Both had some difQculty making their way to the police station. Emerging from the Pittsburg depot I fell in with a German. Indeed, he overtook me and hailed me with a cordiality that a circumstance disclosed later will explain. The psychology of the German- American is a factor of no little importance in the present American situation; so I am going to try to detail as much as I can of my interview with him. He was born in 21 22 AMERICAATWAR America, but returned with his parents to Ger- many when he was four years old. He was educated there, passing through the gym- nasium, and then came back to this country. His mother is in Germany to-day. He was in England at the time of the Boer war. Spent two and a half years there. He is quite evi- dently a highly intelligent and alert fellow. The talk leaped at once to the war, and the first thing he said was ''I'll be damned glad when it's all over." When we had got seated at the breakfast table in the Fort Pitt hotel, I asked: "Have you any feeling that President Wilson did not do his very best to keep the United States out of the war?" He flushed, showed evident signs of excitement, and then said: "As far as my personal views are con- cerned, I have decided to keep my mouth shut. Then I can think what I please. No one can. keep me from doing that." From that time' forward for a little while I had to step a wary course. It looked for a bit as if he would not talk at all. Gradually, though, he thawed. Without trying to make a smooth story out of it I shall just rapidly detail his views. I have no doubt they are very symptomatic ; and when we recall the huge strain of German popula- tion living under the Stars and Stripes it is apparent that if we Canadians want to under- stand the intricacies of the American situation AMERICAATWAR «3 we must try to fathom the German-American mentality. He said lie would not discuss the immediate origins of the present war. Suffice it to say, diplomacy was to blame for bad relations in Europe. Here England must bear her share of the blame. She should have recognised Ger- many's growing power. She should have given her an economic chance. She should have made a deal with her. They two could have assured the peace of the world. Wlien I asked: *' Didn't a man like Haldane do his best?" he admitted that Haldane did. *'What about Winston Churchill's proposal for a naval holi- day and an arrest of the mounting armament business? Did not Germany answer this by accelerating her building programme?" No answer to this. ''I'll tell you something," he said. ''This is the beginning of the end of the white races. Japan is getting her work in with China while Europe is bleeding itself white. A clash be- tween the yellow and the white races is sure, and I'm afraid when the time comes the white races won't be there. There can be no 'patch- ing' between the yellow races and the white. You know you Canadians yourselves won't have the Oriental immigrants, which shows that you do not like them. And Europe is go- ing to be exhausted; because, mark what I M AMERICA AT WAR say, they are all — ^not Germany alone, but all of them — going to l>e on the verge of bank- ruptcy." I interjected: *'Do you mean that this war will leave such wounds that antago- nists of to-day will not co-operate when it be- comes desirable for them to meet a modernised Orient V * ' Oh, yes, they '11 co-operate, because they will have to; but they will not recover economically soon enough to meet the great danger that the future holds for them." I told him how I had admired the German people, and how their standard, classical litera- ture had always appealed to me. I spoke affec- tionately of a piece like Schiller's ^'Wilhelm Tell," and tried to argue from the qualities of that literature to the loyal, sterling characteris- tics of the German people. *'I think," I said, "and the majority of British citizens think, that the Germans are simply a misled people. They have been perverted by the kaiser and the Prussian military class." ''You are mistaken," he said. He then gave me an analysis which may .have something in it, though I do not know that it gets rid of my charge of the perversion of a people by false aims and policies. ''The German peo- ple," K. said, "are the good, sterling people you picture. But they were a poor people. They were not successful traders. Their coun- try has not great resources naturally. Their AMERICAATWAR 25 rulers decided, not in selfishness, but in the in- terests of the people themselves, that the old methods would not do. If the German people were to achieve competence, if it were to play any part in the world, it must be marshalled and directed by the state. The present kaiser has not done it all. Bismarck was one of the great ones, but the beginning lies even back of him. The government policy of concerning itself intimately with every part of the life of the people, so as to eliminate poverty, so as to promote trade — the kaiser has only completed that policy. The transformation has been ef- fected. The Germans are no longer a poor people. They have lost certain qualities in the process. (What these were he did not specify; and I did not like to press him too closely.) *'You talk about liberty. In England and America you have moral liberty, but you have not 'material' liberty." He here alluded to the gross poverty he had witnessed in London. ''In Germany we don't have that. What good does it do me to say, I can do as I please, if I am so poor, or so starved that there is hardly anything I can do? And anyway, there is as much freedom of thought and speech in Ger- many as there is here in America." "What about arrests for lese majeste?" I asked. "You can't insult the kaiser, but neither can you insult any one else. One thing, I never 26 AMERICAATWAR saw a man's head split open by tlie police in Germany, and I have seen it done a number of times here in free America." I asked him in so many words if he had a feeling of isolation under present circum- stances. He said he had. ''You know," he said, "there is a good deal of bitterness." He then added that I myself had had a narrow escape the night before on the train between Chicago and Pittsburg. I had been reading the Chi- cago Abendpost, and he confided in me that I had been the object of quite a few suspicious glances. I then realised that it was the cir- cumstance that he had seen me reading a Ger- man newspaper the night before that led him, in a feeling of very considerable isolation, to hail me at Pittsburg with some eagerness. I said that it was my intention to read the Ger- man-American papers as much as possible, be- cause I wished to get the point of view. ''Well, you'll not get it now, you may be sure." He went on to say that the majority of the Ger- mans in this country being American citizens, it would be wholly unwise of these papers, by voicing their real feelings, to incite these citi- zens to unwise action. The upshot is that this particular German feels to-day in America a sharp sense of isolation. He confesses that there is a feeling of bitterness on the part of his compatriots, which, however, he thinks will AMERICAATWAR 27 find little expression in words and none in dis- ruptive action. At Johnstown, scene of tlie famous flood, the station platform was thronged with people waving flags. Three young men were leaving for Harrisburg to enlist. The scene was very- like those we witnessed in Canada in the early days of the war. Ill TO FEEE THE WOKLD OF BEIGANDAGE Washington, D. C, April 16. OUNDAY morning from 7 to 11 I had a de- ^ lightful ride from Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, to Washington, the capital of the nation. Through smiling champaigns and beside winding brooks glancing in the sun- shine, we rolled. The first tender April green was just peeping from the branches of the trees. Only one other railroad ride have I ever had that I would compare with this one — a journey, similarly on a Sunday morning, in 1904, from Liverpool to London. As we drew, through noble approaches, into Baltimore, I saw at one and the same time on the summits of five commanding eminences as many handsome country residences. From three of these floated the Stars and Stripes, evidence of the heightened feeling of the coun- try. God, how my heart glowed as I traversed this landscape, to think that at last this great country—its prosperity, broad-based in mate- rial resources, its soul swelling ever more 28 AMERICA AT WAR 29 and more steadily into a splendid demonstra- tion of ideality — stands at last shoulder to shoulder with the little isle set in the silver sea, our beloved and imperial England! I neglected to tell earlier of an affecting thing I came upon in Chicago — a little detail that illustrates the multitude of forces, big and small, which are to-day operating on the Amer- ican war psychology. In a window of the arcade in the Stevens' building I saw a fair- haired boy doll dressed in shirt and suit said to have been made by a French mother from the garments worn by her son when he fell mortally wounded in the battle of the Marne. That mother has now given her five sons to the defence of France. Over the doll's heart is a dull red stain, declared to be the very blood of the French youth. Among all the chords to which the heart of America is to-day respond- ing, scarcely any is more powerful than ad- miration for the austerity of France through- out the present conflict, and grateful memory of what France did for America at the time of the "War of Independence. The Baltimore Sun this morning estimates the number of French soldiers who assisted the Americans in the Eevolutionary War at 45,000 ; and the finan- cial expenditure of France at that time in the American interest at not much less than three- quarters of a billion dollars. This reminis- so AMERICAATWAR cence bulked big Saturday in tbe congressional debate on the loan to the allies. At what an extraordinarily interesting con- juction I reach this noble capital, to watch for the Free Press the inception of the great enter- prise which is now engrossing the attention of the American people! Yesterday about 1 'clock the House of Eepresentatives, without a dissenting vote, passed the bill appropriating for the prosecution of war with Germany seven billions of dollars — the largest single war ap- propriation made in the history of nations. This is the first big practical stroke of the policy which means the end of the tradition of Ameri- can isolation. The George Washington chapter of American history in this respect is closed. Secondly, it means that the sad circuit begun with the War of Independence is completed. The two great branches of the Anglo-Saxon family are once more united for the larger pur- poses of public policy. What is more, it means that America enters with a will on the task of ridding the world of piracy and brigandage. Here the task which the United States is daily more and more completely accepting as inte- grally her own represents a rock-bottom Anglo- Saxon principle. On the threshold of the litera- ture common to Britons and Americans stands Beowulf. Beowulf first rid the Hall of Heorot of the looting dragon Grendel, and then fol- AMERICAATWAR 31 lowed the monster to its lair in the depths of the sea. Later Arthur and his knights set themselves to fell noisome forests, to drain miasmal swamps, to make the ways of the world safe and clear. To-day the new Beownlf or the new Arthur as you choose to think of it, in other words the reunited Anglo-Saxon race, sets itself to hunt the dragon from the seas and fields. It might easily he thought in Canada that undue emphasis is being laid here on the im- portance of conservation and production. That is, one might think that exaggerated importance is being given to the economic aspects of the war, to the relative exclusion of actual armed assistance. Undeniably the pendulum might swing too far that way. The Chicago Abend- Post Friday had a cartoon, ''1776 vs. 1917." Seventeen hundred and seventy-six showed the minuteman dropping his plough-handle and seizing his musket ; 1917 shows a western agri- culturist busy at work in the field. It would not be wise to decide hurriedly, however, that America will make this mistake. In the first place most of the advice she is receiving from Europe — the latest is the series of five des- patches on the mistakes of the allies, the first of which appeared this morning in the New York Tribune, and a syndicate of papers, in- cluding the Baltimore Sun — rings the changes S2 AMERICA AT WAR on food and supplies generally. Lord North- cliff e expressly says to America: ''You have no need to hurry unduly with your troops." Of course, he sa3^s this in contrast with his other remark: ''We, for our part, especially at the start, had to hurry." Secondly, we may be sure that American pride will insist on pro- viding effective armed aid, both on sea and land. In the third place, a little consideration of this enormous population shows that — par- ticularly if compulsory service by selective draft wins the day — the unattached and less confessedly productive elements of the popula- tion can produce a big army without crippling primarily productive classes. One thing that is sure is that in collective national thinking and planning with respect to war exigencies, the United States is farther advanced eight days after the declaration of a state of war than Canada is after two and a half years have passed. Canada, to the ever- lasting credit of her people, has produced four hundred thousand soldiers; but this has been done largely by individuals and by individualis- tic methods. Consider the lethargy of Cana- dian universities, which have done little or nothing collectively save the raising of the uni- versity battalions. Consider the failure of our agricultural colleges to assume any distinctive leadership in a campaign of accelerated pro- AMERICAATWAR 33 duction. This is not meant by way of attack. Vast mimlbers, great wealth, matured national feeling create a momentum here that we can- not hope yet to vie with. But judging from the case of America, the imperative gospel for the Canada of the next twenty-five years is the conception and direction of virtually everything in national terms. Two little details I add : Washington hotels are "crammed to the roofs." After trying in vain the Shoreham and two others I desisted with cheerful philosophy and started for the Central Presbyterian church to get a glimpse of the President. Entering the vestibule I whispered naively to an usher: *'Is this the President's church?" "This is the church the President attends,'' came the equally whispered adjustment. I smiled to myself as I recalled the story of the lady who irately left Trinity church, Boston, on one occasion when she found that Phillips Brooks was not in his pulpit. "The worship of the Rev. Phillips Brooks will be continued next Sunday evening, madam," remarked the usher. On my way back to dinner I passed the Span- ish and the Russian embassies. I asked a man where the German embassy was. He pointed in a certain direction, and then added playfully, and I fancied very contentedly, "It is closed for the holidays — and then some." PEESS AlfTD PULPIT PTJSIIirG PUBLIC OPINION Washington, D. C, April 17th. IT is my business to assist in providing the readers of the Free Press with the mate- rials for a reasoned judgment on the condition of American opinion at this highly interesting time. Two agencies of moment at such a time are the pulpit and the press. As for the press it is overwhelmingly bombarding the country, east and west, north and south. The press is even in advance of opinion, as for example on the superiority of compulsory service to volun- tary enlistment. I have bought and read pa- pers now with assiduity in seven cities repre- senting both parties in Minnesota, "Wisconsin, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, the District of Columbia, and New York. There is virtually one voice from all these. They are in favour of compulsory service according to the Presi- dent's plan of selective drafts. In connection with the pulpit, Winnipeggers and western Canadians generally will be pleased to know that J. L, Gordon is sweeping the decks here at Washington. I heard him 34 AMERICA AT WAR 35 Sunday night in tlie First Congregational church addressing a state delegation of the Daughters of the American Revolution on ''The Supreme Crisis." The church seats about twelve hundred, but there were at least sixteen hundred present. Every nook and cranny of the building was crowded. I myself sat on the steps leading to the platform. He spoke like a man possessed. His sermon was a powerful histrionic display. What is more, it was a rattling recruiting speech. The gal- leries were heavily hung with American flags, and a few feet over the speaker's head floated Old Glory. The meeting began with an impres- sive solo rendering of Kipling's Recessional, which seemed to evoke a sort of fundamental Anglo-Saxon feeling. Gordon swept every chord of American patriotic sentiment in his audience. The sermon was punctuated with salvo after salvo of applause. There were, he said, three great dates in American history: ''1620 when you planted your feet on this new soil; 1776 when you un- furled a new flag beneath the sky; 1917 when you will not prove unworthy of the continent or of the flag." The American people has endured insult after insult, outrage after out- rage at the hands of Germany. They have waited before entering the war till every culprit on the earth is left without excuse. To-day 36 AMERICAATWAR America takes its place truly among tlie world powers. After tlie undivided vote on Satur- day for the seven billion dollar loan for the prosecution of the war, every congressman of the United States has a world status. ^ ' Thank God for Woodrow Wilson. Yonder he sits in the Executive Mansion planning for the imme- diate present and peering into the future. Every word that he now utters shows that he has caught a vision." America enters the war for the freedom of the seas. Germany has bid our ships skulk in our ports. ''Please God that will never happen again, if we have to sink every submarine ever built." (Applause). America enters the war for international law. ''We ask that Kaiser and Crown Prince be swept from the throne." (Applause). We fight against Brute Force. "Prussia is an in- ternational burglar." We shall fight to save "the soul" of Germany. We fight for Universal Democracy. We fight for Peace, "the greatest paradox in history." "The meanest thing that ever crawled up out of hell is war. Let us drive it back where it comes from. Let your boys go to the British Isles, to France, and to Flan- ders. The sooner they get there, the sooner the job will be done." Canadians could ask for nothing better. As I circled round the White House in my first inspection of Washington, my eye was AMERICA AT WAR 37 resting on the giant obelisk to the south. ''What is that?" I said to two men who over- took me. They almost gasped. ''What is what ? ' ' The thing was so fundamental to them that they couldn't believe there could be any one who did not know. "Why that's Wash- ington's Monument — the Father of his coun- try, you know." "Oh, I know him by reputa- tion, but I'm not an American." "Where do you come from!" "From Winnipeg." "Oh, that's England — ^no, Canada; but then that's England, isn't it?" "Anyway we're in the same boat now, ' ' I volunteered. ' ' Mighty glad we are, sir, mighty glad we are. You'll get a warm welcome here now." This undistin- guished, average American moved on, happy and kindly. Fifteen minutes later I was on the north side of the White House — that plain old mansion of the chief magistrate before which the street- cars run as if with a sort of insistence on the right of democratic access. I had examined the statues of Lafayette, Rochambeau, and the Baron von Steuben, and at last, on the fourth corner, I was studying the monument to Kos- ciusko, presented to congress by the Poles of America. "I didn't know that Kosciusko had been in America," I said to two young men standing on the corner. One was a handsome, well set-up fellow, the other looked a little 38 AMERICAATWAR broken and faded. *' Really I don't know, who was he anyhow?" the first said. *'What do you think about the war I" I asked. Pause. ''Neutral," suggested the weaker looking man. ''No, not neutral by any means, but — inactive," said the first. "Are you glad you're in!" I queried. "What else could we do? It's just the same as if your neighbour told you you mustn't use the street. Of course if you take his word for it, you'll have to stay in the house. But we don't think we have to. By the way, where did you buy that hat?" He looked crestfallen when I told him it had been bought in Winnipeg. "But Kosciusko — I don't under- stand. I didn't know he had come to Amer- ica." "Well," said the well-dressed, well built young man, "I'm sorry that you didn't buy that hat in Washington, because if you had I'd go and buy one like it. ' ' As the two moved away this reflection leaped into my mind: That young man represents the class of young Amer- ica that should be caught by Selective Draft. His mind is fully convinced. He is in tip-top physical condition, probably. Equally prob- ably he is not a primary producer. He is likely to side-step service if left to himself. He would accept service if the nation imposed it. Left to his rather butterfly, but by no means ignoble, self, his place would quite possibly be taken at AMERICAATWAR 39 tlie front by some grimy artisan whose work is essential, or by some sturdy yeoman from the plains whose labour may be necessary to feed, not. simply this nation, but the world. y WAR FEELING IN CONGEESS Washington, D. C, April 18th. PJ^LAGS flutter more and more thickly in "*• WasMngton as the days pass. To-niglit for the first time the dining room of the Ebbitt House is draped with them. Outside they float in profusion on the roofs of buildings, from the windows of shops, on automobiles, motor cycles, and bicycles, over the heads of police- men directing traffic at the intersection of streets. I never in my life saw such heavy eating as is done in American hotels. The mountains of food set before men, women and children beat everything in toy experience. The other night I saw a man weighing two hundred and fifty pounds if he weighed an ounce, ordering and eating endlessly in company with a boy, evi- dently his son. The man was about in the class of Dick Burden, many years ago of ''bill-pos- ter" fame in Winnipeg. I thought it was a gross exhibition. I said to myself, there is degenerate middle-age America teaching young America to be degenerate. I had no doubt 40 AMERICAATWAR 41 I had hit the nail exactly on the head. The next evening I passed the same man in the rotunda of the hotel, and as I passed him I heard him say to a friend, ''I'm here to break into that mosquito fleet." Then I realised that I had been too quick in my judgment, and into my mind, to my own disadvantage, came Wordsworth's words about "rash judgTaents and the sneers of thoughtless men." The greatest reticence is being observed with regard to the arrival of Mr. Balfour and his party. This morning, with the newspapers confidently announcing his advent for to-day and his reception at the White House to-mor- row by the President, the British embassy was completely in the dark as to when he would land on American soil, even as to whether he would disembark at an American or a Canadian port. The recollection of the Kitchener trag- edy is a potent incentive to silence. In this connection Canadian observers need not be chagrined if more eclat attaches to Joffre's entrance into America than to Balfour's. The French mission is designed for legitimately sentimental purposes. It is expected to con- sist of a very small party. The British mis- sion will devote itself to work and it is believed that it may have a personnel of from forty to fifty. The British policy is to "saw wood," but to indulge in as little publicity as possible, 42 AMERICAATWAR so as not to give tongue to factions elements who might raise a cry of '^ British direction" of American policy. On the whole I am much pleased with the tone of references here to Great Britain. The dominant note is that of respect for the straightforwardness of British diplomacy and for British power and farsight- edness. The New York Tribune in a masterly two-column leader this morning says : *' We are now entering the British period of the war." To-day I spent six hours in the Press gal- lery of the senate. Before covering that I may allude to my first glimpses of the Houses, got yesterday from the ordinary galleries. Abso- lutely the first figure that caught my eye in the senate was Henry Cabot Lodge. I was familiar with his appearance because in 1911 in Boston I heard him give in the Symphony hall what was the finest political speech I ever heard. He has a neat, trim, self-reliant figure, and moves freely about the chamber with a sort of dean-like nonchalance. On the occasion of this, my first experience of the American Senate, Owen, of Oklahoma, delivered a speech marked by a well-informed review of European diplomacy, and by a fiery denunciation of Prus- sian militarism, the Divine-right theory of the Hohenzollerns, and Prussian dragooning of Germany at large. He made favourable ref- erence to Great Britain in 1822, ''already then AMERICAATWAR 43 a great nation exemplifying representative gov- ernment and loving liberty, ' ' opposing the Holy Alliance in its designs against democracy. He said the statue of Frederick, *' so-called the Great, ' ' now standing in front of the American war college, ''should be gently but firmly dropped into the Potomac." He estimated the number of Araerican lives wilfully taken by Germany since the outbreak of the war at about two hundred, and the number of neutral ships destroyed by the same power at over seven hundred. Emerging from the House of Representatives I met and had a most agreeable chat with Representative Temple, of Illinois. He was formerly Professor of Diplomatic History in the University of Pennsylvania, and is now a member of the Foreign Relations committee of the House. He explained to me the proposed provisions of the army bill which is still in committee. ''Canada," he said, "has raised in the neighbourhood of 400,000 men. That means one-twentieth of your population or five per cent. Five per cent, of our 100,000,000 would give us an army of 5,000,000. There is no proposal at present to raise any such num- ber." The President's proposals fall into three groups, (a) To bring the regular army plus the state militia, now nationalised, up to a war footing of 500,000 by voluntary enlist- 44 AMERICAATWAR ment; (b) national registration of all eligible males; (c) from the resources disclosed by this to raise successive units of 500,000 each, as they may be needed, and as they can be trained. The instruction of a larger force at the moment would threaten to denude the regular army of its officers. He said the proposal had been voiced in some quarters that America should fight with money, but, said he, 'Hhat proposal found no response in the House. It is nothing other than the liberty of the world that is at- tacked, particularly by submarining. We can- not wage such a war by proxy. I feel for my own part, that I never could hold up my head in Canada, in England, or in any other foreign country, if we had taken such a position." Now, I find my space gone and I have not covered the great debate of to-day on the seven billion dollar bill for the prosecution of the war. The Canadian public knows long before this that the debate ended with the unanimous passage of the bill. Here I shall simply quote a few of the outstanding sentences pronounced in part by those not supporting the bill in all particulars, but who nevertheless voted for it. Kellogg, the famous "trust-busting" lawyer, of Minnesota, supporting the bill, said : ''There is no safety for America until the Prussian dynasty is driven from power. ' ' Stone of Mis- souri, Democratic chairman of the committee AMERICAATWAR 45 on foreign relations, made a shrewd cover- hunting speech in whicli he argued that a larger share of the first year's expenses of th^ war than was proposed by the bill should be paid out of current taxation. ''Pay as you enter and pay as you go is sound policy. Wiser to pay current liabilities of war by taxation of wealth than transmit burden to industry of future generations who have no say in deter- mining present policy." Thomas, of Colorado, approved this : ' ' One way to make the people hate war is to make the present generation pay •as it goes." Shafroth, of Colorado: ''Expen.- diture great, "but world results of winning the war will warrant us in what we are doing." Cummins, of Iowa; ''I would rather make a gift than a loan to the allies. Apprehend dan- ger in the United States becoming bondhold- ing creditor of the allies." McCumber, of North Dakota: ''We have not yet put a man in the field. We should be very liberal with our money." Kenyon, of Iowa, who paid a great tribute to France : "This bill carries a message to the kaiser that the mighty republic of the west is opposed to him to the death. ' ' Eeed Smoot, of Utah, supporting the bill unreservedly, said: "If the president saw fit to advance a billion to Russia, without any prospect of return, I should be glad to see it done if it would substitute a republic for autocracy in that country." VI THE BRITISH AMBASSADOR — ^A DAY IN THE SENATE Washington^ D. C, April 19th. INTRODUCTIONS from Sir James Aikins -'■ and from Premier Norris were to thank this morning for a charming interview with His Excellency Sir Cecil Spring Rice, British Am- bassador at Washington. He in turn was good enough- to accord me introductions to Ambas- sador Jusserand and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. He complimented the Free Press on its action in sending a representative to Wash- ington. The ambassador referred cordially to happy days he had spent in the Canadian Northwest. On the mantel-piece were two photographs of His Excellency's brother, who resided at Pense, Saskatchewan, and who fell in France a year ago. The ambassador alluded to a tablet which is shortly to be put in posi- tion in that place in his brother's memory. He said he should like very much to go to Pense on that occasion but that the eight days- neces- sary would be very difficult to find in these criti- cal times. He alluded to the special keenness with which His Excellency the Duke of Devon- 46 AMERIC[A.ATWAR 47 shire had enjoyed his recent western visit. He said the governor-general had been deeply im- pressed with the vitality and capacity of West- ern Canadian life. I find that the tone of comment on the line of action adopted by the embassy in this coun- try since the outbreak of the war is very favour- able. The policy of leaving the American peo- ple strictly to make up its own mind on the war in its own way, is now seen to have been excellently conceived. The state of war now existing here has pro- duced a condition of heightened public feeling that is finding its reflection, in the senate at any rate, in a series of powerful debates. I have already adverted in despatches to the powerful speech delivered by Borah, of Idaho, on the censorship sections of the Espionage Bill. Borah is spoken of as the most formi- dable debater in the senate. His speech on this occasion was evidently looked forward to, and it proved fully worthy of expectations. 11? was listened to with closer interest than any other speech I have yet heard here. It amounted to a root and branch attack on censorship. He claimed that with evident design the framers of the constitution had denied the right of the legislature under any circumstances to abridge the power of the press. The sections under fire, he said, involved the creation of a licensing 48 AMERICA AT WAR power which must be consulted before publica- tion. The whole spirit of the constitutional provision is that the press must be left to its own sense of responsibility. After publication it can be proceeded against for sedition or treason without the aid of a new statute. Thus far in the debate the spokesmen for the administration's provisions have been out- pointed all along the line. Brandegee, Lodge, Johnson, Borah have so far in this connection met no adequate antagonists. Right of publi- cation, said Borah, in the view of the constitu- tion, is to be left unrestrained, subject to the sole and sufficient liability of the publisher to appropriate punishment. ''The dangers of possible aid to the enemy even are not com- mensurate with the danger's flowing from cur- tailment of the rights of the press." Inciden- tally I may interject that the New York Times, of this morning under the caption, ''A Tyran- nous Measure," suggests that the full end sought may be attained by proper control of the cables. Even more powerfully than Lodge yesterday, Borah alluded to the achievements of the Northcliffe Press during the war. ''Has there been, I ask you, a more distinct service rendered to British arms than that rendered by the Northcliffe Press, whose strictures could not have been published under provisions of this statute I" AMERICA AT WAR 49 A response from the other side, not adequate in force but entitled to respect, was made by Knute Nelson, a senator of Norwegian birth from Minnesota. He fought in the Civil War and alluded with splendid effect to incidents of that struggle. *'He was more concerned about the safety of our soldiers and sailors than with the supposed interests of newsmongers." In the Civil War the northern armies had been again and again prejudiced by publicity as to movements. Before they knew it what they were about to do was known at Richmond. Here, I thought, was a delicate situation. The Minnesota senator righted it instantly, how- ever, by adding: ''And the Confederate arm- ies suffered in the same way, as I have been told by citizens of the south." Tliis passage was a fine tribute to the completeness with which that great national wound has been healed. The senator's argument in essence was that war power confers police power. The con- stitutional guarantees of free speech and publi- cation are subrogated in time of war. Repub- lican as he is, he said he was fully prepared to trust the President, who would not use his pow- ers tyrannously. There was a certain home- spun air about the Minnesota senator's argu- ment that made it very attractive; and above all it was worthy of respect as an expression of 50 AMERICAATWAR the best type of gemiinely Amerioanised Euro- peanism. Johnson, of California, to whom special in- terest attaches because of his career and be- cause of his recent accession to the Republican caucus, intervened with a short but admirably phrased address against the bill. ''He was concerned not with the press, but with freedom of speech. This war is not a partisan war, but a war of all America. America is the light of the world in democracy. We must stop short of an assault on fundamental democracy. To make felons of our citizens is an excursion into autocracy that cannot be permitted.^' The ex- pectation is that Johnson will prove a great accession to the debating power of the senate. I add a paragraph in order to record a com- ment of unusual interest. I have been strongly impressed with the consciousness of a great tradition observable in the American senate. Commenting to this effect to a representative of a, leading New York paper, he rejoined: "No, its back is broken. The starch has gone out of it. Even as late as McKinley's time ready-made legislation handed to the senate by the administration would have been flung in the waste-paper basket. To-day all the big bills are handed to the Houses, ready-made. Roosevelt began the process of breaking down the Houses. The reason lay in the development of AMERICA AT WAR 51 national feeling of which Roosevelt knew him- self to be the organ. This breaking-down has been carried still farther by the present saga- cious occupant of the White House." This comment, any one can see, is extraordinarily interesting as concerning a phenomenon, which, in the light of British practice, we should be disposed to regard as ensuing from an unwise separation of the executive and the legislative functions. WTiile admitting that profound changes are in progress, I cannot agree that the senate has by any means lost its great traditions. I have now heard well on to half the members of the senate. I have not yet heard one poor speech of a substantive character. One man in the back row I may allude to. I might designate him by name, but it is not necessary. Through three days I saw him sit like a man who might have one foot in the grave. To-day on the Espionage bill, he rose to a high and grave defence of the bill. * ' The general terms of the constitution must be interpreted in light of the exigencies of society under hazardous condi- tions." He cited- with fine effect Marshall's ''It is a constitution we are interpreting." The senate may be less masterful in action than it once was. Of that I am not competent to speak ; but it is still at any rate impressive in debate VII SOME PUBLIC MEN IN" ACTION" Washington, D. C, April 20th. J SAW a number of persons and things in "'• action to-day for the first time. To begin with, the President himself. Of him I caught my initial sight in the Chief Executive's room adjoining the senate lobby. He is a man of shorter figure, stockier build and higher colour than I had supposed. He had come to the capitol to speed up the administration's army bill. The House military committee, by the way, was simultaneously rejecting the selective draft scheme proposed by the President and the Secretary of State for war. By a vote of 12 to 8 it expressed a preference for trying the volunteer system first. At the time that I saw Mr. Wilson he was closely engaged in conversa- tion with Senator Owen, of Oklahoma. Bear- ing in mind the constitiitional separation be- tween executive and legislative functions in the American system, there is something extremely interesting to a British observer in this contact between the chief magistrate and the legisla- tors in rooms adjoining the chambers. There 52 AM.ERICA AT WAR 63 is plenty of bone in President Wilson's control of the national machine. He holds a tight rein. If is apparent on all hands that the. prestige of Mr. Wilson has latterly been greatly en- hanced. The causes are not far to seek. First, there was his re-election with a large popular majority, an event which accrued the more notably to his advantage because he was for a time supposed to be in jeopardy. Then came the declaration of the state of war, which was unquestionably a great relief to the lead- ing elements of the nation. Finally, there is the formidable concentration of power in his person inevitable under war conditions. An il- lustration of this last is found in the bill on espionage and related matters now under ad- visement in both chambers. This bill, as drawn, confers on the President powers the enumera- tion of which almost takes one's breath away. Next, to-day for the first time, I saw Henry Cabot Lodge, easily the most highly cultivated man in the two branches of congress, in action in the senate. Readers of this column will re- member that Root, the only man in point of intellectual cultivation in the late congress who could be named in the same breath with Lodge, is no longer in the senate. The interval be- tween the rawest representative in the lower house and Lodge, the dean of the senate and the fine flower of the best New England tradition. 64 AMERICA AT WAR is immense. If you run up the line from the one to the other of these two extremes the view you get of the forces operating in a grand democratic state is picturesque and pecuharly vital. Lodge's acute, intellectualised, high-bred face is a fine study. He seems marked by a fine personal courtesy that still does not ex- clude ever and anon flashes of incisive anger. He is as quick as chain lightning. In no mat- ter what part of the chamber he is strolling nonchalantly — his hands more often than not thrust deep in his pockets — he grows alert in an instant the moment a word is dropped on any subject in which he specialises. To-day Senator Lodge was taking exception to the drastic terms of certain sections of the espionage bill. The gravamen of his attack was that the recently created censorship board was wrongly constituted. Under the chairman- ship of a journalist it consists of the secretaries of the army and the navy, precisely the officials, contended Lodge, whose administration should be vitalised by as full a criticism as is com- patible with the national interest. He cited as proof of what England permitted in war time the free criticism of the Northcliffe papers which had been the means of ousting officials, and unseating governments. There was some- thing undeniably appropriate in the spectacle of this choice scion of New England champion- AMERICAATWAR 65 ing the cause of free discussion. In the fine continuity of Anglo-Saxon traditions this scene in the American senate in 1917 ran straight back to the noble "Areopagitica" of John Mil- ton. Brandegee, of Connecticut, followed the senior senator from Massachusetts on similar lines. He contended that one clause of the es- pionage bill in particular was at variance with the provisions in the constitution safeguarding freedom of speech. He made a very powerful and rightly ingratiating argument. I shall be surprised if I do not find that Brandegee has one of the best parliamentary manners in the senate. Hiram Johnson, the California Pro- gressive, who, by the way, yesterday joined th& Republican caucus, intervened in the midst of Brandegee 's speech — this habit of free inter- polation is one of the most interesting manner- isms of Congress — to say: ''Let us be careful that in our sensibility to the progress of democ- racy abroad we do not forget to safeguard democracy at home." Judging by the impres- sive speeches in criticism of this bill, of which the three I have cited were simply the most eminent, I imagine the bill will emerge from the senate with its fangs somewhat drawn. Then, to-day I got my first real view of the House of Representatives. The bill under dis- cussion, and which passed triumphantly, was 56 AMERICAATWAR one to permit the allied nations to recruit their nationals within the bounds of the United States. It was said in the course of the debate that there are four hundred thousand citizens of the allied nations in this country. The num- ber seems modest, particularly when one re- calls the high figure at which German citizens in America are placed. Woehlke, in the article in the Century, to which I have already al- luded in this correspondence, puts the number of these at one million. A seasoned journalist told me to-day that the last census put them at two million; but I rather fancy the German writer is more nearly correct. Incidentally it may be pointed out that if the allies avail them- selves of the privilege accorded them by this bill, and if allied nationals in this country re- spond in large numbers, it might have an im- portant influence on American recruiting, should the administration be forced away from its policy of selective drafting. This may be the case in any event because the President's plan, as at present proposed, provides for the voluntary enlistment of some seven hundred thousand men. Studying the House one realises that here one is very considerably closer to the raw citizen- ship of America than in the case of the senate. The separate desks of the upper chamber here give place to long benches, with unallotted AMERICAATWAR 57 seats. Noise, hubbub, crowding are the order of the day. A good deal of the speaking is of the biscuit-box or wash-tub type. This with- out suggesting for a moment that there are not many very able men in the house. As a matter of fact, I infer that a fine sterling temper ani- mates the very great majority of the members of this branch of Congress. vni AMERICANISM NOW IF THE SADDLE Washington, April 26. 'T^ 0-DAY, as I rode through the streets of -*■ Washington in the course of a circuit that I shall refer to later, I found the flags of the United States, France and Britain intertwined or floating side by side on a fairly large num- ber of buildings. The motor in which I was, carried the three emblems. I have been rather struck hitherto with the absence from public discussions on the war of distinct references to the common heritage pos- sessed by Britons and Americans in the matter of language, literature, common law and parlia- mentary institutions. There is no lack of allu- sion to democracy, liberty and representative government, all of which are freely conceded to have been imperilled by German designs; but the common element has not been much dwelt upon. This note is struck to-day by the Wash- ington Times. It refers to "the great nation that has financed the war, driven the enemy from the surface of the sea, fed and munitioned her allies, and at length raised an army that 68 AMERICAATWAR 69 is smashing its way through the German lines with a steadiness and pluck and contempt of death that ought to send a thrill of pride through every man who can boast of English blood, who has inherited English ideals, or who speaks the English tongue." One can hardly overestimate the influence that the war legislation which is now engaging the attention of Congress is bound to have in Americanising the United States. For the first time on a grand scale the new America which has grown up since the Civil War is being called upon to think and act as a unit. The war loan bill, which is now virtually ready for the presi- dent's signature, the censorshi'p bill, which now apparently promises to get through more nearly scot-free than I had thought possible, the army and navy bills which are on the threshold of both houses, followed by the revenue bill for the imposition of war taxation, will be the expres- sion, as I imagine no legislation since the Civil War has been the expression, of a triumphant national idea. Henceforth irruptions subver- sive of national unity must, if they take place at all, be fitful and ineffectual. An American union, in the words of Webster, ''one and in- divisible, now and forever," is, in all human probability, from this point forward an accom- plished fact. This is one of the great things America will have done for herself by her deci- 60 AMERICAATWAR sion to participate in the great war. President Wilson, in a letter to Representative Helvering, published to-day, and designed no doubt further to indicate his intention of standing to his guns in the matter of selective conscription, says : ''The bill, if adopted, will do more, I believe, than any other single instrumentality to create the impression of universal service in the army and out of it, and, if properly administered, will be a great source of stimulation." One can imagine, though one is not disposed to emphasise the fact, that the proposal, made by Mr. Roosevelt, and backed by many in his behalf, that he should be permitted to recruit a division for service in Europe, creates a po- litical difficulty for the President as the chief of his party. It is not to be forgotten that even the administration's proposals for the raising of an army involve the voluntary enlistment of from six to seven hundred thousand men. The enlistments to date, since the declaration of a state of war, if I am not mistaken, number only some twelve thousand. Roosevelt himself to- day comes back to the subject by referring to the fact that Gov. Whitman has offered him any commission within the gift of the state of New York, but he adds that he would prefer a na- tional commission. Now, if Roosevelt raised a division, succeeded in getting it trained, took it to Europe, and survived the campaign, it is in AMERICAATWAR 61 the mind of many that that achievement would elect him president in 1920. The solution that will be given to this problem will certainly be worth watching for. In commenting upon the excellence of the cen- sorship debate in the senate I neglected to point out that the constitutional aspects of that ques- tion were admirably calculated to elicit the strong points of that chamber. The American senate is a house of lawyers. I fancy that over eighty of its ninety-six members belong to the ■ bar. Reed, of Missouri, who by the way some- what resembles Premier Norris in appearance, was one of the speakers in the closing hour of the debate this afternoon. He speaks delib- erately with, ever and anon, a fine sweep of gesture. ''Let us go forward," he said, ''but in going forward let us keep within the four corners of the constitution." Introduced by a letter from President Mac- Lean, I had the pleasure to-day of a chat with Senator Borah.' He is a man of sturdy, massive face and figure. He said that he was familiar with the Free Press, and made some very in- teresting remarks on the success of responsible government as worked out under the British system. With Mr. James Fisher, of Winnipeg, who is at the moment in Washington, I had the pleasure to-day of a little excursion into Vir- 62 AMERICAATWAR ginia. We were the guests of Dr. Bell, a pro- fessor in an Episcopal theological college, sit- uated at Alexandria, on the southern side of the Potomac. On the way to the home of Dr. and Mrs. Bell, we passed and stopped at the mansion of Gen. Robert Lee, the great Con- federate leader. The house of onr host and hostess stands in the noble Seminary park of some two hundred acres overlooking the Poto- mac. The White House is only seven miles away. Our host told us that Virginia, which has been left untouched by foreign immigra- tion, contains the purest English population in the United States. I could not help contrasting it in this regard with the great commonwealth of Massachusetts, which is now aswarm with Americans of foreign extraction. I remember in 1901 being for a day at a place in that state called Stow. The farm next the place I was visiting was owned by a Scandinavian. Stow is only a few miles from the old Sudbury Inn, immortalised by Longfellow in his "Tales of a Wayside Inn." Plymouth, the first home of the Pilgrim fathers, swarms with foreigners. The summer the war broke out I attended an Independence day celebration in Faneuil Hall, one of the cradles of the American republic. The chairman was the Irish mayor of Boston. The Declaration of Independence was read by an Italian boy. The invocation was pronounced AMERICAATWAR 63 by a Jewish rabbi. The oration was delivered by Father Freeman, an Irish priest. But it is different in Virginia. Dr. Bell put it this way : ''From the beginning of the war America at large has been rather pro-French than pro- British. Virginia, though, has been steadily pro-British rather than pro-French. The joy of this old English stock over the satisfactory position of the country to-day is great." Dr. Bell said that the great work of the last two and a half years in the United States has been a spontaneous campaign of education on the issues and significance of the war carried on by editors, university men and preachers. At last the great idea has infiltrated the masses of the country, or at least such a preponderant body of them that the situation is saved. I am strictly reproducing his statements here. I was struck by the periodicals lying on the library table — the Fortnightly, Land and Water, Pimch. On the way to Alexandria we rode past Fort Myer, a military post, desig- nated — so said Dr. Bell — to be one of four- teen, located in different parts of the country, at each of which 2,500 officers are to be trained for the new American army. IX PUBLIC OPINION STERN AGAINST SEDITION Washington, D. C, April 27th. "D Y tiie pleasantest of accidents I came once -'--' again on the trail of the big man who was "trying to break into the mosquito fleet." As a matter of fact, he insisted on my going with him Saturday night to see David Warfield in ''The Music Master." I was thus able to ques- tion him in detail about his "mosquito fleet" proposal. By now he has learned that the gov- ernment will not give him a commission owing to his health, but the offer of his yacht has been accepted. It is a gasoline yacht and has a motor radius of six hundred miles. The gov- ernment pays him a nominal rental of one dollar a month to cover some legal point. He says that what he called "the tightening up" of the mosquito fleet promises to keep submarining off the American coast in hand. The estuaries like Chesapeake Bay and so on are already in a good state of preparation. He is a Virginian and a Quaker. Virginia is evidently ' ' fighting mad. ' ' In my last message I reported the temper of a theo- logical professor of that state who is a mem- 64 AMERICA AT WAR 65 ber of an old Virginian family, whose wife is closely related to the family of General Robert Lee, and who says he knows every inch of his native state. Add to this my *' yacht'' man, whose home is about 80 miles from Washing- ton. Then, just as I was going in to dinner to- night, this happened. A group of six boys of about eighteen years or thereabouts, stood chat- ting at the door. One, a handsome, soft-voiced boy, was evidently slightly under the influence of liquor. Again I heard, '^'m going to join the mosquito fleet." The similarity of the re- mark to that of the older man a few nights ago struck me and I exchanged some words with him. ''I'm going to have one more good time before I go." He came close to me and said, *'I may be dead in two months, but I don't care a straw if I sink six Germans before I go." When I said I was a Canadian, his voice soft- ened, the slightly maudlin tone disappeared and he grasped my hand warmly. ''I'm from old Virginia. I'm pained to the heart that we haven't done as well as Canada, but we're going to do better now." One of the most notable things of the mo- ment is the whole-hearted attitude of the Amer- ican Roman Catholic hierarchy towards the war. The address of the Catholic archbishops of the United States, headed by Cardinal Gib- bon, is unreserved in its declaration of devo- 66 AMERICAATWAR tion to President Wilson in his policy. Among the signatories are Archbishop Moeller, of Cin- cinnati, and Archbishop Messner, of Milwaukee, who, I have small doubt, are of German extrac- tion. Evidently the Catholic Church in the United States is not afraid to identify itself cordially with the flowing stream of American opinion and effort. A conspicuous feature of the situation to-day is the virtual freedom of America from sedi- tious disturbance. There have been since the declaration of a state of war fewer acts of violence than in similar intervals during many stages since the outbreak of the European hos- tilities. To realise the import of this, one must recall what many anticipated would happen should the United States enter the arena. Many imagined that the forests and mountains of America would be fastnesses from which aero- planes would sweep on errands of destruction, and all that sort of thing. And it must be ad- mitted that such depredations would have seemed rather easily feasible. Nothing of the kind, apparently, is occurring. A virtually complete tranquillity reigns throughout foreign America. One cause, even if the observer does not care to adopt the most optimistic view that might be advanced, is the imposing weight of the temper of the people as a whole. The pre- dominant elements of a nation of one hundred AMERICA AT WAR 61 million are aroused. Peace-breakers know for one thing that they would get short shrift in the present state of American opinion. There is plenty of iron to-day in the blood of America. This is one great strength that the United States reaps in this crisis from the fact of its imposing population. Last night as I rose to my feet in the dining- room during the rendering of ' * The Star-Span- gled Banner, ' ' I asked a coloured waiter which is the most popular of the patriotic airs. ''That's it, right there," he said. Then he proceeded to tell me of an incident that oc- curred in that same room a few nights ago. A senator of the United States failed to stand when "The Star-Spangled Banner" was played. Soon the place was full of confusion. It looked for a moment as if the senator would be "hustled" from the place. The negro told me that one man said, after trying several times to get the apparently refractory man to rise to his feet : "I called you Senator , I called you Mr. , but now I call you old ," hailing him with a very colloquial version of his name. I thought I would report this incident, if, after checking, it proved to be correct. I learned later that the senator in question has been a determined opponent of the coloured people. He claims that the amendment of the constitution extending the franchise to negroes 68 AMERICA AT WAR was never properly ratified by tlie states. This explains the animus of the coloured man, but the incident also stands as illustrating the pop- ular temper. Wilson is an astute politician. He is also a man of imagination. He is reported to be con- sidering an American delegation to Petrograd to encourage and assist the new government in its problems. He is also supposed to be con- sidering ex-Senator Root as head of the com- mission. If this should be done it would effec- tually exemplify the blurring of party lines that has been induced by the war condition. Of the same import is the fact that, a majority of the House committee on military affairs having de- cided to report unfavourably on the President's army plan, to the extent of throwing on him the responsibility of inaugurating conscrip- tion if it has to be inaugurated, Kahn, the ranking Republican on the committee, is slated to "steer" the administration measure through the lower chamber. To revert to the project with respect to Russia: The papers are pointing out that an American committee of assistance to Russia at this juncture would be of a piece with Lafayette 's coming to Amer- ica at the time of the Revolutionary War. Army officers at that time on this side pooh-poohed the value of the service that the Frenchman could render. But Washington realised the AMERICAATWAR 69 moral value, at any rate, of Lafayette's arrival, and welcomed him with open arms. Washing- ton had imagination, which people dominated by routine rarely have, and his judgment was justified by the event. Saturday night after we had seen Warfield in his charming play, my cordial big Virginian, speaking of Roosevelt's wanting to go to France, said : ' ' All over this country there are great numbers of dare-devil Americans who would follow Teddy to the mouth of hell." Sunday morning, in company with Mr. James Fisher, I saw the President at church. He was accompanied by Mrs. Wilson. Rev. James H. Taylor, the minister, preached on ' ' The Prepa- ration for a Great Task," a sermon full of im- plied allusion to the present emergency. As I listened to this minister preaching in the presence of the first magistrate I could not help contrasting the scene mentally with that of, say, Bossuet preaching in the presence of Louis XIV. The two scenes offer what might be taken as an emblem of the advance of popular government. This man, sitting among us, as it were, one of us, not many days ago signed the declaration of a state of war against Germany. He is the point of the pyramid of American democracy, the leader of the new phalanx that is girding itself for a trial of strength with autocracy. X SENATOE LODGE : COMPLIMENTS TO CANADA Washington, D. C, May 1st. "V/TET La Follette this evening in tlie ro- -^ ■*■ tunda of the Ebbitt house. He is not an impressive looking man, seen at short range. When I told him I was representing the Free Press he introduced me to his secretary and to a military man, who were with him. I said, "I can't tell you that you are exactly popular in Canada to-day — ^but then you were not think- ing of a Canadian constituency." He replied, "No, I was trying to give some help to some of the people down this way." He invited me to call on him up at the capitol. Runciman, the manager of the hotel, by the way, is a cousin of Walter Runciman, president of the Board of Education and later of the Board of Trade in the Asquith government. To-night as I walked past the Franklin Mac- Veagh house on 16th street, now occupied by Third Assistant Secretary of State Brecken- ridge Long, which has been placed at the dis- posal of Mr. Balfour, the guards had just in- tercepted what they regarded as a suspicious 70 AMERICAATWAR 71 character. Under a strong light they were sub- jecting him to a close examination, shaking his sleeves and trousers legs and otherwise run- ning carefully over his person. Precautions have evidently not ended with the trip across the high seas. The interest in Mr. Balfour's visit is very great. Armed with an introduction from the Brit- ish Ambassador I had a gratifying conversation this forenoon with Senator Lodge. I said Ca- nadians were much pleased with his attitude respecting the war. ''Well I've been fighting for the Allies here during the last two and a half years, and now we are in." I had a point of approach with the dean of the Senate and easily its most distinguished member because I had heard in January, 1911, his famous address in the Symphony Hall, Boston. I have already in this correspondence characterised that speech as the ablest political address I have ever heard. I have never forgotten certain isolated sen- tences of it. "My public service is all public. There is not a page of my political record that I am not prepared to have my grandchil- dren see. ... I love the old Bay state. I know every inch of her soil, and every page of her history. My ancestors lie in Sussex grave- yards, on Boston Common, and beneath the shadow of Park Street church." As I was quoting the senator's sentences I hesitated when 72 AMERICAATWAR I came to one point and asked, ''Was it 'in Plymouth graveyards'?" "No, Sussex and Boston Common," he answered. When I re- ferred to the use senators had made Saturday afternoon of Canadian experience as justify- ing the volunteer system as against compulsory service, Mr. Lodge said: "You see the per- formance of the Canadians has heen so mag- nificent that everybody here is anxious to cite them." He pointed out that party lines are being pushed into the background in both Cham- bers. He instanced the vote of the Senate Mili- tary committee in reporting favourably on the President's scheme for raising an army. The vote was 10 to 7 in favour. Of the ten sup- porting, five were Republican and five Demo- cratic. Of the seven against only two were Re- publican while five were Democratic. After calling on the Secretary of State this morning and after being taken by him to the White House, Mr. Balfour came to the capitol and was received by Vice-President Marshall. In the Vice-President's room I noticed three justices of the supreme court. Holmes, Pitney and Day. Mr. Balfour was slightly detained, however, and the three justices were obliged to leave for the sitting of the court at 12:00 sharp. Mr. Balfour came accompanied by Assistant Secretary of State Phillips and by Mr. Gibson, who has been assigned by Presi- AMERICA AT WAR 73 dent Wilson to the British Commissioner as aide. The corridors adjacent to the Vice-Presi- dent's room were studded with police and se- cret service men. Two competent looking Scot- land Yard detectives stood close to the open door of Mr. Marshall's room. On the balcony outside the open window, before which Mr. Bal- four sat, two policemen paced. Mr. Balfour towers in stature well above all the American officials that I have yet seen him close to. He carries with him an atmosphere of gracious courtesy that arouses the most favourable com- ment. The second day of the Army bill debate in the senate brought out two ratthng speeches in support of the administration plan of selec- tive drafts, one by Weeks, of Massachusetts, and the other by Wadsworth, of New York. "Weeks contended that the corollary of pro- tection extended to nationals in all quarters of the globe is the universal obligation of military service. Justifying ages proposed in the Presi- dent's selective draft system — 19 — 25 — he said only 40,000 out of 2,600,000 in the northern arm- ies in the Civil War were about 25. He quoted Jaures, the French Socialist, as saying that voluntary military service in Prance would be as unjustifiable as voluntary taxation. He re- ported three hundred mayors of cities in all parts of the United States totalling nineteen 74 AMERICA AT WAR millions of population as signing a statement favouring universal military service. Wadsworth, of New York, a fine brainy, spirited type of man, with whom I had a con- versation on Saturday afternoon, and who spoke to-day with admirable control of his sub- ject, said America must build for great events. Her navy is ready, but in the case of the army she must practically begin de novo. A Repub- lican he supported the administration plan to the hilt. Challenged by interruptors to show why the voluntary system should not first be tried now since Lincoln called for volun- teers in 1861, he pointed out that, thanks largely to the British navy, America is not in peril to- day as in 1861. If volunteers had not been got with a rush then, Washington would have fallen to the Virginians. The immunity secured for America by the British sea forces enables the United States, and should lead her, to build a scientific army that can stay in this war to the very last. An army built on scientific princi- ples, as provided by the Selective Conscription plan, will be proof of the intention of America to remain in to the bitter end. XI RED-HOT AEMY DEBATE IN THE HOUSE OF REPEESBNTATIVES Washington, D. C, May 2nd. rp 0-DAY, Wednesday, I listened for four -*■ hours to a red-hot debate in the House of Eepresentatives on the Army bill. The House has a straining, fiery air about it that com- pletely differentiates it from the graver Senate. The personnel of the house is a mirror of the polyglot population of the country. Italians, Germans, Jews, Irish, mingle with the repre- sentatives of the native American population. Cannon sits, deacon-like in looks, in the midst of this House consisting for the most part of men of a younger generation, which has shot away from him and over which, I imagine, he exerts little influence. Perhaps it would be well for me briefly to summarise the Adminis- tration's army plans. The regular army of the United States consisted on April 1, of 105,000 men. Since that date enlistments total 25,000. It now stands, therefore, at 130,000. The Army Staff bill proposes the expansion of this force to 270,000 by voluntary enlistment. Should 75 76 AMERICA AT WAR this, however, not proceed rapidly enough, the bill authorises the President in the exercise of his judgment to use the drafting power. The National Guard, as the State forces are known, and for whose nationalisation provision is made, is similarly to be swelled to 330,000. Here again, if voluntary enlistment does not proceed fast enough, the president may apply the draft. In the next place the bill provides for a compulsory registration of all men be- tween the ages of 19 and 25. The selection of these ages is one of the grounds of attack upon the bill, but the admin- istration spokesmen would seem to have their opponents outargued. In the first place there is the recognised experience of the present war that the wastage increases by leaps and bounds as the age of the soldier mounts. To meet the claim that the age of 25 should be transcended there are the figures cited by Weeks in the sen- ate that in the Northern armies of the Civil War, there were out of 2,600,000 men only 40,- 000 above 25. And military service to-day, much more imperatively than in the '60 's, calls for young men. On the other hand, to offset the attack of those who claim that the ages pro- posed mean the unjustifiable and unprecedented sacrifice of the youth of the country, there are the official fignires read into the senate record by Knute Wilson, a veteran of the Civil War, AMERICA AT WAR 77 showing that in that struggle the North had 840,000 men of the age of 17, and 1,580,000 men of the age of 18. To revert to the Executive's plan of a com- pulsory enrollment of all men between the ages of 19 and 25. It is expected that this will dis- close an available supply of 7,000,000 men. Of these 40 per cent, may be rejected for physical reasons or exempted for causes specified in the bill. The remaining 60 per cent, are to be drafted by lot in units of 500,000 each as they may be required. The Senate Military committee has reported favourably on the bill, and all comments point to the safe passage of the measure in that Cham- ber. In the House a much bitterer struggle is proceeding. Here the Military committee has reported adversely. The majority reports* favouring an initial trial of the volunteer sys- tem, but empowering the President at his dis- cretion to apply the draft. This amounts to what is colloquially called ''passing the buck" to the President ; or, in other words, to throw- ing the responsibility for compulsion on him. The chances have hitherto been that the bill would not pass the House, but the temperature is rapidly changing. A careful student of the House told me to-day that two weeks ago the bill undoubtedly would not have passed; but that it will when the pressure, of which Wilson 78 AMERICA AT WAR is such an admitted master, has been applied. ''They'll wilt when he really gets to work." Champ Clark, by the way, Speaker of the House, evidently angered by the presentation to him of 1,000,000 signatures favouring com- pulsion, on Tuesday blazed out saying, "Con- scription will never pass the house." Judge Harrison, representing Thomas Jeffer- son's county in Virginia, said in to-day's de- bates, social ostracism operates unfairly in vol- unteer system. Far better, enroll all, leaving registered men calmly to await call of the na- tion when it has prepared itself properly — ^in Wadsworth's word, scientifically — to take care of him as a soldier. Harrison quoted Jefferson effectively as favouring compulsory service as the true method of democracy. William Gordon, representing a congres- sional district in the west side of Cleveland, Ohio, flooded with Germans, an alleged Pacifist and certainly an anti-conscriptionist, made a violent attack on the administration measure. If he is a Pacifist he was to-day afraid to avow his colours, for he said: "We won't delay get- ting an army for a minute by refusing to sup- port conscription. We'll get a better one." With regard to the charge that a volunteer army would be a mob, he said: "They call Kitchener's army a mob. Well, Kitchener's mob is winning the war." By the way, alluding AMERICAATWAR 79 to the topsy-turvey character of a hastily im- provised volunteer force, Grreen, of Vermont, interjected a telling quotation from Falstaff: ''See to it that we fight not on a hot day, for, by the Lord, I take but one shirt with me." Into another anti-conscription speech a congress- man who is an Italian barber of New York, in- terjected a vigorous plea for conscription. Think of the national significance of that. These two interpolations illustrate the im- pression of notable vitality produced by the lower House. It is unruly and, in a way, un- kempt. But it has the air of coming boiling hot from the heart of a mighty people. There is evidently a group of men in the House who have pretty nearly boxed the compass on the question of the war; or perhaps it would be more accurate to say, they have made a series of strategic retreats. First they are alleged to have been Pro-German; then they wanted to instruct their countrymen to keep off the boats of the allies; now they are opposing enforced national service. Caldwell, of New York, member of a firm of lawyers with the style of ''Caldwell and Mur- phy," presumably an Irishman, said: "This is not a day for dissension, but for action. The silence from the Russian front seems to indi- cate that the United States may have to take the place of Russia in fighting the Kaiser. I 80 AMERICAATWAR follow the President because I am prepared to believe tbat that calm, farsighted man under- stands the situation, and believes the prospects of the war require an army of the character contemplated by the plan of the General Staff." Anthony, Kansas, Eepublican, supporting the committee's majority amendment, said: ''Con- scription means delay. Volunteer plan will produce an army more quickly. Thirty days will summon a volunteer force of 500,000 men. Conscription will take six months to turn out that number." Lenroot, Wisconsin, reported as having in the past been a devoted coadjutor of La Fol- lette, supported the President's plan very ably. In passing I may say that La FoUette's stock seems very low to-day. I have no wish to play fast and loose with reputations; but one can- not watch things closely here without seeing that, for men who have had national standing. La FoUette and Bryan are to-day negligible factors. The former wholly, the latter rela- tively, so. I do not think that any Canadian reader can examine the picture I have tried to give here without concluding that this Army bill debate, at once in the stormy popular Chamber and in the more sedate Senate — ^with accompaniments in both instances of crowded galleries and a press pounding almost wholly one way — is AMERICAATWAR 81 proving when all is said and done a salutary and vital process in which the vast elements of population of this country are being digested and co-ordinated in the direction of a great Na- tional Idea. Ed. Note.— The despatches from Washington m to-day's issue vindicate Prof. Osborne's pre- diction that, when the time came to vote, Con- gress would declare for selective conscription. On Saturday the House of Representatives voted in favour of the proposition 315 to 89; while in the senate it was 81 for and 8 against! — Ed. Free Press. XII BALFOUE AND JOFPBE Washington, D. C, May 3rd. "lyrE. BALFOUR accorded a "collective" in- ^ ^ terview, 25 minutes in length, to repre- sentatives of the press this (Thursday) morn- ing. Fully sixty journalists assembled to hear the great envoy. The interview was prefaced by a brief address from Butler, press interme- diary, in which he warned the newspapermen of the greatness of the interests involved and of the absolute necessity of caution on their part. The commission was evidently somewhat alarmed by the tone of some of the morning's reports of General Bridge's conference yester- day. It had been made, inadvertently no doubt, to bear too directly on the pending conscrip- tion discussion here. If the greatest restraint was not practiced by the press, the intimacy of discussions with representatives of it would inevitably be lessened. The commission is here to exhibit frankly British experience in the war, but not to admonish the American authorities or people. As Mr. Balfour entered, and while he* spoke, 82 AMERICA AT WAR 83 I was struck with his growing resemblance as he becomes older to his uncle, the Marquis of Salisbury. His domelike head is like his uncle's; and his slightly increased stoutness, with a little puffiness beneath the eyes, lessens the impression of mobility and lends him a touch of the phlegmatic, which, while by no means pronounced, increases the resemblance to which I have alluded. He spoke with ex- treme quietness and deliberation. All present were plainly impressed by the note of deep feeling that pervaded Mr. Balfour's remarks as he spoke of the tragedy of the war. Not being sure how complete a version of this address will have reached western Canadian readers, I shall give a fairly complete account of it. It was admirably phrased, and if there are any defects in my summary, the faults will be mine, as there were none in the original. Mr. Balfour said the British commission was fully sensible of the kindness, the enthusiasm, the warmth of the welcome its members had re- ceived from the great American people. This outward manifestation was the expression, he was persuaded, of a real cordiality of senti- ment. It was clear that the American people was determined to throw itself with heartiness into the greatest struggle ever waged. He was conscious of a great change of conditions in passing from England to America. On Sunday 84 AMERICA AT WAR evening after dark he had gone out for a walk. He was aware of a feeling that at first he had not analysed. At last he realised that his strange feeling was due to the fact that this was the first time in two and a half years that he had seen a properly lighted street. The tragic consciousness of the war was always present with them. He had just learned that the son of Mr. Bonar Law was missing. This reminded him that of men of cabinet rank at the outbreak of the war, one had been killed in action and four had lost sons. Now the chan- cellor of the exchequer's son was wounded and missing in Palestine. France, said Mr. Balfour, was even more full than Britain of suffering and sorrow. The French mission was to arrive to-day. One of these, Marshal Joffre, will go down to all time as the successful general of the allied forces in the Battle of the Marne, the most decisive bat- tle in history. The magnitude of the assistance to be received by the allies from America can- not be exaggerated. He was almost amused to know that in some quarters it was supposed that the object of the mission was to inveigle the United States into a departure from her traditional policy and into entangling alliances. Such suppositions were wholly unfounded. The confidence of the allies in America was not based on such things as formal treaties,. public AMERICA AT WAR 85 or private. No treaty could reinforce the con- fidence felt by the allies that the United States will see the war through. The commission was sure that the American people believe this to be no paltry or vulgar quarrel, due to lust for territory on the part of any of the allies. The liberty of the world is in issue. There never was any doubt where America would stand when that was realised. The instant Mr. Balfour finished his remarks, a slightly '^fussed," startled look seemed to pass over his face as if he feared that, his speech being concluded, the cohorts of the pouncing gentlemen of the Fourth Estate would let themselves loose on him in questions. Need- less to say, the deference created by the visi- tor's distinguished personality procured him a complete immunity. Balfour at close range and the victor of the Marne in one forenoon ! The arrival of Joffre had been announced for 12 : 30. The Mayflower, however, bearing the French party, was opposite her landing place at 12 : 05. From the time she came op- posite us, it took her at least twenty minutes to sidle in to the dock. Among the personages forming a line along the rail of the President's yacht were Roose- velt, the assistant secretary of the navy, Jus- serand, the French ambassador j Joffre himself, 86 AMERICAATWAR and Viviani, minister of justice. A member of the party, included with special felicity, was the Marquis de Chambrun, great-grandson of La- fayette. On the landing stage, in the fore- ground, were Lansing, secretary of state ; Phil- lips, assistant secretary of state, and Harts, the President's military aid. Close at hand stood a large group from the French embassy. The same two troops of cavalry that attended Mr. Balfour on Sunday were drawn up in the back- ground, supplemented by detachments of ma- rines, considered the finest forces of the Re- public. The first of the receiving party to go on board was Lansing, closely followed by Phil- lips and Harts. Perhaps ten minutes was oc- cupied by presentations, and then the debarka- tion took place. Lansing and Viviani, repre- senting the civil power, came first, though, as I do not need to say, Joffre was the cynosure of all eyes. He looked the embodiment of quietly jolly strength. A figure of great weight and girth. A face of extreme kindliness. Not a suggestion of weakness such as might be due to age or fatigue. In fact, the great soldier looked the pink of health and strength. The first troop of cavalry led away. The automobiles filled and rolled off. The second troop of cavalry fell in. As the procession moved along the roadways of the navy, yard AMERICAATWAR 87 the windows of the buildings were filled with employees, breaking constantly into cheers. Joffre was kept saluting all the time. At the entrance to the navy yard a great crowd waited, and I understand that the streets all the way to the capitol, and thereafter, were lined. XIII CHAMP CLAEK THKOWS DOWN THE GAUNTLET TO WILSON Washington, D, C, May 4th. T MENTIONED in my last letter that Champ -*• Clark was expected to oppose immediate conscription. Hardly had I finished writing when, stepping to the door of the press gallery, I heard Dent say: ''I yield for as long as he may desire to the honourable gentleman from Missouri, the Speaker of the House. ' ' The visi- tors ' galleries were packed. The press seats filled up rapidly. Clark received a warm wel- come from the House, the entire membership rising. He is said to enjoy great popularity among both parties, one of the causes of this popularity being the unswerving impartiality of his rulings. As the sitting advanced I no- ticed a number of senators at the back of the House. When Clark had been speaking about fifteen minutes, Sir George Foster, Canada's Acting Premier, entered the Chamber in com- pany with Senator Kellogg, of Minnesota. The intervention of Clark in this momentous debate proved to be easily the most picturesque and AMERICAATWAR 89 dramatic incident I have yet witnessed in either House. The Speaker's first words were: ''I don't want to be interrupted till I finish. At the end I'll answer any reasonable question that may be addressed to me. I know what I want to say, and I want to say it in a connected way." Without a particle of beating about the bush, he plunged into his subject. His prompt open- ing was very effective and served to illustrate his knowledge of the temper of the House. There was something big and elemental about the way he broke his opening ground. He took no pains to conceal the gravity of what he was doing in crossing swords with the Executive, who, of course, is the leader of his party. ' ' It is not pleasant to differ with the President — especially when the President is one you have helped to elect. ' ' He asserted his general loy- alty to his party chief. ''Farther than that I will not go, so help me Almighty God.'' "The President of the United States is the most pow- erful personage on earth, because he is the head of 100,000,000 free people. He has his function, and, so far as I have been able to see, he is not bashful about performing it. The members of this Congress similarly have their function. This is still a free country. Tyranny has not yet invaded the House of Eepresentatives. We have entered upon a great war. This house will 90 AMERICAATWAR vote every dollar and make every effort needed to bring that war to a successful completion. There are no differences between us in this re- gard. What we differ in is, our view as to meth- ods. One side wants conscription, wants it right away, and will be satisfied with nothing else. That side wishes to drag patriotic men into the army by the collar. The other side wishes to give the voluntary system a chance first. I am unreservedly in favour of the volunteer amend- ment to the Army bill. ' ' There was no denying the effectiveness of this opening. At the risk of repetition, I remind the reader of this correspondence that the majority report of the Military committee provides for an at- tempt to recruit by voluntary methods the first unit of 500,000. This is in addition to the ex- pansion to war footing of the regular army and the state militia. The said report then author- ises the President, at any time when it appears necessary in his discretion, to apply the draft. The hostile view of this proposal is that it un- fairly sidesteps responsibility and throws the odium of conscription on the sole shoulders of the President. The favorable view is that it provides for the testing of voluntarism and gives genuine Americanism a chance. I con- fess that, basing my opinion on British and Canadian experience in the war, I incline to the scientific and systematic methods of the Presi- AMERICA AT WAR 91 dent. At the same time there is no use blink- ing the fact that there are formidable consider- ations on the other side. There is for one thing the grand contention that the country is swarm- ing with adventurous spirits — ranchers, cow- boys, sportsmen, and what not — who are strain- ing at the leash to volunteer, who will need, so it is said, an absolute minimum of training, who will not be found by the draft, and who by the same token, will not consent to be con- scripted. I had a remarkable conversation last night with a widely-known General in the National Guard of Ohio. Clark's speech represented ex- actly his point of view. He is a dead shot. Has competed at Bisley and in France, winning all kinds of trophies. He has been in the state militia thirty-four years. He was military aide to McKinley and had charge in a military way of McKinley 's funeral. He has superintended the preparation of some of the finest shooting ranges in the country. He served in the Span- ish-American War. He is dead against the ad- ministration bill, and whole heartedly in favor of the Dent amendment. He believes conscript American soldiers will be poor stuff. He says the conscripted men in the Civil War almost all deserted or refused to face fire. He refuses to listen to the example of continental countries like France. Says that example is invalidated 92 AMERICAATWAR here because the American spirit and American conditions are so different. ''They drink con- scription with their mother 's milk. We don 't. ' ' Then there is the contention that when it comes to the rnb drafting will be resisted. "Watch out for the country west of Pittsburgh." It cannot be gainsaid; these are formidable ob- jections. I met the General in the rotunda again to-day. I rallied him on having written Clark's speech, but he disclaimed responsibility. ''If he says what you say he said, he was expressing the real Americanism of this country." He then re- ferred to a conversation he had had a few mo- ments before with the manager of the Goodyear Rubber Tire company. "Which plan will give us quick action and results?" the General was asked. His answer was: "The volunteer plan will give us an army in 90 days." On the one hand, remember this man is keen to have the country get at the Germans. On the other side there are two things to be borne in mind: A militia man of this type is apt to be prejudiced against the regular army, and in the second place one cannot help being haunted by the fear that men like Champ Clark and the General to whom I am alluding, ignore too completely the enormous changes that have taken place, es- pecially since the Civil War, in fighting condi- tions. AMERICAATWAR 93 "To make the men of Missouri fight in this war," said Champ Clark this afternoon, *'a draft is not needed. In Missouri a conscript is held little ditferent from a convict." "Let the men of my state fight together as Missouri men; wounded, their neighbours it will be who will give them first aid. Sick, it will be their own friends who will be beside them. Dead, it will be men who know them that will bury them." This may bespeak ignorance of the terrific and colossal conditions of modern fighting as it is now going on in Europe, but no one can deny that it constitutes a powerful appeal. This brings me to a point where I think I can with advantage analyse the appeal made with such undeniable power by Champ Clark this af- ternoon. He appealed, as I have just shown, to territorial pride. He prophesies that the drafted army will not preserve the identity of local units. "This is the secret of the great tradi- tions of the Scots Greys." I have tried to pay my full respect to the formidable effect of his address, so that I think I am now free to say that he showed great adroitness in his method of appeal. In the first place, it was throughout emotional, rather than argumentative. He ap- pealed to the pride of the House as against the Senate, which is alleged to be already chortling over the prospect of imposing its will on the lower Chamber. He appealed, at least by impli- 94 AMERICAATWAR cation, to the House against executive pressure. He rallied the pride of the House as against su- percilious critics outside, who all thought they knew more than the people's representatives. He rang the changes on patriotic feeling, citing Washington and Grant as being hostile to con- scription. ''What was Washington after all? Oh, just a volunteer." Finally he appealed to national pride at large. *'I resent these slurs on the American volunteer in the name alike of the living and of the dead. I decline to be- lieve that the present generation of Americans are cowards. ' ' I should like very much to have space to ana- lyse his manner. Because, make no mistake about it, he is an Ajnerican product, representa- tive of certain broadly human American traits. His language is now quaint, now humorous, now almost frankly rough. As he spoke one coat sleeve crept halfway up his arm, but he paid no attention to it. Speaking of Roosevelt he said : ' ' I rather like Roosevelt. One reason is because he knows a little about more things than any other man on earth." Summoned to speak louder at one point, he drawled : ' ' Why, I wasn 't talking at all then." Anent the newspaper propaganda for conscription he said: "I wish to the Lord the editors of the country could be put in the front line." ''Where is the man prepared to say the volunteers of the Civil War AMERICA AT WAR 95 on both sides were not good fighting men? I'd like to see the colour of his hair, and the cut of his eye. ' ' Here evidently is a sort of legislative Mark Twain. Champ Clark has the air of a horse trader of a good type strayed into states- manship. He carries with him in some indefin- able way suggestions of the Mississippi tow- path. His close was tremendously effective. ''My one son is going into the army in whatever ca- pacity he can serve in. If he should fall, I wish the privilege of being able to carve upon his tomb: 'This man, a Missouri volunteer, died fighting for his country.' " I think the President's plan is the more scien- tific. In this respect it is in line with other legislation he has been instrumental in passing, such as that creating the Federal Reserve Bank- ing system. Whether it makes the mistake of bottling the country up, instead of releasing its enthusiasm, is a weighty and momentous ques- tion. But at any rate Champ Clark's was an extraordinary speech. It produced an extraor- dinary impression, and it may conceivably create a situation that it may take some time to compose. XIV A GEEMAF-BOEN" SXJPPOETER OF WILSON Washington, D. C, May 5th. rr^HE energising of American opinion, mak- -*■ ing sure determined participation in the war by the American people as a whole, goes forward magnificently. The air is full of dra- matic incidents, small and big, which are firing the imagination of the people. The following are tj^ical. As the French party, on board the Mayflower, ascended the Potomac, when the ves- sel came opposite Mount Vernon, Washington's home, the members of the Commission stood with heads uncovered. "When the ''Star Span- gled Banner" was played during the landing at the Navy Yard, the civil members of the Com- mission again doffed their hats, Joffre's hand rising to the salute. At a certain point in the party's progress through the streets to their Washington home, the leading members of the British Commission were awaiting them. Bal- four and his associates rose in the tonneau of their automobile, and, greeting their French confreres, were responded to in kind. Qn their 96 AMERICAATWAR 97 arrival at the Henry D. White home, assigned to them, the French delegates found floral greet- ings awaiting them, sent by Mr. Balfour. The flowers were accompanied by the inscription: "Vive 1 'Alliance. Hommages aux Francais de la part de leur freres britanniques. " In the same sense is an incident, apocryphal or real, flashed this morning from England. Reaching Liverpool the captain of the U. S. ship Mon- golia reports the probable sinking of a German U-boat by his gunners. He adds that the shot which he thinks did the business was launched from a gun christened T. R. "So that Teddy fired the first shot in the war, after all. " Need- less to say Mr. Roosevelt voices his gratifica- tion. "I am glad somebody on our side is be- ginning to hit back. We have been too long on the receiving end of this war." "The re- ceiving end" is a flash of genius, and might easily become a slogan. The immense emotional potentiahties of Jof- fre's coming are already beginning to operate. It is suggested that he might well make a prog- ress across the continent to San Francisco. Be- yond question a transcontinental journey by him, if he found it possible to make such, would be hailed with acclaim. It might set on fire "in- terior America" in the interests of the war. The Atlantic httoral is in a condition of pretty complete spiritual preparedness. It only re- 98 AMERICAATWAR mains to bring the interior of the country fully abreast. The opposition in the house to the President's Draft Bill appears to-night to be crumpling up. It was backed off the boards, so far as argument is concerned, to-day by the speech of Kahn, the Republican from California, who is handling the passage of the bill. To-day I looked Kahn up in the Congressional Directory and found that he was born in the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1861 and came to America in 1866. He is a solid man, evidently much respected in the house. In appearance he is a plumper edition of Sir John A. Macdonald. It was very impres- sive to see a man of German birth, a Republi- can, standing as chief sponsor for the Army Bill of a Democratic President. He struck more clearly than any one else that I have heard the note of gratitude to the Republic : * ' This glori- ous Republic under which the American citizen receives so many privileges. ' ' That is the real answer of American democracy to the Kaiser. Kahn's argument was irresistible and threw into clear relief the almost purely emotional appeal of the other side. He said he would never tolerate disparagement of the volunteers of the Republic who have on so many fields de- monstrated their valour. ''But I am opposed to the system that throws the whole burden on the shoulders of those who spontaneously respond AMERICA AT WAR 99 to the need of the country. ' ' He then proceeded and simply shot holes in the system. I stop to say that I have been much impressed by the air of the House during this debate. There is, plainly, a large body of men unconunitted on the question, who are looking earnestly for light. It is this body that will decide the ques- tion, and, at the moment, it looks as if argument will win. I said that Kahn shot holes in the voluntary system. It had broken down at each crisis in the nation's history. In the war of the Revolu- tion Washington declared flatly for draft. Thomas Jefferson later did the same. In 1812 hardly any troops came forward, under the volunteer system, from the extreme eastern States. In other words the various parts of the country did not share the burden equally. ' ' This Bill proposes to draw equivalent quotas from all parts of our territory." The figures that Kahn produced on the Civil War were an amazement to one not closely ac- quainted with American history. ''How did they get the volunteers of the Civil Warl" He then went on and showed that after the first rush was over fabulous sums had to be paid by the States in bounties. Massachusetts paid thus $22,000,000; Pennsylvania $43,000,000; New York $90,000,000. And so on all along the line. 100 AMERICA AT WAR until the aggregate bounties paid by the States as such amounted to $289,900,000. Meantime the Federal Government paid in the same way $363,000,000. The two put together totalled $653,000,000. ''The States went into bidding for men against each other, and all against the Central Government" until the bounties rose as high as $1100 a head. Thereafter came the squalid story of bounty-brokers and bounty- jumpers. The bounty-jumper was the man who drew his bounty, then deserted, and started in for a new subvention. Kahn cited one man, ultimately sent to the penitentiary, who con- fessed that he had been paid bounties thirty-two» times. The Draft Bill of the '60 's permitted paying for substitutes. Wealthy men escaped, poor men had to go. The first levy under the draft of that day in the North called 300,000 men; 80,000 of these escaped from service by substitution and commuting. The present bill, imposing compulsory service at the very start, will affix no stigma. The conscript of to-day will not have the rating of a convict. There will be no stigma. The last words I heard from Kahn, this sterling representative of what America has done for its foreigners, was: "In this hour of its stress the United States expects every man to do his duty." WTiatever may be the fate of this measure AMERICA AT WAR 101 of the President (so far as voting is concerned), this German-bom citizen of the United States proved to-day to the hilt that it has the weight of argument on its side. XV INTERVIEW WITH HOVELAQTJE^ INTELLECTUAL REP- EESENTATIVE OP FRANCE Washington, D. C, May 5th. SCENE : Spacious apartment of the mansion of Henry D. White, a few stone throws away from the house occupied by the British Mission. In the centre of the room a large ta- ble such as diplomats might gather about. A military man, evidently a secretary, writing, smoking, paying no attention to us. Suddenly a tall, swarthy, black-bearded man enters, and the company rises to receive him. It is M. Ho- velaque, described to me the other day during the landing of the party, as the intellectual interpreter of France, designated in that ca- pacity to accompany the delegation. He speaks English with regal ease, as if to the manner born, and is evidently a thoroughly accom- plished man. M. Hovelaque began by saying that in their original intention they had come just for a brief stay of ten or twelve days, simply to ''salute" the American government and people. It was now clear that the government of the United 102 AMERICA AT WAR 103 States wishes to concert specific measures for practical collaboration. Under these circum- stances the stay of the Commission is likely to be considerably prolonged. The Commission was much struck with the difference in the con- ditions obtaining here, as contrasted with those of France, after more than thirty months of fighting. '^ Everything to-day in France is grimy and war-worn." A number of amusing and gratifying inci- dents had occurred since their arrival in "Wash- ington. Wlien M. Viviani had visited Mr. Mar- shall at the Capitol, the Vice-President had said: "The ambition of my life is to shake hands with Joffre on the floor of the Senate. I have been a pacifist, and never wished that I had had the opportunity of seeing Caesar or Napoleon;, but I do wish to see Joffre, the Charles Martel of modem France. Charles Martel hammered the Mussulmans, and Joffre has hammered the Huns." M. Hovelaque gave us vivid pictures of the members of the Mission. Marshal Joffre was born in the far south of France, but there is apparently nothing or little of the meridional about him. The men of the South are dark : he is fair. They are for the most part voluble and mercurial: he is reticent, equable, well- poised. "WTiat a tower of strength he has been to France in these cruel days! What an 104 AMERICAATWAR immovable rock, placing itself in the path of a torrent! Perfect balance is his chief charac- teristic, if one except the kindness which has made him the 'father' of our soldiers." M. Viviani is a sensitive man who abominates personal publicity. He wishes to let it be known that it is France, not so many individuals, that is here. The French Minister of Justice, Pre- mier at the outbreak of the war, lost his beloved son early in the struggle. ''No one knows where he lies." M. Viviani is a man of the people, not so much in origin as in spirit. Politically a Socialist, he prevented strikes on the rail- roads in the early days of the war by personal appeals to the men. M. Hovelaque alluded in the most glowing terms to Jaures. He was one of the greatest statesmen of France. Perhaps her greatest orator since Gambetta. "Jaures was my close personal friend. I know he would have been heart and soul in this war. ' ' In the opening days he was foully murdered. The peo- ple were bewildered. They thought he might have been murdered because he was a pacifist. M. Viviani calmed the popular suspicion by a proclamation addressed to the people. One of the members of the party is Colonel Fabrey, ' ' the dare-devil of France. " "He hops about now on a beautifully made wooden leg — ^made in America." With 1,600 men, at a critical moment in the war, he held the most AMERICA AT WAR '105 difficult point on the Yser. For days and days lie and Ms men stood on guard behind a parapet built literally of dead Germans. ''Whenever the bodies became too offensive, he and his men threw out hooks on the end of long ropes, and pulled in newly-dead Germans. At last his dearest friend fell by his side. The only place to bury him was beneath his own feet. For a week he was separated from the remains of his comrade only by six inches of soil directly un- der his own feet. The soil there is terrible stuff and a foot down you come to water." "It goes without saying," went on M. Hove- laque, ' ' that the allied resources are all pooled. What is done for England, is done for us. What is done for France, is done for England." The German submarines make a dead set on ships bearing (1) wheat, (2) steel, (3) coal, (4) oil. Their knowledge is prodigious. Asked about the probable conditions of Ger- many itself in the matter of food, he made this extremely interesting classification. * ' Germany consists to-day of these groups: (a) She has approximately 20 million men in arms and in services directly connected therewith. These are probably well-fed; (b) there are 20 million peasant folk, living on the soil and subsisting on produce they are able to hoard. These are getting on tolerably well yet; (c) there are 7 or 8 millions of the rich — able to get food at a 106 AMERICA AT WAR heavy cost, sometimes rumiing over to Holland for a really big meal; (d) there are 20 million people on the edge of starvation. It is by these the rioting is being done." How are the Ger- mans doing for clothing? *'I salute the Ger- mans for their ingenuity. They have learned how to make fibre out of nettles. They are making cloth out of paper." I think all will agree that this accomplished Frenchman gave us vivid glimpses of the war. XVI THE EELATION" OF AMEEICA TO THE OEPHANS AND UNIVEESITIES OF FEANCE Washington, D. C, May 6tK npO-NIGHT at the National Press Club, I "^ sat at a table next one at which the fa- mous *'Joe" Cannon was taking his dinner. This remarkable man, who is described to me as being universally liked in the House, but who, I imagine, has ceased to exert any large po- litical influence, has sat in twenty-one con- gresses. In other words, the close of the pres- ent congress will give him a record of forty-two years. He is eighty-one years of age. His next junior has sat in thirteen congresses; so that Cannon is easily the ranking man in point of length of service. Champ Clark comes about third in seniority in the lower chamber. I find that Dallinger, of New Hampshire, outpoints Lodge by two years in the senate. Dallinger entered in 1891, Lodge in 1893. The passage of the Selective Draft Army bill by both branches of Congress signalises for one thing a great victory for Wilson and the Gen- eral Staff, and for another a remarkably quick 107 108 AMERICA AT WAR ripening of public opinion as to national obliga- tion. War and the army are on every lip. There is universally evident the desire to know ''what we can do quickly and effectively to help. " Yes- terday on Pennsylvania avenue a man, much the worse for liquor, was walking near me. Pre- liminary voting had already shown that the draft plan was going to pass. The man was talking animatedly to himself. "No more rich man — poor man. No substitutes this time-. We Ve put an end to that. ' ' On questioning him I found that he was an old Civil War man, and through his mind were running recollections of the way the haphazard volunteer system had worked in the old days. As I entered the hotel a few minutes afterward I heard an elderly man say to the clerk : ' ' The thing that I like about this draft business is that it will make Tom, Dick and Harry help George." "Let George do it" won't work under Wilson's sensible and scientific plan, which by its system of successive units or increments at once capitalises British e:xperience in this war and offers the only way by which the United States can move effectively from her present small army to as big a one as the situation may require. I think it would be regrettable if I had not an opportunity to give the readers of this cor- respondence a summary of our second confer- ence with M. Hovelaque. This man is .admir- AMERICA AT WAR 109 ably fitted for his role of interpreting intellect- ual France to America. Anent his English, which is simply magnificent, I asked him if he had spent much time in England. ''No, but when I was a child, I had an English gover- ness." For the rest he is married to an Ameri- can wife, the daughter of former Governor Hig- gins, of New York State. Both Missions are well sprinkled with men who have had Ameri- can affiliations. The Marquis de Chambrun has an American wife. Butler, of the English party, is married to Miss Levering, of Phila- delphia, He has lectured at the University of Pennsylvania. "Was it in that connection you met Miss Levering?" an indefatigable Ameri- can pressman asked. * ' I 'm afraid it was, ' ' But- ler replied. Well, to come back to M. Hovelaque's sec- ond interview at the Shoreham. One of the greatest of the problems of France is that con- cerning her orphans. The birth-rate of France, as is well known, is low. The loss of children, particularly in tha early months of the war in the northeastern part of the country, was tre- mendous. Added to those who died from ex- posure and those who were actually killed, were the great numbers who succumbed to infantile cholera. The surviving orplians. Prance pro- poses to foster not only physically, but morally and spiritually. They are to be made the in- 110 AMERICAAT WAR dustrial, intellectual and spiritual wards of tlie nation. ^'Not of the State, which may change in its character from time to time, but of the nation in the highest sense." An attempt is to be made to endow them in such a way that they may be reared by their own mothers, where these survive. A council for their supervision is to be created ''consisting of representatives of everything that is most eminent in France." For instance, those that are the children of par- ents who belonged to the agricultural popula- tion, are not simply going to be trained as farm- ers, but, by special methods, with a view to their becoming agricultural leaders. M. Hovelaque then passed to the intellectual relations of France and America as affected by the war. The universities of the two coun- tries have not been sufficiently in touch. Ameri- can universities have been profoundly influ- enced by German methods. The curse of Ger- man kultur is that it is devoid of the broad human spirit. This broad human spirit on the other hand is the grand characteristic of France. So it was at the time of the Revolu- tion, before that event, through anarchy, ' ' tailed off," to use Mr. Hovelaque 's own expression, into Napoleonism. The French revolutionists originally went out ' ' not to annex territory but to free men. ' ' Some one has said : ' ' Every man has two countries: his own and France." An AMERICA AT WAR 111 attempt will be made to provide facilities whereby students from this continent can read- ily get access to the French universities. Bur- saries for this purpose are needed. All sorts of old traditional habits in the French univer- sities must be swept away, so as to make pos- sible degrees for American students. There should be a cultural alliance between America and France. (As I pointed out in a despatch to the Free Press, I expressed to M. Hovelaque the hope that we in Canada might be brought into this plan.) M. Hovelaque strongly em- phasized the spiritual and humane element in French culture as contrasted with German ma- terialism. M. Hovelaque added an interesting postcript, so to say, on the surprises of the war. Every day sees an alteration or rejuvenation of meth- ods. The method of one week is out of date the next. ''Every man who has been in this war feels out of it if he is away from the front two weeks." All of which throws into relief the folly of the opponents of the Draft plan in Con- gress, who appeal to the example of the Civil War fought fifty years ago. Butler, of the English Mission, followed M. Hovelaque. He recapitulated for us the English party's impressions of their first week in Amer- ica. One thing that struck them was the ** daz- zling swiftness of everything here." The ele- 112 AMERICA AT WAR vators are an illustration. The ordinary Eng- lish elevator is very leisurely. There is a par- ticularly slow one in the London Foreign Office. ^' Great Scott," broke out a young American riding in it, "we have trees in our country that grow faster than this lift travels." Butler smiled happily as he told this. XVII THE VICTOE OF THE MAKNE JOFFEE AT SHOET KANGE Washington, D. C, May 6th. T EEMEMBER how stirred I was, between ^ fifteen and twenty years ago, in All Sadnts' Churcli, Winnipeg, wlien I heard Haweis, an English preacher, say, as he lifted a tiny hand made to look still more dainty by the lawn that encircled his wrist, ' ' This hand has clasped the hand of Victor Hugo." Well, -the unimportant hand that pens these words has grasped the hand of one greater than Victor Hugo. This morning in the White Mansion — the temporary home of the French delegation — I passed in file before Joffre, the deathless victor of the Mame. The Joffre address was prefaced by a brief statement from M. Hovelaque: "There is not a moment to be lost. This war must be waged intensively. The task cannot be approached too seriously. The losses will be terrific unless America takes all possible precautions to pre- pare in the most careful, and at the same time, the most rapid way. Wliat we are fighting for is a durable peace on democratic conditions." 113 114i AMERICA AT WAR Speaking of the approaclmig visit of both French and British Missions to Mount Vernon, he said: ''I cannot give you in advance the speeches to be pronounced by M. Viviani and Marshal Joff re. Viviani has said to me : ' No, I won't write that in cold blood. I want to speak when the emotion of the moment is upon me at that sacred spot. ' " M. Hovelaque told us that to-morrow Archbishop Ireland is to dine with M. Viviani. "M. Viviani wishes to meet lead- ers of all classes of opinion in America. ' ' Incidentally, I learnt this morning that in an earlier letter I misnamed Colonel Fabry the ''Dare-Devil of France." He is known as the "Blue Devil of France," the allusion, in the matter of colour, being to his Alpine uniform. "The Marshal will now come in." As these words from M. Hovelaque were spoken, the doors swung open and in stepped, with his hand at the salute, the great French soldier. The room, crowded with one hundred journalists, broke into a cheer. I cannot do justice to the scene, and I shall just make a few jottings. Suf- fice it to say that you cannot imagine a face and manner of greater simplicity and candour than the face and manner of Joffre. I hope, for the sake of my French friends, that the editor will do me the favour of setting up in French the occasional sentences that I quote. The official statement afterwards given out at the State De- AMERICA AT WAR 115 partment, which I have not seen, is reported to me as being comparatively colourless. I ex- pected that Joffre 's French would show perhaps marked traces of his southwestern origin, but such is not the case. At one or two points there was a broad pronunciation of words like **bat- tre" that reminded me of the French-Canadian accent. For the rest, his French is largely with- out special distinction. It is the simple laconic language of a man of action not of words. '* Je suis heureux d'etre capable de saluer en vous la grande presse americaine qui exerce une influence si grande. Je vais lire. Mes pensees sont bien nettes, et je veux les exprimer nette- ment. L'accueil que j'ai re§u me touche pro- fondement. Les soldats de la France meritent 1 'affection de I'Amerique. L'attaque est au- jourd'hui plus forte que jamais. A cote de I'armee fran§aise se trouve I'armee britannique, dont je puis dire que la creation et le developpe- ment me remplit d 'admiration. (Beside the army of France stands the British army, whose creation and development fills me with admira- tion.) Sur le sol frangais il y a place pour I'armee des Etats-Unis. L'Allemagne redoute cette eventualite. L'armee frangaise accueillera I'armee americaine a bras ouverts. (The French army will welcome the American army with open arms.) At the conclusion of his formal remarks M. 116 AMERICA AT WAR Hovelaque said tlie Marshal would answer ques- tions, which would be translated for him. Ques- tion: ''Would it be wise to bring back Ameri- cans now fighting in France to train soldiers here?" To this, this great and simple man re- plied, consulting those about him : ' ' Nos besoins sont considerables ' ' — ' ' Our need is very great. ' ' It is indispensable that those already there stay there — with the exception, of course, of the occa- sional specialist who might be brought over. ' ' Envoyez le drapeau americain tout de suite. ' ' — ''Send the American flag over as quickly as possible." The plan followed by the British authorities offers the model which America might naturally follow. Division after division as they are ready. "Ceci resulte du bon sens." — "This is the dictate of plain, common sense." Asked about the work of the women of France, as a model for American women in the war, the eyes of the good man and the great general glistened as he said : The message of the French women to their husbands, brothers, and lovers from the beginning of the war has been : "Nous vous soutiendrons toujours" — "We will sup- port you always." He then referred to the ap- proach of the first winter of the war. He had seen that his soldiers were without many neces- saries. "Je poussai un cri d'alarme." — "I sounded a signal of alarm." Instantly "les AMERICA AT WAR 117 fenunes frangaises se sont mises a tricoter" — ''The women started in to knit." Joffre was cheered to the echo as he with- drew. XVIII JOFFEE AND VrVIANI IN THE AMEEICAN SENATE Washington, D. C, May 7th. /^NE hears a great many smart things said ^-^ here by all kinds of people. Last night Raymond Swing, correspondent of the Chicago News, who was in Germany from the outbreak of the war until last February, was speaking at the National Press Club. The chairman in- troducing him said that it was reported that Mr. Swing had been on one occasion aboard a boat plying in the Sea of Marmora when a Brit- ish submarine operating in those waters came alongside. The submarine hailed the boat with the question : ' ' "Who are you f ' ' Mr. Swing hur- ried to the stern and answered: ''Eaymond E. Swing of the Chicago News." The submarine at once disappeared in terror. Swing, begin- ning to speak and alluding to the picture he was to draw of internal German conditions, said that his first managing editor used to say when arguing: ''Facts or no facts, this is the truth." He begged leave to reverse that and put it: ''Truth or no truth, these are the facts." He expected that the best the audience would say 118 AMERICA AT WAR 119 of him would be: *'He lies like an eye-witness." Briefly let me cover a few of the points made by Mr. Swing. Thanks to Hindenburg's ap- peal, made when he replaced Von Falkenhayn, Germany is probably stronger in the field this season than ever before. This has been made possible by the mobilisation of civilians, and, in particular, by the mobilisation of one million women for subsidiary war purposes. Trans- portation is the weakest link in Germany's chain. Rolling stock on Germany's railroads has run down badly. When he left in February nearly all trains were arriving from one to four hours late. Germany would give more for two hundred American locomotives than for a con- signment of any other material. The backbone of the German designs is to be found in the Junkers. They are a hard-headed body of men intensely devoted to Prussia, and the most scientific obstructionists of democratic prog- ress to be found in the world. He had visited at a typical Junker estate in Meck- lenburg. His host had shown him family records disclosing the fact that fully one-half of the male members of his line had fallen in actual fighting at one time or another for Prussia. America would do well to attack the Junkers rather than the Emperor as such. The French delegation received a great wel- come in the Senate to-day. Again the corridors 120 AMERICA AT WAR were studded with police and secret service men. The galleries were crowded. Lodge and Hitch- cock were deputed by the Vice-President to es- cort Joffre and Viviani into the Chamber. Ad- miral Chocheprat, Ambassador Jusserand, and M. Hovelaque occupied the Vice-President's dais with the two principals. In the applause that attended the entrance I noted that La Fol- lette joined without any appearance of reserve. The Vice-President said that the Senate "which had once received Lafayette, now, about a hun- dred years later, welcomes again great rep- resentatives of France." When the Senators, and a good many members of the House infor- mally present, had been presented to the visi- tors, a pretty incident occurred: the pages of the Senate — grading down from tall youths to tiny boys — ^passed before Joifre and Viviani, who shook hands with each. It had not been expected that there would be any speaking, but Vice-President Marshall called on Viviani. The French Minister of Jus- tice said: (Translation): *' Through us who are human and shall die, it is France that you see. I was deeply moved in crossing the threshold of this your House of Legislature and I ask myself what can be the thoughts of those autocrats in Germany if they stiU retain the faculty to think. The two na- tions of which we are the representatives will AMERICA AT WAR 121 never rest until the security of democracy has been re-established [alluding to Wilson's phrase 'to make the world safe for democracy']. We are united to get rid of the heavy oppression of absolutism." Vice-President Marshall essayed to close the function by using the words : '' As we said Hail, so now we say Farewell, and yet again, Please God, Hail!" The party was leaving the ros- trum, but the Chamber and galleries broke into an ovation to Joffre, who was called upon in- sistently. When the Marshal succeeded in making himself heard, he simply said: ''I — do — not — speak — English. Vivent les Etats- Unis." When the session resumed La Follette, who is excoriated unanimously by the men in the press gallery as a publicity hunter of the first order, spoke to depleted Chamber and galleries on his amendment for the submission of the Draft Army Bill to a referendum. He spoke vigorously and with passion, but with no air of commanding any section worth while either of the Senate or of public opinion. Lincoln, he said, had resorted to the Draft only in the third year of the Civil War. ' ' Canada has not even considered conscription. Australia has rejected it by popular vote. And yet the America of to-day, thirty days after the Declaration of War, adopts the Draft." XIX SPEEDING-UP OF AMEEICAN PKODUCTION" FOB WAB- TIME (First Article) Washington, D. C, May 8th. T TOOK dinner to-niglit at the National Press ■*■ Club with Blair, of the Associated Press, who has lived twenty-four years in Germany, and who came out with Gerard, the American Ambassador. He says his impressions coincide substantially with those given by Spring, which I have referred to in an earlier letter. His party traversed France by rail, entered Spain, and sailed for the United States from Corunna ! He says Britain is far the worst hated of the allies in Germany. Reason : the Germans recog- nise that she has become the predominant mem- ber of the Entente alliance, and that the con- tinuance of the war is due to her persistence. My General is happy to-night. The Senate amended the Army bill by providing for the prompt despatch of four infantry divisions — about 120,000 men, the General says — to France. The bill now goes to conference between the 122 AMERICA AT WAR 123 Chambers, and to-night it is mmonred that the House conferees are showing a disposition to accept the Senate amendment. The newspapers to-day also indicate that the White House is considering yielding to the popular demand that an expeditionary force be sent without delay to French soil. If this policy is decided upon great and honest old Joffre will have had a good deal to do with it. He has not disguised the eagerness of his desire that the Stars and Stripes should be seen at the earliest possible moment in his native country. The General thinks that this will mean inevitably that Roose- velt will go. This last, however, is not to be banked upon till the man at the White House actually gives the word. The General having referred to the capable character of the men who would respond to a call from Roosevelt, I said : ' ' You think that with their present ex- perience they could learn the new fighting con- ditions on French soil within a very short time r ' ' ' By , they'd absorb the whole thing in five days. I'll be darned if they wouldn't in- spect the German trenches inside of forty-eight hours." On the wired instructions of the editor of the Free Press, I have endeavoured to see Secretary Houston, of the Department of Agriculture, as to measures being taken to accelerate food pro- duction in America. Like all the other depart- 124 AMERICAATWAR ment heads, liowever, lie is up to the neck in work, and I have not been able to get through to him. To-day, however, I have attended the meetings of governors and state representa- tives with the Council of National Defence, and shall, consequently, be able to give here some of the material that I might have got from Sec- retary Houston. The morning meeting to-day was held in the office of the Secretary for War, who presided ; the afternoon session took place in the Munsey building. This morning the speakers were: Baker, Secretary for War; Daniels, Secretary for the Navy ; Lane, Secretary for the Interior ; McKane, Adjutant General, and Crowder, Judge Advocate General ; Scott, Chief of Staff, and the other members of the Council of Na- tional Defence were also present. The war secretary said the government was not relying on itself alone in this emergency. The best business brains in the country were being called to Washington. America is 'Hhe greatest undisturbed food producer in the world." She must now take the needs of her allies into consideration along with her own. He pleaded for the recognition of the demo- cratic character of the draft by which it is pro- posed to raise the bulk of the new army. Se- lection of men to be drafted will proceed in con- sultation with state authorities. Heads o-f fami- AMERICA AT WAR 125 lies will be exempted in the early stages of the war. Men will not be taken from indispensable tasks ; but there will be no exemption of whole classes. This was taken to mean that even agri- culturists will not be exempted as a class. ''In every indispensable vocation there are some in- dividual men who are not themselves indispen- sable." "We are going to wage this war not with our right hand, nor with our left hand — • but with both hands." Secretary Daniels of the Navy Department, said that the navy has now enlisted up to the full strength authorised by law. I think this strength is about 90,000 men. "In thirty-two days we have enlisted more men than were in the navy at the outbreak of the Spanish- Ameri- can War (19 years ago). Legislation already drafted is to be passed this week authorising expansion of navy enlistment to 150,000 men. Referring to the submarine, he said : "We know to-day [evidently alluding to specific informa- tion brought by the British delegates] that the submarine menace is graver than the most astute expert dreamed a year ago it could be- come. ' ' Adjutant General McKane pointed out that approximately 25,000 officers, additional to those now available, will need to be trained for the first increment of the army. These will be assembled in 14 training camps, which will ac- 126 AMERICA AT WAR commodate 2,500 each. It will be seen that this aggregate provides for some weeding ont. The training of these potential officers will begin actively on May 15. None will get commissions until the end of the three months' training period. Judge Advocate General Crowder described the plan for compulsory registration, prior to the operation of the Selective Draft, as ' ' super- vised Decentralisation." The registration will be done in the ordinary voting precinct of the county. A County Board will assemble results for the county. The counties will be supervised by the state governor ; while the federal author- ity will supervise the states. Registration will occur throughout the entire country on one day. Crowder said there was no reason why registra- tion may not be completed on the tenth day after the Army bill is signed by the President. Franklin Lane, Secretary of the Interior, who is a Canadian by birth, and who is spoken of on all hands as, with the possible exception of Mc- Adoo of the Treasury, the ablest man in Wil- son's cabinet, sounded the most masterful note struck this morning. Under his jurisdiction comes the Patent Department, and he said they were summoning to the aid of the nation the best inventive genius of the United States. He was hopeful that this massed ability would sup- ply a way of meeting the submarine, which, AMERICA AT WAR 127 they were told, accounted for 400,000 allied ton- nage last week. During the Civil War inven- tion after invention was struck off ''by the magic mind of man." During a conversation he had had recently with a group of inventors it had been suggested that it might be possible, by means of an electrical wave generated in the ship itself, either to deflect the torpedo or to cause its explosion before it reached the ship's side. Lane put the principles of the war in a very effective way from the American point of view. *'We may find a way of rescuing ourselves. I say 'ourselves.' This is just as truly our war as it is that of Britain or France. Those coun- tries are fighting for principles invented by us. We call England the Mother country. But we ourselves are the Mother country so far as the principles being fought for by the Allies, are concerned." Alluding to the criticism which would probably come and which the Administra- tion regarded as inevitable, he referred play- fully to Matthew Arnold. Arnold had spent his life in criticising the institutions of his day. WTien news of Arnold's death was carried to Andrew Lang, the latter said: "Poor Arnold, poor Arnold, I'm sorry for him. He won't like God." The Department of the Interior is appealing to farmers to organise around machines, trac- 128 AMERICA AT WAR tors, threshing machines, and the like. These must be treated in the various commnnities as community property. The farmers are being asked to organise into companies, and plough, seed and harvest in flying squadrons, moving across the country. The farmers must "play the game" together. They must not count on the approaching exhaustion of Germany. Hoover, head of the American Food Board, had told him that, with a reasonable crop this sea- son, Germany has provisions that will last her for two years. She has still eighteen mil- lion cattle, and a good supply of iron and coal. I find I have too much material for one let- ter, and shall ask the editor to use the same caption for this and its successor. SPEEDING-UP OF AMERICAN PEODUCTION FOR WAR- TIME (Second Article) Washington, D. C, May Sth. AS I entered the room in the Munsey build- ing, where the National Defence Council was conducting its conference with Governors and State representatives, Wilson, Secretary of Labour, was just concluding his speech. All I heard from him was a warning to the State au- thorities to be careful about the employment of convict labour. ''Don't attempt to use it on the farms. The people won't stand for it. Use it, for example, on the roads." President Pierson, of Iowa Agricultural Col- lege, now associated with the National Council of Defence, representing Secretary Houston, was the chief speaker. The stock of food prod- ucts in the United States is at a low level. On the other hand the need abroad is unlimited. An expert before the Agricultural Committee of the House said the other day: ''It will take two years of bumper crops in America to fill 129 130 AMERICA AT WAR the ribs of Europe — animals as well as men." The Secretary of Agriculture has recom- mended to Congress that an appropriation of $25,000,000 be made for the purpose of a na- tional food survey. The major objects of the Department are: (1) the increasing of produc- tion, (2) the eliminating of waste, (3) the better distributing of food products. With respect to the labor supply Pierson said that the Department of Agriculture would en- deavour, through a representative appointed for each state, to ascertain the labour requirements and to assist in placing labour that is available. There are in the United States at least a half million retired farmers who would be able to as- sist in the present emergency. Similarly there are two million boys, say from fifteen to nine- teen, who have hitherto taken little share in na- tional production. There is fear in some quarters that over-pro- duction will occur, and that prices will slump. Secretary Houston can see no danger of such over-production. He has recommended to Con- gress that the Council of National Defence be armed with power to fix guaranteed minimum prices for staple products. It should also be given authority to fix maximum prices, in order to prevent hoarding, gambling, and manipulat- ing of every kind. There are 2,900 rural counties in the -United AMERICA AT WAR 131 States; 1,700 of these have one agricultural agent each. It is proposed to appoint such an agent in each of the remaining 1,200 counties. These agents will be the ''minute men" in the speeding up process. It is estimated that 30 per cent, of the food products going into American homes, is wasted. It is similarly estimated, in Pierson's words, that ''on a pleasant July day" insects in the United States eat up 10,000,000 dollars' worth of foodstuff. It is proposed to appoint in each county a woman agent to con- sult with women regarding household economy. The household waste of America is computed by the department at 700,000,000 dollars per an- num, which equals seven dollars per capita of the population. Question: "Is that all their waste (waist)?" Laughter. Each state either has, or will be asked to create, a state food committee or Committee of Public Safety. "This will be the means of communication between the Federal authority and the different states." Each county in turn will have its food organisation. These state and county committees will ultimately probably make a complete survey of labour and industrial man-power. The department thinks, however, that this census of man-power should be de- ferred until the Draft Registration is out of the way. (A man representing Texas here re- ported that the acreage increase in his state 132 AMERICA AT WAR this season would be from 25 to 40 per cent.) Question : Does the Department purpose put- ting a ban right away on excess food consump- tion? Answer : Not yet, though the Department is making a careful study of European regula- tions. It is disposed to ''try out" first a cam- paign for the voluntary elimination of waste. In view of the threatened shortage of tin cans and glass jars, the Department of Commerce is urging the extensive use of paper containers. Householders are also being advised to make as much use as possible of sealed crocks, which were largely utilised in the Civil War period. Drying is also being recommended as a sub- stitute for canning — as, for example, in the case of corn. Question : Has the Department considered the establishment of municipal canning plants — the sort that cost from $200 to $400 apiece? These can be operated by High School girls under the direction of teachers, and are extensively in vogue in the South Atlantic States. Answer: The plan is feasible, and is being considered. I have made no attempt to arrange this mate- rial, but have left it in a rather rough, inchoate condition, because I think it conveys better in that form an impression of the swarming activ- ity that is under way here. Any one can see that there may easily be duplication an.d con- AMERICA AT WAR 133 fusion of macliinery at the outset; but the su- perb organising ability of the country may be trusted to elicit harmony without great loss of time. XXI OEGANISATION Or THE NATION ON WAE BASIS PEO- CEEDS APACE Washington, D. C, May Sth. npHE National Council of Defence Confer- -■■ ence proceeded this morning. First speak- er, Willard, president of tlie Baltimore and Ohio railroad. His whole speech was couched in terms of the people's interest, and produced the most cordial feeling. His company had been asked to supply material for rehabilitating 1,500 miles of French lines. They had been asked to send a committee to inspect Bussian roads. Its members will go in a few days. It would be necessary for the American roads to retrench in men and plant. For example, there are 6,500 men now employed uselessly as a result of "full-crew" laws. He suggested releasing these men, just during the emer- gency of the war, without prejudice. One thousand locomotives are being built in America for France and Russia. We must build more and more for our allies, and get on as best we can ourselves. Shippers in 134 AMERICA AT WAR 135 this country now have 48 free hours in which to load and 48 hours in which to unload a car. Suggestion: Reduce this to 24. This alone would release 645,000 cars for one trip each year. In Germany shippers have only six hours free. Passenger schedules must be readjusted. Passenger trains in America operate 570,000,- 000 miles a year. This should be reduced. Per- fectly feasible reductions on parallel lines can be effected releasing 4,000 passenger locomo- tives for freight. The railways will do this, provided the people's consent is forthcoming. Waterways and electric roads must be better co-ordinated with rail transportation. For in- stance, more use must be made of the Missis- sippi for getting coal to the northwest. Gilford, the Secretary of the National Defence Council, gave a full account of the organisation of this body. It has been at work only since December last. It consists of six Cabinet mem- bers, aided by an advisory committee of seven business men. Under the law this body has the power to create auxiliary committees. This system of auxiliary committees is a plan where- by the national government is proceeding to get the assistance of the selected brains of the coun- try. The members of these committees are serv- ing without pay. The significance of the scheme lies in the fact that it means that this nation is rising to meet the challenge of autocracy, not 136 AMERICA AT WAR with sentiment alone, but with an assemblage of its producing and organising power. Auxiliary committees have already been con- stituted on (1) coal production, (2) shipping, (3) science and research. For example this committee is holding to-morrow a meeting of university presi- dents called from all parts of the country. (4) aircraft production, (5) women's defence committee, (6) commercial economy board. This committee will consider possible economy in cost of distribution, as for in- stance in the matter of delivery of mer- chandise to retail buyers. Later in the day, adverting to this subject, Redfield, Secretary for Commerce, pointed out that, whereas the annual expense bill for freight into and out of the city of Washington is seven million dollars, cartage in the city itself costs eight and a half millions. (7) Munitions board. The purchasing departments of the army and navy are represented on this committee, which meets every morning, Gifford added, rather significantly, I thought, "this means a ministry of muni- tions in embryo." AMERICA AT WAR 137 (8) Committee on food supply. Hoover is to be head of this. The pa- pers to-day announce his arrival at New York, and his immediate departure for Washington. (9) Naval Consulting Board, which will pass on suggested inventions. (10) Army Supply Committee. Hitherto local quartermasters have awarded contracts for supplies. Hence- forward local committees of business men will sit with these officers and pass on con- tracts. Finally (11) a Committee representing the various government departments has been con- stituted. This meets every day, and its business will be to prevent clashing of interests as between the Departments in the matter of national defence. The states are being asked to form their own Councils of De- fence. Many of them have already done so. Finally, local or miniature defence councils are to be formed; so that there will in the near future be defence councils running from township or school district right up to the federal government. In the afternoon Redfield, of the Department of Commerce, spoke on the war activities of his department. He pleaded for vision and science 138 AMERICAATWAR in the work of the nation. '^ Vision and science will save America, and they are the only things that will." '* Germany has done what she has, because she has applied science to production and to the prevention of waste." Carlyle said : ' ' Produce, in God 's name, produce. ' ' This, said Eedfield, should be written over the door of every American home. I pause to say that these two days have seen no less than five members of the national government addressing to ten governors and to leading representatives of every state in the union, not only clarion calls to co-ordinated activity, but detailed specifica- tions as to how this co-ordination is to be ef- fected. Eedfield said his Department had per- fected an electrical machine for taking the next census without writing a word. This machine, I understood him to say, will be used for the ap- proaching military registration. The Depart- ment of Commerce is instructing the people in the use of new sea foods. Six months ago a certain fish was unused. To-day one million pounds of it a month are used. Here the gov- ernment has succeeded in fixing the price. It provides a label, and does the advertising of the new food on condition that a price of ten cents a can is observed. Price raised without permission, right to use of label withdrawn. A ten cent can makes a meal for three people. The readiness of the Department for the decla- AMERICA AT WAR 139 ration of war was indicated by the circumstance that it turned forty-five ships under its control over to the Navy Department for mine-laying within fourteen minutes after the declaration of the state of war became effective. Toward the close of his speech, Eedfield made a very ''cute" observation. ' ' We are the wasters of the world. I. W. W. should be made to read, Industrious Wasters of the World. So translated, it de- scribes the American people as they have been hitherto. But we must change all that." The boys of the city of Washington made $5,700 out of old papers carried to school in a period of six months. Cattle-fodder can be made out of saw-dust. Before the war ''Germany was di/e- ing the world." To-day 800,000 tons of osage- orange — so I caught it— are being utilised in this country per annum to make a certain yel- low dye. The osage-orange was regarded as a nuisance before the supply of German dyes was cut off. XXII WOODKOW WILSON AND AETHUR BALFOTJE IN THE HOUSE OF KEPKESENTATIVES Washington^ D. C, May 8th. TF Joffre isn't spoiled by America it will be -■■ because he can't be. Everything he has done in this country to date has been just right. It is because his nature is thoroughly sound and wholesome. I should dearly like some time in the future, say ten years from now, to come upon him in a simple fishing boat in the Bay of Biscay, or pruning some humble vine on the slopes of the Pyrenees, and find him still the same as he has been as victor of the Marne or as the lion of America. Reverting to Redfield's smart remark about ''the Industrious Wasters of the World," the lavishness of this country is prodigious. A very interesting man gave me some instances the other night. A big saloon keeper in New York recently told him of three men who had a few evenings before started in and spent $900 in his place in one night. He told me of bachelor apartments he had lately been in in New York 140 AMERICA AT WAR 141 that cost their tenants $5,500 a year. The same man talking of the war taxation proposals now approaching Congress, said that in his town of Akron, Ohio, there are six firms, who, if the present tentative plans materialise, will be mulcted in aggregate war contributions to the tune of nine million dollars. "Will they squeal?" '^ Not a bit of it." Last night as I was sitting waiting for Ma- jor Spendley-Clay, of the British Mission, to begin to speak at the National Press Club, the Hawaiian delegate to Congress entered, and, happily for me, sat down next to me. I ** en- gaged" him. Speaks English perfectly. He is nephew, not son— as I had been informed— to a former king of the islands. He is the cousin of the well known deposed Queen Liliuokalani (whether this name is spelt correctly or not, I cannot tell. The delegate's name I really can- not undertake to transcribe.) Alaska and Hawaii are now the only territories left to be represented in Congress. The Hawaiian dele- gate draws the same salary as an ordinary rep- resentative, can move resolutions, and speak, but cannot vote or raise a point of order. Porto Rico and the Philippines are represented in Congress by commissioners, who sit by virtue of resolutions of the House. The Hawaiian delegate represents 243,000 people, of whom 85,000 are in Honolulu. He says the islands 142 AMERICA AT WAR have 100,000 Asiatics among their population, of whom four or five hundred, having been born in Hawaii, have the vote. He is proud of Hawaii, and completely satisfied with American treatment of her. He says his people have ad- vanced from savagery to civilisation in 100 years. Thirty-four years after the arrival of American missionaries "we had a written lan- guage, compulsory education, and a constitu- tional king. ' ' He volunteered the extraordinary statement that only two per cent, of the inhabi- tants are illiterate. To date the present Congress has shown a fine temper, on the war particularly. One thing that pleases me is the independent and new alignment that occurs on questions as they arise. There is no evidence of a "bloc" of any kind. I hope some of the readers of these let- ters will recall that in an early message I sug- gested that the Censorship bill would probably have "its fangs drawn." Yesterday by a de- cisive vote in the house the obnoxious clause was changed completely in character. Of course, as the war situation grows more tense, and if the newspapers do not show themselves ani- mated by a high sense of responsibility, the President's demands may be more fully ac- ceded to. Kahn, Mann, Republican House leader and Swagar Sherley, of Kentucky, all of whom were protagonists on the President's .side in AMERICA AT WAR 143 the Draft bill, stoutly opposed tlie administra- tion's censorship clause. Prior to the arrival of Mr. Balfour at th© House to-day I heard Cannon for the first time. The American octogenarian, whose parliamen- tary career, by the way, almost exactly equals in length that of the British Commissioner, spoke in vigorous criticism of the Federal Re- serve banking system. The Justices of the Su- preme Court, who came from time to time into the Chamber, included "White, the Chief Justice, and Brandeis. Brandeis is a small, dark, wiry looking man, offering a marked contrast to his portly chief. During the waiting interval a tele- gram to the House was read from the President of the Chamber of Deputies of Roumania, ex- tending to the American Legislature its ' ' felici- tations les plus chaleureuses" on the entry of America into the war. After the reading was finished there were impatient cries for an Eng- lish version, to which Champ Clark replied: "Can't read a thing you haven't got." About five minutes before Balfour arrived, President "Wilson entered the President's gallery, accom- panied by Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. McAdoo. He rose twice to respond to greetings of the crowded house. It was noteworthy that Mr. Balfour began by addressing "Ladies and gentlemen of the House of Representatives." The British en- 144 AMERICA AT WAR voy speaks with an occasional hesitation, which, to-day at any rate, seemed only to enhance the impression of sincerity produced by his utter- ance. "I have been for forty-three years in the service of a free assembly like your own. These two are the greatest and old- est of the assemblies now governing the demo- cratic nations of the world. The full rights of the British assembly have been won only after long political struggle. Your lot was happier. You came into being full and perfected in your powers under the constitution. Each of the two represents the great democratic principle which is the bulwark of the world's security. This is one of the great moments in the history of the world. It means the drawing together of free peoples for mutual protection against military despotism. All free assemblies have made mistakes ; they have sometimes committed crimes ; but only the German nation has shown itself capable, over a long period of years, of pursuing, steadily and remorselessly, a policy whose object is the moral and material subju- gation of the world." As I finished writing this in the press gallery quarters, two men opposite me were engaged looking up the Congressional Record to see a citation made in the censorship debate by a congressman from Milton's ''Areopagitica," which the pressman declared the speaker had AMERICA AT WAR 145 characterised as ''the greatest plea for a free press to be found in American literature. ' ' His companion then reminded him of a declaration, alleged to have been once made by Joseph Can- non that ''he had always thought the Faerie Queene the greatest thing ever written by Her- bert Spencer." It is more than probable that both incidents are imaginary. XXIII AMEKICA RALLYING IN A FERMENT OP ACTIVITY Washington, D. C, May 9th. TV/f Y stay in Washington draws necessarily to ■*- -^ its close, but I find it hard to tear myself away from this centre where the surprising war activities of a mighty nation are converging without sign of respite. This morning as I emerged from the Press Club, I was lucky enough to overtake "Uncle Joe" Cannon, "I was struck while Mr. Bal- four was addressing the house yesterday, by the fact that his parliamentary career just about tallies with yours, Mr. Cannon, — forty- three years," I volunteered. ''But he is not nearly as old a man as you. " "I think they go into public life earlier in England than they do here. I was about thirty-six when I started." "You must have taken very good care of your- self, to be hale and hearty at eighty-one?" "No, I never took any care of myself. I've always noticed that the men who are always taking care of their health, are likely to die young. ' ' Going on he said : ' ' They talk about hard work killing people. It's all poppy-cock. Gluttony kills a 146 AMERICA AT WAR 147 great many, worry kills some, but the man that's killed by work is hard to find." The war dominates everything here now. Table-talk, slang, advertisements — everything is informed by the consciousness of the strug- gle. *'Sit down, but don't intern" was the smart legend I saw yesterday on a card over a businessman's desk. ''They have 750 Commis- sions in the state of Wisconsin," said one of a group of newspaper men in the House press gallery yesterday. ''I wish to Heaven they'd go on now and appoint one to inquire into the sanity of 'Bob' LaFoUette," interjected an- other. "LaFollette was a national figure once," said a man to me in the hotel rotunda last night. "Everybody was partially insane about him. The point is, though, that they have all come back to their senses — except himself." Canadians have been perfectly right in feel- ing an enormous re-inforcement of confidence through the advent of the United States in the war. I feel as nearly as possible perfectly con- fident that whoever or whatever may fall away from the side of Great Britain, the accession of the United States means that Britain's side will win. There is an unbelievable ferment of ac- tivity here. Last night it was somewhat au- thoritatively announced by the Naval Board that no fewer than 500 devices or plans for the 148 AMERICA AT WAR suppression of tlie submarine had already been submitted since the declaration of war. One of the most hopeful signs on the horizon is what I have, perhaps, already called ^'the bone" or ''the iron" in American policy to-day. Witness the absolute and calm ignoring of pos- sibly anti-national forces within the nation by the adoption, you may say, within thirty days of the declaration of war, of scientific and iron- bound conscription. Witness, as an integral part of that scheme, a copper-riveted, unflinch- ing, obligatory registration of men within the prescribed ages. The plans are so minute and the organisation so complete that it is consid- ered possible that this enrollment of say 7,- 000,000 males, may be an accomplished fact within fifteen days of the President's procla- mation. Unless all signs fail, Germany caught a Tartar when she drove America into the war. One of the solid reasons why Canadians may count with confidence on the effectiveness of a rallied America, is the superb facilities this country possesses for the mobilisation of opin- ion and the organisation of resources. Ex- amples : Yesterday presidents and representa- tives of 180 universities were in consultation here in Washington with the Secretary for War. This morning Secretary of Labor Wilson an- nounces, with the collaboration of Secretary of the Interior Lane, a plan for the enrolment of AMERICA AT WAR 149 5,000,000 boys below the draft age, under the auspices of the United States Boys' Reserve for auxiliary war work. To-morrow night begins here a Conference under the direction of the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in Amer- ica with respect to the war. This body repre- sents 18,000,000 people. Among the speakers are to be Jowett of New York, John R. Mott, Robert E. Speer, and Raymond Robins, who recently visited Winnipeg. I have already re- ferred to the unreserved war manifesto of the Roman Catholic archbishops. Two members of the British Mission, by the way, lunched yes- terday at Baltimore with Cardinal Gibbons. As my Washington sojourn approaches its end, I am permitting myself to take a look at the past of the capital, which so far, I had had to ignore. Saturday afternoon I turned my steps toward the old Ford theatre and the house across the way where Lincoln died. By coincidence it was a coloured man who desig- nated the house for me. ''This is the house," he said. A reference to this memorable spot is germane to the caption ''The United States at War," because America enters this struggle with two supreme memories — the memories of Washington and of Lincoln. As I came away from that humble lodging house, I found myself fully under the spell of that homely, simple man who lifts, by some strange alchemy, every- 150 AMERICA AT WAR body who comes in contact with his personality, to the highest level of his faculty of goodness. This afternoon I met on the street Frank L. McYey, President of the University of North Dakota, who was just leaving for New York after attending the war conference of the uni- versities. I asked him if the universities would be able to render practical assistance. He said, "Undoubtedly." ''Are they placing their lab- oratories and so on at the disposal of the gov- ernment?" "That's already done." The only divergent strain that developed at the confer- ence was the suggestion of a minority that the conference should make a pronouncement in favor of three new executive departments or ministries : Food, munitions and shipping. The weight of opinion was in favour of leaving the government schemes time to develop. After leaving President McVey, I treated my- self to a 'bus trip through the city to get the ensemble view that my work had not permitted me to get earlier. The guide 's jokes were very good — at any rate when falling on virgin soil. I have no doubt they are strictly stand- ardised, but those of my readers who have heard them will forgive me, if I retail a few of them, for people as ingenuous as I am my- self. Passing two stores, one devoted to boots and shoes (Kann's) and one to clothing (Saks), he said, "Men are frequently seen here coming AMERICA AT WAR 151 out of sacks and going into cans." A certain building he pointed out as the scene of the only- political speech delivered by Bryan in Washing- ton. "He lost his overcoat and hat that day. Some people think it's a pity he didn't lose his voice too." Turning into a rough stretch of street, he said, ''Sometimes called Roosevelt street — it's such a rough rider." As we went past the residence of of New York, he volunteered this explanation of its three stories below the street level: ''It's said in Washington that he is trying to meet his father halfway." The vicinity of Dupont Cir- cle is occupied by the homes of the very rich. He declared that here "the people scrub their floors with gold dust, their motors have dia- mond tires, the horses wear checks on their heads, the birds carry bills, and the grass has green backs. ' ' Circling the Natural History Mu- seum he said: "This building contains every- thing except the South Pole — even including the Roosevelt River of Doubt, which flows up hill for forty miles." Passing the residence occu- pied by Cannon when Speaker of the House, the guide gave us the benefit of this jingle, ' ' Cannons may come, and Cannons may go, but there'll never be another like 'Old Uncle Joe.' " XXIV mabyland's capital iisr wae-time Baltimore, Maryland, May Bth. f~\F the fifty minutes that it took ns this mom- ^-^ ing to run from Washington to Baltimore, I spent twenty at breakfast and thirty in con- versation with Wharton Monney, a New Or- leans business man. He is of French extrac- tion on both sides. His mother, who, with her mother again, was bom in New Orleans, speaks French only. She understands English, but an- swers in French. My interlocutor this morning had met Victor Bouche, of Winnipeg, in Cali- fornia. He said : ' ' Two years ago the man who would have mentioned conscription for this country, I would have thought insane. But it's the only thing. I'm a convert now. When the war began, and for two years after, I thought only of France. I didn't see England. Not that I disliked her, but I thought France. Now, I see that we should have been more closely in touch with England all the time. England is splendidly democratic to-day." My last meal in Washington I had 'With two 152 AMERICA AT WAR 153 congressmen, Dill, of Spokane, Washington, and Nicholls, of Detroit. They differed about the proposed war tax of 5 per cent, on the gross receipts, for example, of automobile factories. The Detroit man said: "There are 400 auto- mobile manufacturers in the United States. Eighty per cent, of the business is done by 12 of these. This 5 per cent, tax will put a lot of the small men out of commission.'^ Dill said: ''Let business pay. I have no sympathy with 'business as usual.' If the plain people send their sons in, the business men will have to send their money." Of course there is no finality about the war revenue bill as it is now drawn. After Nicholls left I had a very interesting disclosure from Mr. Dill. I am going to give the gist of what he said, prefacing it by the re- mark, which may be relied upon to the letter, that his contribution respecting the war is, with the exception of the views of the German I met at Pittsburgh, the solitary expression on that side of the issue that I have heard since I entered the United States four weeks ago to-morrow. Dill is only 32, and is sitting his second term in Congress. He is a handsome, and very "taking" fellow. "I've had rather an odd career. As a matter of fact I'm in a peculiar position right now. My state ir Re- publican. Democrats hadn't a look in. The Republican-Progressive split gave us our 154 AMERICA AT WAR chance, and I won tlie second last time by 12,- 000 majority. This time, party lines having set- tled down, I didn't think I had a ghost of a show, bnt I won by 5,000. What did I win on? On pledges, given to the hilt, that we must keep America out of the war. I had talked with Wilson. He said to me that the worst we should come to, would be armed neutrality. Banking on that I went the limit on every platform, ad- vocating keeping America at peace. Now, what am I confronted by, when I come to Washing- ton? War and conscription. I was one of the fifty or so in the house to vote against the Dec- laration of a state of war. What else could I do? I had given specific pledges. How could 1 have looked people in the face if I hadn't done as I said I would do? My father's prin- ciple was, your word as good as your note. I have little doubt that I have committed political hari-kiri, but I'm not worrying much about that." *'How is the war feeling developing among your people [state of Washington]?" "Not much. Most of my people have a notion that it is a Wall Street war. The newspapers have turned the trick." ''Aside from your dif- ficult political position, what is your own psy- chology now? What do you think about the war?" "Well, we're in; we'll have to make the best of it. We simply have to win. That's all there's to it. I think some of taking train- AMERICA AT WAR 155 ing as an officer. I have always liked that sort of thing." I hope my readers will remember two things at this point. I repeat, this is, with the excep- tion indicated, the one declaration of this sort I have heard, and I have now talked with a very large number of people in a very free way. In the second place. Dill's position is perfectly self-respecting. He was elected on a platform of continued peace. We find fault fundamentally with that position, but I have no reason to be- lieve that this particular congressman did not subscribe to it honestly. Confronted by the point-blank opposite of his pledges, he adhered to them. Now that the country is at war he is prepared cheerfully not to return to Congress. ' ' There is no doubt, ' ' he said, ' 'that the Presi- dent has the country in general overwhelmingly with him. ' ' In the meantime he is contemplat- ing joining the armed forces. He is not with- out anticipation that there may be some trouble in western, for example, in mining states, when the draft comes to be applied. "The plan is to have the local drafting supervised by the county sheriff, doctor and one other official [whose designation I have forgotten]. If these fellows show any favouritism, men in my state — ^miners for instance — won't waste much time with them. They'll simply ignore the small politicians, make their own Board, and see that 156 AMERICA AT WAR the thing is done on the square." With all of which there is no fault to he found. I asked him if the draft would be applied unflinchingly in foreign- American areas, or whether a cer- tain discretion would be practised in this re- gard. He said he believed it would be applied entirely uniformly. ''Are the foreigners likely to resist drafting!" ''No, I don't think there is any likelihood of that." And it will be noted that the trouble he would not be surprised to find in mining and labour communities, will oc- cur only, according to his mind, in the event of favouritism. I think it my duty to give the point of view of this attractive politician who opposed the war. The initial view of Baltimore makes one think of St. Paul — narrow streets, for one thing. The buildings are beflagged, though not so copiously as those of the capital. I noticed that from the balcony over the Charles Street entrance to the residence of Cardinal Gibbons, Baltimore's most eminent citizen, the Stars and Stripes float. The Cardinal's palace is immediately at the rear of the cathedral. Within the cathedral at each side of the main entrance is a large painting given by Louis XVIII. of France to the arch-diocese of Baltimore. One is a picture of Saint Louis burying plague-stricken crusad- ers at Tunis, by an artist whose name the dim AMERICA AT WAR 15T light kept me from deciphering. The other is a Descent from the Cross, by Guerin. Through the hotel window as I write I see a squad of marine recruits forming up. The street cars hear placards with the legend: ''Un- cle Sam Wants You. Step out and enlist now. Be a man. Have the sand. Bear a hand. ' ' I was reminded sharply of Grermany 's cleverness when my attention was directed across the harbour to the spot where fheDeutschland docked. The Bal- timore Sun this morning has a front page full column on Canada's effort to increase produc- tion. It ends: ''What will Marylanders do to swell production?" The two chief editorials to- day in the Baltimore American, Hearst's paper, are entitled: "The Kaiser's Buncombe" and "The Lusitania Cycle." The former ends: "Out of France with the outlaws, is in effect the slogan that is being sounded by the French and British guns as they beat back the Kaiser's in- vincibles, and leave the Hindenburg army's myr- iad dead upon the field." The last paragraph of "The Lusitania Cycle" reads: "The harvest of the wrath of God is ripening and the harvest will be reaped as surely as law follows license, as surely as the judgments of the Almighty stand fast. The issue the United States has joined with Germany will witness the triumph of American arms, American honour, and American succour for civilisation." XXV PENN's city en fete for the FRENCH ENVOYS Philadelphia, May 10th. nn HE gladdest of May weather welcomed the -*■ French envoys in Philadelphia on their way to New York. ''Buy the allied flags" was the cry that greeted me as I emerged this morn- ing from the Hotel Walton. The city streets are aflame with colour. In the early part of the day a brisk breeze made the flags dance and gave the streets an air of vivacity that affected one strangely in this Quaker city. Later the breeze died away, and lazily drooping flags made solidity take the place of the earlier mo- bility. Many of the multitudes that thronged the streets and the cars carried flags, the tri- colour holding its own bravely with the native Stars and Stripes. I reached the Girls' High School opposite the United States Mint just about five minutes before the arrival of the French party. Here about 1,500 girls were massed in front of the school. The school-front was just a bank of colour. A pause ensued. Suddenly a move- ment ran through the crowd, a squad of motor- 158 AMERICA AT WAR 159 cycle policemen dashed up, and before we knew it, almost, the familiar figures of Joffre and Viviani were before us. Viviani and Joffre were in the first motor, Jusserand in the sec- ond, Chocheprat, the French admiral, in the third. The girls sang ''The Marseillaise" and "The Star Spangled Banner" splendidly, wav- ing their flags between the stanzas. When "Vive la France" was shouted, Joffre saluted. Otherwise he stood motionless. As the last cry died away, the carriages dashed off. Their next stop was at the sturdy, resolute statue of Joan of Arc, near the entrance to Fairmount Park. Here Joffre deposited a wreath, bound Avith intertwined French and American colours. After a ceremony at Penn's house in the park itself, the party proceeded to the University of Pennsylvania, where honour- ary degrees were conferred on the Frenchmen by the Provost of the university. The degrees were conferred at the base of the statue of Franklin, the founder of the university. The statue represents Franklin as a youth starting out to find his fortune — in right hand a bundle, in left hand a rustic stick. The face wears a cheery, forward-looking expression, making one think of Dick Whittington. His feet are strik- ing a stride that reminded me of the statue of Wilhelm Tell in Altdorf, Switzerland. I pause to remark that the foundations of 160 AMERICA AT WAR American education were laid by men blessed with ideality and vision. So it was with John Harvard; so with Thomas Jefferson, the founder of the University of Virginia; and so, here again, with Franklin, the founder of the University of Pennsylvania. From the Franklin statue the party pro- ceeded to the closely adjoining Franklin Field, where twenty-four thousand people were seated in the stadium. The motors of the party made the circle of the field, and then one thousand recruits of the university, some in uniform and some not, paraded. I got back to my hotel just as the party was entering the Bellevue-Strat- ford Hotel, nearly opposite us, for the luncheon tendered by the municipality. The chief memories that dominate Philadel- phia are those of Franklin, Penn and Washing- ton. Witnessing the homage offered to-day by the Frenchmen to the memory of Franklin I have not been able to dismiss from my mind that notable scene, enacted during the apotheosis of Voltaire in Paris in 1778, when the great Deist, meeting Franklin and his son or grand- son, I forget which, resting his hand on the young boy's shoulder, pronounced the talis- manic words, ''Dieu et Liberte." Some such thought doubtless was running through Vol- taire's mind on that occasion in the presence of young America as was in Viviani's to-day AMERICA AT WAR 161 when lie said, "America is posterity." As I stood this afternoon before the little brick house of Penn overlooking the Schuylkill River in Fairmount Park, my mind reverted in 1898, when, from the churchyard of Stoke-Poges, im- mortalised by Thomas Gray, I saw rising across the Buckinghamshire fields the stately manor house of the Penns. Putting the two buildings side by side mentally, it is as if the son of an Ontario farmer, accustomed to living in an old stone farm-house surrounded by orchards and comfort, had gone out to Saskatchewan or Al- berta and there built his homesteader's shack. The Mayor of Philadelphia, speaking to-day in the room where the Declaration of Independ- ence was signed, is reported as saying in part in the presence of the French envoys: ''Here, in this little room, the Fathers in 1776 proclaimed liberty under law. On this altar the flame of liberty was lighted. And so to testify the depth and sincerity of our love for France, we have brought you to the most sacred spot in Amer- ica, that, humbly bowing in supplication be- fore Him Who holds in the hollow of His hand the issues of life and death, of victory and de- feat, we may ask comfort for those who suffer and new strength for those who battle for the right." The Philadelphia Evening Telegraph says to- night: ''To-day the hearts of our people are 162 AMERICA AT WAR warm with pride because America has pledged her blood and treasure to help complete the triumph of France, the final extermination of autocracy from Europe. In their hour of in- fant peril, France went to the rescue of the thirteen American colonies ; in their hour of in- vincible might, the states which have grown out of those colonies strike hands with France in defence of freedom, and to bring a lasting peace to all mankind." The Ledger says : * ' To-day it is the promise. To-morrow it will be the fulfilment. All of our energy, all of our wealth, all of our hope and blood we offer in defence of the altars which have been defiled. We cheer, but our hearts are set to the grim duty ahead. We shall not fail our friends." Every one who sees Viviani is struck with the sadness of his face. Amid the loudest acclama- tions it is only a sort of haunted smile that lights up his sensitive features. It is as if, in the midst of this splendid material civilisation, in the midst of these endless multitudes, he cannot shut out the thought of France bleeding at every vein. Only now and then, when the thought of what all this teeming man-power and wealth can do, if only it can be brought to bear in time, breaks upon him, as it were in a wild spasm of hope and scarcely entertained joy, he AMERICA AT WAR 163 flings his arms about one or other of his com- rades. Viviani and Balfour have proven admirable representatives of their respective races here. Joffre, of course, stands by himself, and I am not speaking of him at this moment. Balfour's oratory, slightly hesitant in delivery but moving with ordered strength in print, is completely British, as indeed are his whole conduct and de- portment. Viviani is Latin to the core. His quick, darting emotionalism, his rapid improv- isation, enforced by febrile gesture, are sting- ing America into a realisation of the facts. The appeal of the French Commission has been suc- cessfully made to the heart and the imagina- tion of America. The British Commission has appealed with equal success to its judgment. The union of the two makes a strategic com- bination of the first consequence. XXVI WILSOlSr AND EOOSEVELT New York, May 11th. IVTEW YOEK is a world phenomenon. Like "^^ London, it is too big to speak about en masse. A myriad, ant-like population, moving about with dashing swiftness amid cyclopean structures and through great gorge-like streets ablaze with allied colours — this would be a thrust at a definition of the American metropo- lis as it looks to-day. Joffre and Viviani have been here two days. Balfour comes to-day. The reception of the Frenchmen, lifted to a giant crescendo, staggers description. Perhaps I have talked enough even about them. No doubt the wired des- patches, giving the colour of this mammoth event, are very full, so I forbear further com- ment. While waiting for New York material to straighten out in my mind there are some other matters I wish to speak of. I did not come down here to exploit any thesis, formed in ad- vance, but as faithfully as might be to reflect the facts and submit them to my readers in 164 AMERICA AT WAR 165 order to supplement their usual sources of in- formation. In tlie first place, Roosevelt is the big indig- enous figure before the American imagination to-day. He embodies America, lusty, laughing, action-loving America, as no one else does. He is at the back of every conversation, with high and low, literate and illiterate, rich and poor, drunk and sober. I could not help thinking of him to-day at Columbia while the degrees were being given Viviani and Joffre. Mitchel, the Mayor, was there, but there were few eyes for him. Hughes was there, but he got no atten- tion. If Teddy had unexpectedly rolled up in his motor, the whole ''works" would have stopped and the concourse would have given him an ovation that would have vied with that to Joffre. Teddy is a problem to-day for President Wil- son. I am going to speak frankly in this letter about Wilson, for whom I have great respect. He is a man of the first ability. His capacity is of the highly intellectual, rationalised, and, in that sense, scientific order. He is master of his administration. His Cabinet contains no na- tional figures — McAdoo and Lane measurably excepted. Even these two have no large na- tional reputations, that is, if you fix your scale by Roosevelt or by Wilson. I can imagine some one's being made impatient by this denial of 166 AMERICA AT WAR ''national reputations" to the heads of the re- spective Executive Departments, so I pause to say in a word what I mean. When some one says, "Secretary of War Baker," you think of the Secretary of War, not of Baker. When some one says, ''Secretary of the Navy Dan- iels," you think of the Secretary of the Navy, not of Daniels. That puts in a nutshell what I mean, and, incidentally, shows that I do not mean anything very bad. Of the executive end of the United States government, then, Wilson is undisputed master. His supremacy over the present Congress is more questionable. If it were not for the war he might, conceivably, be having a hard time. It is hardly necessary to add that, of the Democratic party, Wilson is the dominating figure. He is first, and there is, as yet, no second. The scientific character of Wilson's states- manship is reflected in his Army Bill. So far as a big and ultimately efficient army of the kind that will be required for a long war, is concern- ed, Wilson is beyond question absolutely right. In this respect it is nothing short of a godsend that at this juncture, the country is in the charge of a man Hke him. But now comes in the cry of France for instant help. Because, make no mistake about it, the appeal of France is to-day a "cry" — a cry warranted and self-respecting, but undisguisedly poignant. The man 'or the AMERICA AT WAR 167 people that does not help France to-day de- serves the cold shoulder from the total French race of the future. In this situation the French envoys have been insistent, in the good sense of the word. I should not be surprised to know that they have even embarrassed Wilson a lit- tle, in this particular. I say this, without im- plying for an instant that his ultimate inten- tions with respect to France are not of the noblest. But he has been planning for an ade- quate and long sustained effort. The French Commissioners want this, but in addition they want a measure of immediate help, and they want the moral advantage of the Stars and Stripes. Eoosevelt wants to go. He wanted to go, before Joffre came. Now comes Joffre^ — and the two national idols see absolutely eye to eye. Wilson has the air of sticking and hang- ing about this Roosevelt business. The official explanation implied is: Could such a force as Eoosevelt contemplates, be equipped and trained in a hurry, as it must be, for a war of the character of the present? But back against this comes the message of the French Mission touching the Russian contingent on French soil. 50,000 Russian conscripts appear in France. They have only the most elementary training. They are slow peasants. After five weeks' training back of the lines they go into action, and not only inspirit France and dampen Ger- 168 AMERICA AT WAR many, but actually win their first engagments. Incidentally, it grows painfully clear to me that we in Canada have blundered in keeping our troops in training for such inordinate pe- riods on Canadian soil. I do not wonder that there have been blunders ; and it is easy to be wise after the event. But the evidence of the French Mission convinces me that the only ef- fective place to train troops for this war, is as near as possible to the sound of the guns. To resume reference to the Wilson-Roosevelt tussle. Because, make no mistake about it, a keen ^'tussle" is going forward between the ex- tremely able man in the White House, and the bouncing America-embodying man outside the White House. He would be a daring individual who would dogmatise just now, as to which will win. Note, here, that the one that wins for the moment may not win in the long run. But fur- ther, from Wilson's side in this argument: will it blur the popular mind as to the propriety of the Draft, to authorise this voluntary, one might almost say, guerilla force? But back pitilessly comes the answer : the men of this force would be above the conscript ages, and would repre- sent a totally additional resource. A reason advanced privately on Wilson's side, and a rea- son that has something in it, is that this ex- peditionary force, thus spectacularly gathered, would be in the limelight all the timfe, and AMERICA AT WAR 169 would get all the credit as against the more drably organised body of the army. This is a good point, but cannot be said to be bulking large in the popular mind. One is sorry to say it, but the deep reason for the reluctance at Washington is the political situation. The enterprise, carried through in characteristic Rooseveltian fashion, would elect Teddy in 1920. That is, of course, presuming that he survived. Here, I must, without pro- nouncement on my part, bring in the contention advanced by very many, that Wilson is stiffly partisan. No one pretends to discount his abil- ity. I for my part have no disposition to dis- count his high-mindedness. But it is as clear as it can reasonably be, that there is no instant spontaneity about him. There is little magnet- ism. There is a great brain. There is a finely ordered intelligence. There is executive mast- ery. There is calmness, poise, and a long range of prescience But amplitude of personality, warmth of feeling, downright generosity of im- pulse seem rather lacking. In fact Wilson and impulse seem strangers. Needless to say, this temperament has certain great advantages. It comports in some impor- tant respects with the leadership of a great state. But it fails, equally indubitably, to grap- ple to its side the surging passion of the people, which constitutes the psychological element in a 170 AMERICA AT WAR national effort of the first magnitude. There is no warmth in popular or personal references to the President. His office is, of course, so exalted that he commands complete respect. No one hints that his talents are not commensurate with his station. But, on the whole, without driving the words to their limit, he does not swell out the office by that large appeal either to the af- fections or to the imagination, which is essential to the ideal leader in elemental times. Not seldom one encounters great bitterness, a sort of unappeasable grudge, in conversations about him by men who are yet, or at the same time, bent heart and soul on supporting him in the prosecution of the war. The last man I have in mind in this connection is a young en- gineer whom I chatted with on my way from Philadelphia to New York. This is the gist of what he said : The whole thing now is a matter of drab duty. Wilson has taken all the punch, bounce, and pride out of the people in the mat- ter of war. The time to strike was when Bel- gium was invaded. That responsibility was side-stepped. To use my man's exact word, ' ' ducked. ' ' A second time came when the Lusi- tania was sunk. "Duck" again. Wilson was re-elected on the cry: ''He kept us out of the war. ' ' He has taught millions of my country- men to think we were justified in ''skulking." This is a sharp indictment. It puts things in AMERICAATWAR 171 the worst possible ligM. It is a straight ren- dering of a certain resentful body of opinion. Here I report it in my role of annalist, and re- fuse to stand sponsor for it. Eemember, this will not affect the ultimate result. The bulk of America wanted to go to war in the biggest way at the right time. Many simply say, it was denied the chance. I prefer to believe that Wilson was high-minded in his policy. But America is now at war, and when American blood begins really to flow, the punch and vigour that would have marked idealistic America, engaged paladin-like in a chivalrous war, will come. Because this war will still be a war of chivalry, and, there is small question, Wilson will handle it for his part competently. But if the public, groundedly or ungrounded- ly, gets the idea that Wilson is frustrating Roosevelt, the President will not easily be for- given. The broad public is in a mood for a gal- lant enterprise that will signalise the true char- acter of the American intervention. Roosevelt, after a triumphant campaign in Europe, would 1 3 elected as sure as fate. On the other hand, Eouncing Teddy, wanting to go, denied the chance, even supposedly on party grounds, may be elected anyway. So, for anything I can see, Wilson, not as President, but as guardian of the interests of the Democratic party is, so far as Roosevelt is concerned, between the devil and 172 AMERICA AT WAR the deep blue sea. Of course, Wilson is so splendidly brainy and so quietly and sagacious- ly resourceful, that one does not wish to be too sure about it. XXVII THE BANQUET OF ALL THE TALENTS AT THE WALDOKF New York, May 12th. OO I think I may fairly designate the dinner ^ tendered last Friday night in the Waldorf- Astoria to the two foreign Missions by the Municipality of New York. The floor of the hotel ball-room was packed to repletion by men. Two rows of balconies surrounding the room on all sides were similarly filled with women and men. Wlien Joseph Choate rose to speak, he said that "for an hour and a half he had realised from the happiness that had reigned in 'the celestial regions,' how much the ladies liked to watch the lions feed. They were now to hear them roar." Accustomed as Canada long since has been to the grim side of war, I can understand that the question may be rising in the minds of Ca- nadians as to whether America is as yet simply taking the war out in junketing. But there need be little fear on this score. The United States stood, and to an extent still stands, in need of "energising," To energise a vast pro- 173 174 AMERICA AT WAR letariat is no small undertaking. The brnshing must be heroic. That heroic brushing is going forward magnificently. This indeed has been the grand object of the French mission in par- ticular. The "spectacle" aspects of the Joffre receptions constitute an integral and honour- able part of the processes necessary to provide the emotional background for a war-effort worthy of America. Furthermore, and beyond peradventure, side by side with ''spectacle" and mass appeals the underpinning for grim participation is being put in. Take an instance. Last night concur- rently with the Municipal banquet, a dinner was being given in the Waldorf by the alumni of the University of California. For what object? To signalise the departure for France of forty- two California undergraduates, volunteering for ambulance work. Friends of the university are equipping sixty motor ambulances. "My mother is giving one. I couldn't do much, but I've man- aged to put the tires on one," I heard a dash- ing looking young alumnus say in one of the corridors of the hotel. This man and a group with him were just sending a note to "Teddy," asking him to come and say a few words to the guests at the California dinner. In five min- utes out came Teddy, his teeth showing, and his capacious manner flooding the narrow pas- sage. "I met you at Chicago the other day," AMERICA AT WAR 175 a man said who grasped Roosevelt's hand just as he passed me. '^Yes, by George," said the ex-president, as he stemmed his way forward. "I'm mighty glad to do anything I can for you. ' ' The seating at the head table in the ball-room interested me as soon as I entered. To the im- mediate right of Mayor Mitchel presiding, sat Arthur Balfour. Thereafter on his side came Governor "Whitman of New York, Joffre, Roose- velt, Spring-Rice, Admiral Chocheprat, and Choate. To the left of the chairman sat Vivi- ani, Senator Calder of New York, Taft, Jusser- and, and Bridges of the British army, with a ** trailing oif " of lesser celebrities. Mitchel the Mayor made his fellow-citizens proud of their chief magistrate. His manner is not exactly cultured, but keen and pointed. He spoke with a fine air of conviction that was as far as possible removed from mere conven- tionality. If democracy is destroyed in Europe, it will be first menaced, and then destroyed in America. At last we see it. America is awake. We say to our friends : We are with them to the end. America has been protected by the British navy and the armies of France. Our money is not enough. We must make the sacri- fice of blood. At the close of his set speech, he ran over the bead-roll of the guests. At the name of each there was a demonstration. The 176 AMERICA AT WAR five biggest were those given to Joffre, Balfour, Viviani, Roosevelt and General Leonard B. Wood. This last showed who that New York audience at any rate thinks is the fittest soldier in the United States. Bridges of the British army, an iron-grey, upstanding type of man, got a warm reception. Mitch el's words in introducing Joseph Choate, former Ambassador to Britain, were these: "We have chosen, to represent the en- tire citizenship of New York, the most re- spected, the most loved, the most revered of New Yorkers." Choate looks leonine as well as polished. He spoke with a sort of dean-like intimacy that evidently warmed the hearts of his auditors. ''He never fails," I heard a man say as the speaker sat down. Choate 's genuine fondness for Britain was clearly apparent. ''Now that we have followed the lead of our dear allies — Great Britain, our beloved mother, and France, our brilliant and fascinating sister, there can be no such thing as failure." He made the most direct allusion to the embroglio over Roosevelt's going to the front. "When a man, whose name is associated with the United States to the uttermost parts of the earth, of- fered to take a division, I, in my simple boyish way, didn't see why he shouldn't go" [pro- longed demonstration]. "For the first time after two and a half years I am able to- lift my AMERICA AT WAR 177 head as high as my eighty-five years permit." Introducing Balfour, Mitchel said: "No pub- lic servant of any country has been less self- seeking." There is indeed a strange, compel- ling charm about Arthur Balfour. And that charm, it is almost needless to say, he exer- cises effortlessly. He has a regal presence. I remember a great passage in Bulwer Lytton's "Last of the Saxon Kings," in which the novelist describes the return from outlawry of Earl Godwin and six of his seven sons. Five of the six are armed in complete mail, as they stand at the prow of the return- ing ship. The description rises in warmth with the importance of the sons; but the climax is reached with Harold, destined to be king, who, for his part, is quite unarmed. Un- panoplied he outshines in moral ascendancy all his brothers. There is something of the same ungirt grandeur about Arthur Balfour. An in- nate regality of mind is the secret of his un- sought potency. Britain could not by any pos- sibility have sent a better man to America. His speech last night was eminently characteristic. Only perhaps in the concluding sentences were there evidences of the cadences that come to this great mind when he really searches for them. Elsewhere there was a sort of ambling discursiveness, lit up ever and anon with a heightened or tragic phrase that breathed 178 AMERICAATWAR the agony of Europe, and once or twice tlirown a bit out of gear by the inrush of an idea that he hardly knew how to ao- conimodate in his improvisation. It is the simple truth that Balfour has generated a much greater affection here by his lack of oratory in its more obvious senses, than he would have done by pomp and circumstance of utterance. He ended last night almost in the middle of a sentence. "My comrades and I do not feel in coming to America that we are coming among strangers. We feel that we are among broth- ers and friends" — I didn't dream that he had finished ; but the prolonged ovation that greeted the simple words ended his speech. I cannot forgo the delight of giving what I may call the core of his address. "I record my conviction that we have reached a moment when the issues of civilisation are trembling in the balance. The millions of New York have thronged its streets to-day and yesterday be- cause they instinctively feel that it is not desir- able, and if desirable not possible, for this great nation to stand aside and see the world suffer. We are called upon together to meet an immi- nent and overmastering peril. If at this mo- ment the world is bathed in blood and tears from the far highlands of Armenia to the fair fields of France, shall we not rise together, shoulder to shoulder, to resist? The union of AMERICA AT WAR 179 the three western democracies will prove that the free nations of the earth cannot be crushed into the dust." Viviani followed Balfour and concluded the progrannne. This is the last time my path will cross that of the French Mission, so I permit myself to say a word about Viviani as an or- ator. In the first place, he is all temperament. His bodily action, as he speaks, is vigorous in the extreme. His face flushes almost crimson. His veins stand out like whip-cords. Ever and anon, occasionally three or four times in rapid succession, he presses both hands clenched, and side by side, against his forehead, over his eyes. It is almost as if he had gazed on horrid sights that persist in obtruding themselves upon him. His emotional expenditure is prodigious, and his words pour like a mill-race from his lips. Last night he paid a glowing tribute to the army of Britain, and to the cool and well-bal- anced Haig. One great mistake of Germany had been the mediocre diplomats she had ac- credited to foreign powers — men, many of them, who had thought they were hoodwinking the world, while they were shining in salons. This was a palpable allusion to Von Bemstorff, who, very evidently, was for long, quite a lion at Washington. Germany had reckoned without her host in many quarters — notably with re- spect to the British Dominions. The war has 180 AMERICA AT WAR shown France to be possessed in equal measure of two qualities, on tlie one hand ''I'elan, I'intre- pidite" (dash in attack,) on the other "la pa- tience, le courage tranquille." The victory of the Mame symbolises the one ; Verdun symbol- ises the other. The rapid strokes with which he sketched Verdun were superb. He spoke with a sort of demonic possession as he pictured the wrongs of Serbia. As he poured out, lava-like, his detestation of the Germans, his words hissed and stung like scorpion tongues. "We fight not simply for France, not simply for England, but for humanit}^, but for democracy. Nous som- mes tons debout, les hommes libres du monde. We are all erect, ready to resist, — the free men of the world." The soul of Washington and of Lincoln has breathed itself into the Amer- ican people. This surprising and torrential or- ator, whose American speeches have been so many dithyrambs of passion, yet each varying from the other, closed this, probably his last formal utterance in the United States, with the words: "Lift up your heads — ^liigher — ^ever higher — lift them as high as your flag!'* XXVIII BEITISH PEEACHEKS IN NEW YOEK : HUGH BLACK AND JOWETT New York, May 13th. T AST night from 8:30 to 11:30 I Vavelled -^-^ through Bowery, Chinatown, Little Italy, the Ghetto and the rest, and saw the swarming warrens of the poor. To-day (Sunday) from 12 :30 to 1 :30 I watched on Fifth avenue thou- sands of church-going New Yorkers. Past me streamed dashing, interminable files of sump- tuous motors, and seemingly unending currents of men and women, most of them groomed and dressed so that they looked the acme of ele- gance. The contrast was very striking. As I re-entered the hotel (last night) I said to the man at the newspaper stand: ''How is it the — (naming a paper which I leave anony- mous here) — to-night doesn't report the passing of the Eoosevelt amendment by the House at "Washington!" ''Well, you know, doesn't always get it all." "Is it rather a prim, old- maidish paper?" I queried. "It is a damned pacifist and pro-Grerman paper, that's what it is," came the savage answer. "Not so many of 181 182 AMERICAATWAR them nowadays, eh ? " I added. " In a magnifi- cent minority, thank Heaven." As I rode on the top of a 'bus up Fifth Ave- nue this afternoon, the patriotic and mihtary decorations appeared to fine advantage. The sun was refulgent, and all the flags were aflut- ter in the breeze. Notable among the decora- tions along the twenty-three squares that I passed were those at the public library. Across the front, at regular intervals, hang oblong streamers with white ground and yellow edges. In the centre of successive streamers are the pinion-raised eagle of America, Chantecleer, the crowing cock of France, and the lion ram- pant of old England. John Henry Jowett of Fifth Avenue Presby- terian church was to be my quarry this morn- ing, but arriving late I found the inner door locked, the stairs roped otf, and adamantine ushers. They told me that they usually turn away hundreds. Upon occasion they have turned away as many as two thousand. I had often wondered how the great preacher was faring in New York, and now I am happy to know. I shall try again at 4 :30. I had to walk only two squares to find Hugh L. Black of the Union Theological Seminary at Central Presbyterian church, comer of Madi- son avenue and 57th street. Many years ago now I read his ** Culture and Restraint." He AMERICA AT WAR 183 is a man we ought to bring to Winnipeg some time. He was under way when I entered, and it was a little while before I got his text. I concluded at once that his subject was ''The Reality of the Spiritual," and before the close he repeated the text "What is Your Life?" He is a man who, in the distance and even close, looks not unlike R. J. Campbell. A little more sharpened and acute looking, and a little, not much, less mystic. He has the face, as many notable preachers have had, of an actor. His voice, especially in its lower register, is of great rich- ness. His hands have febrile, darting rather than twitching, movements that suggest high- strung organisation. Hugh Black made me realise this morning, as I have always realised when under the spell of a great preacher, that the high spiritual teacher is an artist just as much say as the musician is. There is little in his accent to remind one of the Scotch save his pronunciation of an occasional word like ''eternity." There was at least one sentence, though, that had a homely Scotch air: "From one point of view man is a thing of the day — just." The "just," uttered after a tiny pause, was pure Scots. As I sat down the preacher was saying: "Even if there were no hereafter, he who would get most out of life's adventure should 184 AMERICA AT WAR live the life of the spirit. When, either in the American army or navy, or in the British army or navy, when was there ever a forlorn hope for every place in which there were not a hun- dred volunteers ? A bubble on the stream, that bursts; a will o' the wisp, born in the marsh and dying in the marsh — such is in one way the biography of man. But he has another: The biography of the soul. Last Sunday night after preaching in this church, I took part in a municipal service at Montclair — the first me- morial service for our heroic dead. A young man of that place, of Scottish extraction, had died at Vimy Eidge. He had enlisted in a Highland Scotch Regiment of the Canadian army. He was simply anticipating the hun- dreds of thousands of the youth of this country who must go the same way. The fathers and mothers of America must look forward with such equanimity as they can summon, to these sacrifices. In two days my only boy goes up to Canada to join the Canadian army. He is only eighteen, but, as he says, ' ' Daddy, the age here is 21, but 18 is the age in England." Have I nurtured him, you might say, for this : to be cast as rubbish to the void? When I say that, or you say that, we are estimating life by quan- tity. What bigger thing can a boy do, if he were to live for a hundred years, than to give his life to the biggest cause that comes his way? AMERICAATWAR 185 He is going to help to make the world safe for Democracy. He will stand, my flesh and blood will stand, beside the very Christ on Calvary. ' ' (Mr. Black referred to Lincoln's letter ad- dressed to the mother who had given five sons to the Northern cause, ending "May God com- fort you with the noble pride that you have been enabled to lay so costly a sacrifice on the altar of freedom.") Mr. Black went on: "We that speak the tongue that Shakespeare spake, the faith and morals hold, that Milton held, must be free or die. We must be free or die — that 's all there is to it. We will not live on the terms of tyranny. Life is not a mere dodging of days and dropping of sands." The preach- er 's close was marked by a grave, stern beauty : "Let us live sobered by death, let us die edu- cated by life. Let us pass out when we must, laden with the high spoils of life, for the things that are seen are temporal, but the things that are not seen are eternal." I made bold to speak to Professor Black, be- cause I wanted to tell him that he had many admirers in western Canada. I thought espe- cially of my honoured friend, the Bookman of the Free Press. "Ah, I am very fond of Canada. I am going up there^ — to Toronto — with my son on Tuesday." Regaining Fifth Avenue about 12 :30 I found traffic halted for the march past of a negro 186 AMERICA AT WAR regiment — the ISth New York Infantry. They are going into camp at Peekskill, a young man told me. "Well, they're needed in France," I said. "I hope to he there myself soon," the boy answered. Do not even my scattered ob- servations prove that the great land is in a ferment? Between the last paragraph and this, I have heard Jowett. I should say 1,700 people filled, without crowding, the spacious and richly col- oured interior of the Fifth Avenue church. As the audience rose for the first time, I was sur- prised to notice that the front rows were well up toward the pulpit level. Glancing about I saw that the centre of the church's depth was, so to say, a valley. Perhaps thirty feet from the front the floor begins to rise in both direc- tions — an excellent device. Jowett — who, only at the close of the service I learned, is returning to England to take the place of Campbell Morgan in Westminster Chapel — is a rather business-like looking man, ruddy-coloured, white-moustached. He has a rapid-fire utterance that now peals out bugle- like and now sinks into the softness of the quietist. He is full of fresh unexpected turns. Conventional-looking he does nothing conven- tionally. This preacher who on the whole stresses the "interior" aspects of Christianity, reads hymns, makes announcements, and de- AMERICA AT WAR 187 livers parts of hia sermons, as a man of busi- ness might. His text was, ''Add to Your Virtue (and a lot of other things) — Knowledge." There was, with one exception, no reference to the war. But that exception was significant. Moulton, the preacher said, had with his rare insight en- riched the ordinary reading of the passage. ''In your faith, and so on, supply Knowledge." The figure Moulton had pointed out, was that of the orchestra. "The music of life is to be like that of a great band. Let your life be choral. Choose your instruments wisely. When you have got one, bring another to it." Now Moulton, a month or so ago, was returning from India. In the Mediterranean his vessel was torpedoed. All got safely into small boats, but four days exposure was too much, and Moulton succumbed. "His companions have told how they dropped his body into its wan- dering grave. I knew him well. He was a great scholar. He was a greater saint." Thus all roads, no matter how apparently distant in origin or in destination, lead to or through the war. I know it would be an indiscretion for me, under the general caption that is controlling me, to give more than a glimpse of a sermon which, with the exception of the one side-glance I have noted, had no reference to the war, but I cannot refrain from saying that hardly ever 188 AMERICAATWAR have I left a church with more unwilling steps. The ripe wisdom of this choice master of the human spirit clung about the place as the light of the sunset clings to the Alpine peak. (Every- body, by the way, seems to be going to Canada. ^'We are going through to the Rockies," he said. ''Perhaps I shall see you in Winnipeg.") From the thraldom of this seraphic doctor of the soul I passed once more into the clangour of the war-preparations. Less than a square be- low 55th street on Fifth Avenue again, as at noon, I met a regiment returning from church — the 12th New York Infantry, this time. A tip- top body of men. A little farther down I met a group of French marines. When I said: " Je salue la France," their hands shot out briskly. They came from the Lower Seine. The paper that I bought a few minutes later, bore the giant legend: "President will give Roosevelt army command is Belief." From inner pages of the same paper I glean items like these: (1) "Taft's one son accepted. Under age, so has to have parents' consent. A second son re- jected because of eyes. (2) Roosevelt has one son already serving in an aviation corps. He said the other night here that three more were going into camp. 'People tell me they'll have a rough time. I hope they do.' (3) The first three states to fill their army quota j^this al- AMERICA AT WAR 189 ludes to the expanding of regulars and of state militia to war strength, and, of course, has nothing to do with the new drafted army] are Utah, Nevada and Oregon." XXIX AN ENSEMBLE VIEW OP AMEEICa's FIEST MONTH AND A HALE OP WAR Winnipeg, May 19th. np HE editor of the Free Press has suggested -■■ that, having returned to Winnipeg, and my series of American letters being completed, I should add a resumptive word on the situa- tion in general. At the risk of repeating, and at the risk of dashing something off in undue haste, I obey the instruction. In general terms I think that Canadians may feel assured that the state of American opinion could not easily be better from our point of view than it is to-day. To the chief among the Allies America is now bound by the closest ties. The warmth of American comradeship with France cannot be overstated. This might be analysed in detail but I forbear here. Suffice it to say that this feeling animates all grades of society. The intellectual element prizes the clarity, luminousness, and humanity of French culture. The politicians emphasize the identity of American and French democracy. The man on the street knows about Lafayette 'and that 190 AMERICA AT WAR 191 is enougli to fill him witli gratitude. Inciden- tally, I visited the old Castle Garden building at the Battery, now a beautifully stocked aquarium, where in 1824 Henry Clay welcomed Lafayette. Britain stands out to-day before the in- formed American mind as the plucky, indom- itable, and wonderfully resourceful champion of the world's liberties — the one who stands in the breach whoever else wavers. On the Rus- sian situation the American government and people are keeping the closest eye. America is prepared to throw endless money into the task of steadying Russia in her moment of dire per- plexity. Reed Smoot, the Republican Mormon from Utah, I heard say: "If the President wants to advance a billion to Russia, even without the slightest prospect of return, I am ready to hold up both hands in support." I think I may safely say that the all but universal attitude in the United States is ' ' what can we do to help ? ' ' And I pause to say sharply that there is no crowing going on. We thought loosely here that as soon as the United States declared war, the people would break out with the cry : We are the people. We are going to end it. When it is ended it is we who shall have ended it. I am able, I think, to say that little of the sort is occurring. Ameri- cans admit that they have waited too long, that 192 AMERICA AT WAR too long they have left the Atlantean weight of the defence of freedom resting on the shoul- ders and on the agony of others. Thns they admit that they come in chastened. Of course they are not so naive as to fail to recognise their immense potentiality; but they mourn that that potentiality has been left so long un- harnessed in this gigantic struggle for the saving of the fundamental rights of humanity. And that question which I quoted above ^'"What can we do to help ? ' \ and which is on the lips of so many, is just an expression of the broad generic kindliness that is such a widespread characteristic of the American people. *'The States could feed herself and let the rest of the world starve," said my 'bus driver in New iYork, as we started away from the Battery, **but she isn't so damned mean." The Chicago Tribune, in a number that I read on my way home, reported the following. It may be apocryphal or it may be a fact, I do not know. A British army officer is sent to Ta- coma by his government. He gets a wire order- ing him to report in London, and to sail by a cer- tain ship. He misses his train at Cleveland, and applies to the New York Central in his dilemma. The superintendent makes up a spe- cial train, rushes him through, carries him one stretch of 186 miles in two and a half hours, brings him to New York fifteen minutes before AMERICA AT WAR 193 his boat sails, and refuses to take a cent for tlie service. The last five weeks have witnessed a great advance in war sentiment and war prepared- ness in America. When I arrived in Washing- ton abont the fifteenth of April, conscription was being eyed with critical suspicion. Espe- cially the men of the older generation, ani- mated by memories of the Civil War, were against it. This opposition has faded. Wilson has scored here undeniably. There remains of course the question as to what precisely will happen when the Draft is applied. What will happen in densely populated German cities and sections of cities? What will the men upon whom the lot falls do, as they walk in streets, drink in German restaurants, where they hear little but German spoken, and, in a word, feel themselves segregated from English America by a German milieu? I can only say that I think the chances are they will bend their backs to their nationally imposed American burden. For one thing I am informed that the authori- ties have been very thorough in stripping Ger- mans of arms. And one thing we may be sure of, to the extent that German-Americans offer opposition, they will find the going hard. Noth- ing will so rapidly mature domestic American opinion as the appearance, even incipiently, of anti-national opposition. America is in no mood 194 AMERICAATWAR to l^e trifled with. Her national purpose is to make a war effort commensurate with her re- sources and her status, and she won't mince action in dealing with so-called citizens who show a disposition to thwart her policy. Both in the United States and here there is some impatience with the supposed slowness of Congress in winding up war bills. A large number of bills are still a stage under consum- mation. I wish to say, nevertheless, that the two Houses of Congress are able bodies. The Senate is stately and impressive. The House is tumultuous but sincere and earnest. I speak here of course in general terms. And attention must be called to the fact that the measures under consideration are momentous in magni- tude and import. You cannot expect two popu- lar Chambers to vote seven billions overnight. You cannot expect such Houses to add a rev- enue of about two billions without exchanging a word. The censorship bill involved the most important considerations of public freedom. For the rest, even if the last touches have not been put to all such bills, great work is nevertheless being done. Minute precautions for taking the draft registration are already complete. Within two months of the declara- tion of a state of war the nation will know to a nicety its resources of man power within the ages of 21 to 30. The Council of National De- AMERICA AT WAR 195 fence has matured an intricate and compre- hensive organisation. The inventive genins of the country is silently being concentrated on devices for conquering the submarine. America invented the submarine, and may, easily con- ceivably, find a way of overcoming it. A flo- tilla of destroyers has already arrived in Brit- ish waters. This means that any day German periscopes may be shot away by American gun- ners, and, almost assuredly, American blood will flow. And when it flows, the die will be cast even more definitively than it now is. Important instalments of the American loans are already in the hands of the Allies. The Italian Commission has quickly followed the British and French Missions to American soil. The American delegation to Eussia, the visible token of warm American sympathy for the struggling democracy of that country, has quite probably already left this side of the Atlantic. Unless a man is hard to please it is difficult to see what more could be expected of the Ameri- can government and people in the short space of a month and a half. Let the man who does not dwell in a glass house throw stones. And having mentioned the American Mission to Russia, I close with this : The second name on that Mission is the name of John E. Mott. Who is Mott? Probably the foremost religious worker of America. It is profoundly significant 196 AMERICA AT WAR that he has been thus included. What does it mean? That for America, ideas, ideals, and the spiritual consciousness are what, at this moment, mean most in the eyes of America. America realises to-day that politics, de- mocracy, civilisation and religion are one. Dol- lars are secondary, organisation is subsidiary. Spirituality, Ideality, and Brotherhood are the watchwords of the future. Christianity has made its investment. The world hungrily de- mands first the rescue and then the full eman- cipation of all. These interests are imperilled, and into the lists America will throw its full force, marshalled primarily by the men, who are the spiritual interpreters of the best that America stands for. Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 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