Mettenr 
 9otheMother 
 
 of a 
 
 Soldier 
 
 Michardson Wright 
 
Class -JJ I 
 
 Book_______ 
 
 Copyriglit^I?_ 
 
 C0PYRIG1ET DEPOSIT. 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
Letters to the Mother 
 of a Soldier 
 
 By 
 
 Richardson Wright 
 
 Author of 'The Russians, An Interpretation" 
 
 So here, while the mad guns curse overhead. 
 And tired men sigh with mud for couch and floor. 
 
 Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead, 
 Died not for flag, nor King, nor Emperor, 
 
 But for a dream, born in a herdsman's shed. 
 And for the secret Scripture of the poor. 
 
 — Thomas Kettle 
 
 New York 
 
 Frederick A. Stokes Company 
 
 Publishers 
 
& 
 
 
 K\ X> 
 
 Copyright, 1918, by 
 Frederick A. Stokes Company 
 
 All rights reserved, including that of translation 
 into foreign languages 
 
 MAR 27 1918 
 
 ©GI.A494329 
 
To 
 
 My Mother and Father 
 
 and Bobs 
 
 Who is "in It" 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
LETTERS TO THE MOTHER 
 OF A SOLDIER 
 
 "The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Did I tell you he came to see me? 
 
 It was late noon. 
 
 I had gone down to the pergola to look at the 
 ramblers we set out this spring. 
 
 There was a great peace over everything. 
 The air had that baked noontide heaviness; a 
 humid mist eddied and wavered lazily in the 
 hollow above the river. Down the road the 
 sputter of a motor died away into a dull hum. 
 
 Suddenly the gate clicked. I looked up. 
 
 There he stood — his service hat tilted rak- 
 ishly aslant one eye, the tag of a tobacco sack 
 dangling from his breast pocket. 
 
 "What are you doing up here?" I called. 
 
 "Just thought I'd like to see you." 
 
 I suddenly realized the boy was fond of me. 
 The run up to Silvermine on a hot day is no 
 
2 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 easy jaunt, you know. And, besides, I've 
 been anything but the perfect uncle ! 
 
 "Had luncheon?" 
 
 "Lots of it." 
 
 "Then let's sit here," I suggested as we en- 
 tered the pergola. "Or perhaps you'd rather 
 take a swim." 
 
 We chose the swim — broke through the un- 
 derbrush back of the berry patch and followed 
 the path to the river. 
 
 You know how the big flat rock rests on the 
 edge of the falls beneath that tall cedar, and 
 the water rushes past through a cleft down 
 into the pool? That caught his eye. 
 
 In a moment he stripped and was overboard. 
 
 By George, Harry has grown to be a hand- 
 some animal! The muscles on his shoulders 
 and arms fairly rose above the stream in great 
 humps. His face was bronzed. The water 
 slicked back his hair and threw his forehead 
 into relief. Military training had thinned him 
 slightly. And I was glad to see that the lower 
 lip you used to worry about had stiffened. 
 He looked clean, four-squared and noble. 
 How I envied him ! 
 
 Finally he climbed up on the rock beside me 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 3 
 
 to dry off — evidently towels are superfluous to 
 a soldier — and we drifted to the war and his 
 going over. I surmised he wanted to talk 
 about it. 
 
 "Well, do you like army life?" I finally 
 asked, after he had told me of camp. 
 
 "In some ways I don't like it at all," he an- 
 swered hesitatingly. 
 
 "How's that?" 
 
 "I can't say that fighting is just exactly in 
 my line. We fellows love a good fight, but we 
 aren't forced to eat and sleep it the way Ger- 
 mans are. We aren't trained to be brutes here 
 in America. We treat our women differently 
 — that's one way you can tell." 
 
 "Why did you enlist then?" 
 
 "I couldn't get the beastly thing out of my 
 head." He waited a moment, asked for a cig- 
 arette, lighted it, and then began in earnest. 
 "I tried to work, but work seemed so footless. 
 I didn't want to miss the fun, either. It 
 seemed like the biggest game this old world 
 has ever played. Not to get into it was a 
 crime." 
 
 "You just went in for a lark," I added cas- 
 ually, "good sportsman stuff and all that?" 
 
4 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 "Well, no." He stopped and seemed a bit 
 embarrassed. Then he looked straight at me. 
 "This may sound silly and sentimental and 
 soft, but I think you'll understand. ... If 
 you saw your mother being tricked and lied to 
 and spied upon and deceived and kicked around 
 for three years, what would you do? Fight? 
 You bet you would!" He smacked his hands 
 together with an anger that seemed strange to 
 so peaceful a spot. "That is exactly what the 
 Germans have done here. My country isn't 
 so different from my mother — Motherland. 
 You understand?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 "And she stood for it until there was nothing 
 left to stand for or forgive or palaver about. 
 When she declared war I threw up my job and 
 enlisted. Do you think I did right?" 
 
 "If you hadn't, I wouldn't have cared to see 
 you," I answered. 
 
 "I'm glad you feel that way ... I had 
 hoped you would." He seemed relieved. 
 "And I guess mother will see it that way, too," 
 he added. 
 
 "Doesn't she like your enlisting?" 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 5 
 
 "Oh, yes! Only you know how mothers 
 are . . ." 
 
 I assured him I did, and he dressed and we 
 came back to the house. 
 
 That was the first Tuesday in June — the 
 5th. To-day comes your letter telling me that 
 his contingent has sailed, and how lonely you 
 feel. 
 
 Dear Molly, I wish that I could only say 
 your position was different from other moth- 
 ers', but I cannot. 
 
 The questions you ask, the wonders, hopes 
 and fears that make chaos of your heart and 
 brain only parallel the experience of a million 
 mothers in America to-day. They, too, are 
 lost with wonder and aghast with fear. They, 
 too, have sent their sons to France. Equally 
 upon them is thrown the burden of anxiety 
 and dread. But there will be strength af- 
 forded by such poignant democracy. 
 
 In London, I am told, strangers stop each 
 other on the streets, in theaters and restau- 
 rants, and fall naturally into conversation. 
 Imagine Britishers doing that! 
 
 Much the same thing will happen here. 
 
6 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 Harry and his fellows drill side by side 
 because they find confidence in organized ef- 
 fort. You and the million other mothers will 
 find companionship and courage because you 
 bear a common burden in a common cause. 
 
 Naturally, the finer a mother's sensibilities, 
 the deeper into her soul is being etched the 
 horrible picture of the outcome. But has not 
 this its advantages? The deeper you feel, the 
 more you are capable of looking the ghastly 
 fact of this war in the face without fear, with- 
 out trembling. 
 
 That is the answer to your question — you 
 must first face the fact of danger, sacrifice and 
 possible loss. And you will be brave, you will 
 be strong, you will be your own true, noble 
 self, only in so far as you can take a brave, 
 strong and noble attitude toward the war and 
 Harry's part in it. 
 
 At present you are trying to keep yourself 
 busy with a multitude of war relief activities. 
 Nothing could be wiser or more commendable. 
 Any deed for the right in this evil hour, any 
 little act to alleviate suffering has immense 
 value and advantage. But do not think that 
 these will help you dodge the fact. The invul- 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 7 
 
 nerable armor you must wear in these days is 
 unfailing belief in the righteousness of our 
 cause. 
 
 Courage! Be brave! 
 
The Office 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Certainly this war is showing up men in 
 their true values. 
 
 This afternoon two men were found weep- 
 ing in the office. Imagine it! Men about 
 thirty. Both Americans. Both weeping real 
 tears. 
 
 One was crying for bitter disappointment. 
 He had failed to pass his physical examina- 
 tion for the army draft. 
 
 The other was crying for joy. He, too, had 
 failed to pass. 
 
The Club 
 My dear Sister, 
 
 Your fears for Harry larking around Paris 
 are quite unfounded. He will be far too busy 
 to lark. Besides, you must remember that the 
 boy is no fool. 
 
 If you bring up a boy to be clean and play 
 straight and associate with decent men, you 
 have done about all a mother can. Unques- 
 tionably there are evil associations in the 
 army — 
 
 "Single men in barracks don't grow into 
 plaster saints." 
 
 It isn't a matter of chance or luck. It is a 
 matter of breeding. The man with a strong 
 moral constitution resists evil influences just 
 as a healthy physical constitution resists germs 
 of disease to which the weaker succumb. 
 
 The boy will become hardened in the army, 
 possibly rough. This will never hurt him. A 
 good bath and a few nights between sheets 
 will soften that sort of callous. 
 
 Harry is a soldier, and a soldier is the an- 
 
 9 
 
10 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 tithesis of the sissy. Don't expect him to be a 
 little gentleman or a highly sensitized poetic 
 soul. Expect him to be brutally direct — as di- 
 rect as a bayonet thrust, obedient to the point 
 of self-effacement, and above all courageous 
 and happy. 
 
 His officers will see to it that he is disci- 
 plined, direct and obedient, but much will de- 
 pend on you to keep him contented. When 
 you write, write him only the cheery news. 
 Spare him worries, for he will worry about you 
 on the slightest inkling. Give him news — lots 
 of it. Even the things that seem insignificant 
 to you will be treasured by him. 
 
 Make him feel that you are just the bright- 
 est, bravest, chipperest little old mother in 
 America ! 
 
 Will you do that? 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 When people tell you that they can't see 
 what need there is for American soldiers' going 
 to France to fight, they show a suspicious ig- 
 norance. That is one of the most common 
 pro- German arguments. 
 
 They can't see why, because they don't want 
 to see why . . . 
 
 Invariably you can measure the moral cali- 
 ber of a man or woman by the extent to which 
 injustice and crime horrify them. Germany's 
 injustice and her criminal acts — Zeppelin 
 raids, Belgian and Serbian atrocities, Arme- 
 nian massacres and such — have been estab- 
 lished beyond a shadow of doubt. No man or 
 woman of principle can look upon them with- 
 out being horrified, sickened and enraged. 
 
 Many of us Americans could not at first 
 sense the injustice of the Belgian invasion, be- 
 cause we had no interest in Belgium. Yet 
 that is as weak an argument as saying that 
 
 you can read of a hideous crime without re- 
 
 11 
 
12 "Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 volting, because you know none of the persons 
 concerned. You revolt at the thought of mur- 
 der. Why? Because murder is a blow struck 
 at the code under which we live in peace and 
 security. 
 
 Germany's flaunting of her promises was a 
 blow struck at the entire concept of interna- 
 tional promises. It deliberately depreciated 
 the value of a nation's word of honor. When 
 she valued her promises to Belgium no more 
 than a scrap of paper, the world of moral cali- 
 ber ceased trusting Germany or giving her 
 word the slightest credence, just as you would 
 cease trusting a friend who deliberately, to 
 gain her own nefarious ends, broke her prom- 
 ises to you. 
 
 From time to time you will meet people, glib 
 of tongue and quick in rebuttal, who will at- 
 tempt to cloud the fundamental fact by all 
 manner of clever sophistry. In the face of 
 such arguments you must hold fast to the 
 basic principles of right and honor. 
 
 That is what I meant when I said, in a pre- 
 vious letter, that the invulnerable armor you 
 must wear in these days is an unfailing belief 
 in the righteousness of our cause. 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 13 
 
 This war has taught us to take an interest 
 in honor the world over. Eventually we will 
 become as sensitive to chicanery, falsehood and 
 crime in a foreign land as we are to them in 
 our own. The moral leaders of the world 
 have always shown this cosmopolitan con- 
 science. To-day the man in the street is ac- 
 quiring some of it. He will be a nobler man 
 for it ; it will pervade, invigorate and vivify his 
 life. It will make him a citizen of the world. 
 
 But what will you say to your friends who 
 cannot see why? Nothing. Hell knows no 
 fury like a pro-German scorned. 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Dusk came down the valley. 
 
 I slipped out of the Mill and took the upper 
 road — past the store, past the quaint green and 
 blue cottage of the pretty girl who paints the 
 magazine covers, and up to the hill beyond 
 where the trees arch over the path. 
 
 Lights shone out from some of the house 
 windows. But most of the houses were dark. 
 They looked out upon the purple hills and fast- 
 gathering night with distrust. 
 
 The myriad sounds of night commenced — 
 rustling in the bushes, the sweep and whisper 
 of trees, chirps from some sleepless bird, the 
 conversation of crickets, the far-off howl of a 
 dog at the moon rounding the shoulder of the 
 hill. 
 
 Past the bend came a new noise — high- 
 pitched, inharmonious, human. But it halted 
 me in my tracks. 
 
 "Help of the helpless, O, abide with me . . ." 
 
 Silently I dropped the ashes from my pipe 
 
 14 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 15 
 
 and slipped it into my pocket. It seemed ir- 
 reverent to smoke. 
 
 A few yards on, and the words came clearer. 
 They came across a close-cropped lawn and 
 down an alley of elms. The open door of the 
 church and the two long windows beside it 
 cut the dusk with paths of light. Far above, 
 the white steeple reached into the night and 
 caught silver from the new-risen moon and 
 sparkling stars. 
 
 "I fear no foe with Thee at hand to bless ; 
 Ills have no weight. . . ." 
 
 A woman came down the steps and hurried 
 across the path to the road. Her head was 
 bowed. She seemed intent on going some- 
 where. A moment, and she was lost around 
 the bend. 
 
 "Heav'n's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee, 
 In life, in death . . ." 
 
 The next time I looked up the steps were 
 filled with people — women and young girls 
 and an old man or two in Sunday blacks. 
 
 They came down slowly in twos and threes. 
 
 The young girls walked arm in arm. . . . 
 This time a year ago a lad would have seen 
 them home. 
 
The Club 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 "Safe in France!" 
 
 A thrill ran down my old spine as I read it 
 in the paper this morning, and I have been 
 happy ever since — happy that they are there, 
 but really envious of them. 
 
 Do you realize, Molly, that Americans who 
 never dreamed they would be in France, are 
 there to-day, and that they have gone for such 
 a purpose as never before Americans went to 
 France to accomplish ! 
 
 Before this, Americans always went to 
 France to take something from her. To-day 
 they are taking something to her. 
 
 Think of the things you and dear old George 
 and I went to France for — 
 
 Paris was France for us in those days — 
 Paris of the Pre-Catalan, the Louvre, the Pal- 
 ais Royal; Paris of the lithesome grace and 
 tinkling laughter; Paris of the white nights, 
 where good Americans go when they die; 
 
 16 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 17 
 
 Paris, "the world's great mart where joy is 
 trafficked in," as Alan Seeger put it. 
 
 We were average, healthy-minded Ameri- 
 cans. We had an affection for the Old 
 World's way of living, and a decent regard for 
 its culture and colorful past. But we went to 
 France to have a good time. 
 
 To-day a strange company of Americans 
 has gone there. Men of stern purpose. Men 
 in khaki. Men with guns and bayonets. Men 
 with rails and locomotives and aeroplanes and 
 artillery and all the grim munitions of war. 
 Never before did such Americans go to France. 
 
 I am proud that we can at last pay back our 
 debt to France. Not the debt for Lafayette — 
 I'm not thinking of that — but our own debt for 
 our happy days there, our golden, idle hours, 
 our rare spiritual awakenings, our schooling 
 in noble and beautiful things. 
 
 I heard this idea expressed by an editor re- 
 cently. He has a boy in the American Ambu- 
 lance who was awarded the Croix de Guerre, 
 and in speaking of him, he said, "Before he 
 left, I told Ned that I was too old to fight 
 and give back half of what France gave me 
 in the years I lived there, and that it was up 
 
18 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 to him to square my account. Now, by 
 George, the French have insisted on piling up 
 my debt by decorating him! It's character- 
 istic of them, isn't it?" 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Yes, that is a terrible fact, but it is true, nev- 
 ertheless. American boys are just as vulner- 
 able to bullets as French boys or British or 
 Russian or German. 
 
 Somehow, we have a vague notion that be- 
 cause they are ours they can surmount all 
 dangers. That was what mothers in other 
 lands consoled themselves with — until the cas- 
 ualty lists came in. 
 
 We must all steel ourselves to accept these 
 tragedies. We must be mentally ready — 
 trained to receive blows and to "come back." 
 You can "come back" if you are willing to 
 train. A boxer trains for a fight, a runner for 
 a race, why not you, mothers and fathers, for 
 the spiritual conflicts which are surely coming 
 to pass? 
 
 Do not think that you can hastily acquire a 
 stoicism to meet a desperate emergency. On 
 the other hand, do not be constantly expecting 
 a blow. Worry will no more prevent its com- 
 
 19 
 
20 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 ing than worrying will stop a bullet in its 
 course. Instead, go about your day with an 
 air of determination, assurance and cheer. 
 
 Keep yourself in the best possible health. 
 The strong body will help maintain the strong 
 mind. Do not overdo war activities. Have 
 other interests — go to the theater now and 
 then; drop into a "movie"; eat out at a res- 
 taurant or a friend's house once in a while. 
 
 Always carry your head high. You have a 
 right to your pride. Besides, carrying your 
 head high will make you walk correctly, and 
 walking correctly is good for one's figure! 
 
 I also think that the well-held head indicates 
 the well-held spirit — a soul reserved, calm, ob- 
 servant, sure of itself. If you do this in pub- 
 lic, you will also do it in private. You will be 
 a Spartan mother. 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dearest Sister of Mine, 
 
 When I wrote you the other day about being 
 a Spartan mother, I hesitated to speak of the 
 one thing that, in my opinion, is the most nec- 
 essary of all. 
 
 Spartan mothers may never have shed tears, 
 but I am sure they must have prayed. 
 
 I am not going to tell you how to pray, dear 
 Molly, but just — to pray. 
 
 Prayer, as some one has said, is the con- 
 sciousness of the presence of God. 
 
 Once we become aware of this presence, we 
 see clearer, we feel deeper, we have a stronger 
 grip on life, because we understand, to some 
 extent, the purposes of God. And the more 
 we know Him and the more we appreciate His 
 way of doing things, the greater is our willing- 
 ness to accept that way without question. 
 
 If only we could understand why God per- 
 mits suffering and pain and loneliness, how 
 much easier it would be to bear them! But 
 
 that very ignorance is what challenges us to 
 
 21 
 
22 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 devotion and sacrifice and noble deeds. It 
 makes life worth the living. It makes the 
 mother strong and her soldier son brave. 
 
 In these days we must all lean very heavily 
 on Him. 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 I am writing out on the "perch" — the plat- 
 form I built last year over the water-wheel box. 
 
 Save for a glimpse here and there through 
 the leaves of the river gliding past my door, 
 the trees hide me entirely from the road. 
 
 For the last half -hour a humming-bird has 
 been darting in and out the columbine at the 
 foot of the steps. He has a nest not far from 
 here, and he comes and goes like a tiny aero- 
 plane, buzzing speedily through space, his eye 
 keen for booty. He has been my sole distrac- 
 tion — he and thoughts about your despair over 
 Russia. 
 
 It is terrifying to think that the Russian 
 collapse may require the sacrifice of American 
 lives to counteract its results. The Russians, 
 drunk with freedom, have still to learn that 
 loyalty to one's country is the duty and pre- 
 rogative of a liberated people, that "freedom," 
 as Pericles said, "is valor." 
 
 If you knew the Russian people intimately, 
 
 23 
 
24 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 you would not allow the present trouble to 
 cloud the great vision of their future. Russia 
 has passed through many a night as dark as 
 this, but invariably, when dawn came, has she 
 been found with her face to the light. 
 
 Perhaps you cannot feel this intimacy. 
 Americans have not always been on friendly 
 terms with Russia. There are many reasons 
 why we have not. 
 
 Neither America nor Russia has striven very 
 hard — despite several historical manifestations 
 of interest — to foster an abiding friendship. 
 Both nations have known the malevolence of 
 misinformation and distrust. Both have suf- 
 fered from geographic separation. Both have 
 felt acutely the intervention of pernicious Teu- 
 tonic influences. There has really been only a 
 meager showing of that sympathy and senti- 
 ment which, in other instances, has bred a 
 camaraderie vital, advantageous and enduring. 
 
 There is our relation to England, for exam- 
 ple — 
 
 We are bound to England by indisputable 
 ties. We speak her tongue, have garnered the 
 fruits of her literary achievements and are be- 
 holden to her for many humanitarian benefits. 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 25 
 
 She is at once our mother and our ally — a 
 stern mother, a staunch ally. At her knee we 
 learned those lessons of law and justice upon 
 which our code is founded. 
 
 We may not agree with all the things Eng- 
 land has done or permitted done, yet, as she 
 stretched forth the curtain of her habitations, 
 she has set before us an example that we might 
 do well to emulate. She has "turned a savage 
 wilderness into a glorious empire," as Burke 
 expressed it. She has made "the most exten- 
 sive and honorable conquests not by destroy- 
 ing but by promoting the wealth, the number, 
 the happiness of the human race." 
 
 Our return of the Boxer Indemnity, our hu- 
 manitarian treatment of Cuba, our enlightened 
 supervision of the Philippines — these are rec- 
 ords of which we can be justly proud. But 
 are they not the sort of things one would ex- 
 pect from America? Are they not the sort of 
 things one would expect from a nation with 
 such a heritage? 
 
 Then there is our relation to France. 
 
 France represents all that the word "pal" 
 means. She was our companion on the ven- 
 ture of democracy. Many a time has she lent 
 
26 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 us a hand, and given us the stimulus of spirit- 
 ual visions. We know her weaknesses, and 
 still we love her. We would like to do things 
 the way she does them. We envy the insou- 
 ciance of her spirit. France, to borrow the 
 poet's phrase, has lived with her arm around 
 Life's shoulder. We, too, would like to live 
 that way. 
 
 But Russia we have held to be the wayward 
 child of the nations. Time and again we have 
 had reason to question the sincerity of her mo- 
 tives and the dependability of her word. 
 
 Russia is a land of mingled East and West. 
 It has the good intentions of the West with 
 the evil heritage of the East. It has constantly 
 been trying to outgrow its bad political habits. 
 Do not expect immediate perfection. Do not 
 expect what even the authorities on Russia 
 would hesitate to claim for her. 
 
 Since March of 1917 Russia and America 
 have been bound by new ties of sympathy. 
 But so far as you and I and countless other 
 Americans were concerned, we very often felt 
 those ties near the snapping-point. We 
 wanted to know, "Will Russia do anything?" 
 
 At the time, you will remember, Haig and 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 27 
 
 Nivelle were driving hard at the Hindenburg 
 line, with encouraging success. We figured 
 — and naturally — that if Brusiloff would do 
 the same on the Eastern front Germany would 
 soon be brought to her knees. In that we 
 made a great mistake — we were measuring the 
 situation from the military standpoint alone. 
 
 The "dark forces" in Russia considered their 
 country — just as we did — merely a military 
 factor. They persistently refused to recog- 
 nize what the war was being fought for. They 
 lacked the spiritual depth necessary to grasp 
 the immense fundamental philosophy of this 
 struggle — the fact that in the travail of the 
 universe is being brought forth the concept of 
 world-wide democracy, and that Russia is play- 
 ing a great part in it. 
 
 What we Americans witnessed with breath- 
 less anxiety in the early days of 1917 was the 
 faint flutter of life in the new-born child of 
 democracy. We wanted it to live, because it 
 was after our own fashion and image. We 
 wanted it to prevail against the powers of 
 darkness lest we, too, become enshrouded in 
 them. Had democracy died in that hour, our 
 faith would have been vain. 
 
28 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 Do you see now, Molly, why we must be 
 patient with the Russians? 
 
 Do not expect that all Russians will grasp 
 the meaning of democracy. Even here in 
 America we do not all understand it. Russia 
 with its 180,000,000 souls speaking 150 tongues 
 and dialects, must move along slowly. We 
 who have inherited the stride of freedom must 
 have patience with these people who are just 
 learning to walk without bonds. 
 
 It makes me prouder to feel that we are 
 playing a part in this great liberation, that 
 my nephew and the million other lads who 
 have gone across are helping Russia attain the 
 freedom for which she has fought these five 
 centuries. 
 
 Somehow I feel that this is the "unfinished 
 work" to which Lincoln dedicated our nation. 
 
The Club 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 What books shall you read these days? 
 
 The books that you would read at any other 
 time. 
 
 It is a great mistake, I feel, to plunge into 
 deep despair and then try to anchor yourself 
 there by reading a lot of pious works. 
 
 Do not read in order to forget ; read in order 
 to be normal and contented, and to understand 
 the great facts of this war. 
 
 By all means read H. G. Wells. He comes 
 from the future, and his spiritual development 
 is unquestionably one of the most interesting 
 progresses we have witnessed. G. K. Ches- 
 terton comes from the past, and I feel that he 
 has failed lamentably to measure up to the de- 
 mands of this war. Kipling, too, has done 
 nothing more than average good reporting. 
 
 Do not miss reading the books written by 
 the lads who have been in the thick of the fight. 
 Some of them are the most amazing pieces of 
 
 29 
 
30 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 literature — lads in their early twenties, lads 
 who have been seared and purged and cleansed 
 by the fire, and who speak in the simple tongue 
 of major prophets. 
 
 It is unnecessary to tell you to read the Bible. 
 It is even difficult to understand a daily news- 
 paper unless one knows his Scriptures. There 
 is a chapter — the 17th of St. John — that has 
 meant a lot to me these past few weeks, and 
 perhaps it will mean a lot to you. It begins, 
 you know, with that noble address, "Father, 
 the hour has come ; glorify thy son that thy son 
 also may glorify thee!" 
 
 Then, if you do not know them, get yourself 
 copies of "The Road Mender" by Michael 
 Fairless and "The Private Papers of Henry 
 Ryecroft," by George Gissing. You will want 
 to own them. They are not the kind of books 
 one can borrow satisfactorily. 
 
 I am also a great believer in knowing good 
 poetry by heart. Sometimes, when words fail 
 us, a line of verse will spring to our lips and 
 give us just that expression which the circum- 
 stances demand. 
 
 You might learn Henley's "Out of the night 
 that covers me," and that passage from Fran- 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 31 
 
 cis Thompson's "Hound of Heaven" that be- 
 gins — 
 
 "I was heavy with the even 
 When she lit her glimmering tapers" 
 
 and that other group of lines commencing 
 with — 
 
 "Ah! must — 
 Designer Infinite ! — 
 
 Ah ! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with 
 it? . . ." 
 
 Of course, there are hundreds of other poems 
 and lines, and you will find those that really- 
 mean something to you. 
 
 Did it ever occur to you that there is some 
 very fine poetry in our hymns? Hymns "fit 
 in" as nothing else does. "O God, our help in 
 ages past," "Jesu, the very thought of Thee," 
 and "The Son of God goes forth to war" are 
 all favorites of mine. I catch myself humming 
 them now and then. It doesn't hurt. Doubt- 
 less you have your own favorites, too. 
 
The Office 
 Dear old Molly, 
 
 I am glad you asked me why we are pledg- 
 ing such huge sums to our Allies. You could 
 never be expected to understand the financial 
 situation. But then, it is more than a question 
 of finance ; it is a point of honor. 
 
 First, our Allies need the money — that is 
 obvious. 
 
 Second, we have it to lend. 
 
 But, most important of all, we held this 
 money only as trustees. 
 
 During the two and a half years before we 
 came into this war we made immense profits 
 out of the misfortunes of the European na- 
 tions. They were obliged to buy here, and, 
 unless we had refused to manufacture muni- 
 tions, we could not help making the money. 
 In a business sense this was legitimate enough, 
 but there are other circumstances in this world 
 beside business. 
 
 Had we continued being neutral, willing to 
 pocket our pride and our ideals for the sake of 
 
 32 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 33 
 
 making more money, we would have stood in 
 danger of the greatest moral collapse that ever 
 threatened a people. Too long have we borne 
 the stigma of being money-grabbers. "Busi- 
 ness Over All" was the inscription the Ger- 
 mans put on the medal they struck to celebrate 
 the Lusitania sinking. To them, who cannot 
 understand the psychology of a free people 
 and of American ideals, the opprobrious 
 phrase was justifiable. 
 
 When we threw in our lot with the Allies, 
 we took our stand at a bar of judgment. The 
 world was to see if the charge of gross mate- 
 rialism could be sustained. And we proved 
 that we knew ourselves not the owners of this 
 vast wealth, but only its trustees. 
 
 When America went to war, more than her 
 bankers were enrolled — we called to the colors 
 the wealth of our youth's vigor, the wise coun- 
 sel of our business men, the sacrifices of a mil- 
 lion mothers, the output of the mines, the en- 
 ergy of a thousand rushing streams, the prod- 
 uct of ten thousand factories, the timber upon 
 countless hills, and the growing crops of an en- 
 tire continent. All America went to war. 
 For all America knew that the hour had come 
 
34 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 when our nation must measure up to its pro- 
 fessed ideals. 
 
 I am proud to be alive to-day. America has 
 made good ! 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Do you remember my neighbor Walton, 
 whose fields touch the back of my garden? 
 He's a giant of a man; a real Yankee farmer, 
 with a face cross-grained, rough-hewn and 
 weather-worn as a boulder of granite, hands 
 gnarled by a lifetime at the plow, and eyes 
 limpid blue like a sailor's. Usually he is a 
 taciturn old codger, brusque and grumpy. 
 To-day I found him quite amiable. 
 
 He was hilling corn with a horse cultivator 
 down by the back fence. The air was heavy 
 with the rich odor of newly turned earth. As 
 I strolled over to pass the time of day with 
 him he looked up, and his face lighted with an 
 unusual cheer. 
 
 "MorninV 
 
 "Good-morning, Mr. Walton. How are 
 things?" 
 
 "Whoa!" He drew in his horse, threw the 
 reins off his neck and came to where I was 
 
 35 
 
36 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 standing. "Everything's fine this mornin'. 
 Yes, sir, it is." Then he stopped. 
 
 "D'you remember that boy Al of mine?" he 
 asked. There was a ring of pride in his voice. 
 
 "I certainly do. Haven't seen Al for a long 
 time." 
 
 "No. He ain't been up here of late. I jist 
 heard from him. He got over all right." 
 
 "Over where?" 
 
 "France." 
 
 "No ! You don't mean to tell me Al's in the 
 army!" My surprise was genuine. As a lad 
 Al Walton was nothing but a nondescript 
 farmer's boy with no special characteristics to 
 remember him by. 
 
 "Yes, sir, my Al's a soldier." The old man 
 continued. "And I bet he makes a good one. 
 He always was a strong little tike, always get- 
 tin' in fights. I was for makin' a farmer out of 
 him, but he says to me, 'No, Pop, I ain't gona 
 stay here and work the way you have. New 
 York for mine. That's where the money is.' 
 Of course, I labored with him, but it weren't no 
 use. ... So Al, he went down to the city to 
 work. He was gettin' twelve dollars a week 
 when the war started." 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 37 
 
 Walton pushed back his hat and looked up 
 to where the green and saffron and tannish 
 checker-board hills stretched off to the blue 
 horizon. A strange light spread over his face, 
 such as glows over a summer sky when sheet 
 lightning shoots across it. "But I guess it's all 
 right," he went on slowly. "I've got a lot of 
 work in me yet. . . . But here's me and the 
 missus. And there's Al in France, fightin'." 
 
 Suddenly he seemed to recollect. "B' the 
 way, Al spoke about Mrs. Grahame's boy 
 Harry. He says he's in his regiment. That's 
 funny, ain't it?" 
 
 Just then I heard the postman's whistle and 
 went back to take the mail. There was your 
 letter and Harry's with the same news about 
 Al Walton. Ever since, I have been marvel- 
 ing at the strange bedfellows this war has made. 
 
 Can't you picture Al Walton's career? His 
 father told me about it later. 
 
 Fearing the drudgery and loneliness and 
 poor wage of farm life, he goes to the city and 
 first gets a job at nine dollars a week in a 
 foundry. That work proves too arduous and 
 he finds himself an assistant shipping clerk in 
 an express office at a dollar advance. A year 
 
38 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 later, tiring of that, he lands a place back of 
 the counter in a grocery store. From this he 
 goes into the army — a calling where wages 
 really mean little. 
 
 Meantime Harry is being nursed through a 
 costly preparatory school and a costlier college. 
 
 He learns to wear dinner clothes and dance 
 and parse Latin sentences and recite the sa- 
 lient dates of English history. He has a room 
 at college that is lined with banners and post- 
 ers and books and mementos of a hundred 
 glorious days and nights. 
 
 He plays on the college tennis team, writes 
 terrible verse for the college paper, passes 
 through a Swinburne madness to a fist-pound- 
 ing enthusiasm for Kipling and O. Henry. 
 And then he graduates, dances all night at the 
 senior "prom," sings doleful songs with other 
 girls and boys at dawn under the old elms of 
 the campus, and next morning is awarded a 
 piece of parchment assuring those "to whom 
 these presents shall come" — and who can read 
 Latin — that Henry Bartholomew Grahame, 
 having passed sufficient courses in the required 
 number of learned subjects, is entitled to be a 
 Bachelor of Arts. 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 39 
 
 Thus fortified, he takes the icy plunge into 
 the commercial world. Fifteen dollars a week 
 as an advertising solicitor is not a bad begin- 
 ning. 
 
 You, most indulgent of mothers, see that he 
 never wants — the rent is always paid, the suits 
 always pressed, the coin always in hand for 
 amusements. And every few months you 
 come to town, and he tells you there is Big 
 Money in the Advertising Game — and you go 
 home happy with the roseate dream of your lad 
 becoming a Commercial Giant ! 
 
 Suddenly to the boys of this country is issued 
 the challenge: "The world must be made safe 
 for Democracy!" 
 
 On his way home in the subway that night 
 Al Walton reads of the war. He talks it over 
 with folks at the boarding-house — and his sleep 
 is disturbed by strange dreams. 
 
 That night Harry rides up in the bus, but 
 forgets to look at the eddies of pretty girls on 
 the pavement, so engrossed is he with the re- 
 port that America has taken her stand with 
 France and Britain against the malefactor of 
 the world. Doubtless that night he sits by 
 
40 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 the window, his feet on the sill, and gazes for 
 hours over the housetops with never a word. 
 
 And finally Al Walton goes to his boss and 
 says that he simply can't stand it any longer, 
 and is going to enlist. And Harry goes to his 
 boss and says he simply can't stand it any 
 longer, and is going to enlist. 
 
 A week later they are lined up shoulder to 
 shoulder. They wear the same sort of uni- 
 form, carry the same sort of gun and bayonet 
 and kit. 
 
 To-night they sleep in pup tents side by side. 
 They will live in the trenches as mates. They 
 will go "over the top" as brothers, fighting and 
 suffering as fellows in a common cause. 
 
 Khaki is a great leveler. Through it func- 
 tions the splendid democracy of war. It dis- 
 solves prejudices and artificial social distinc- 
 tions. It gives all men a re-birth, from which 
 they start again free and equal. 
 
En route 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 This is too good to keep. 
 
 As I was walking to the train this morning 
 I met my neighbor Walton on the road. He 
 was driving his cultivator down to the lower 
 field. 
 
 "What do you think that boy of mine says?" 
 he called. "Al says he's never got such good 
 things to eat as he's had since he's been in the 
 army. That's funny, ain't it?" 
 
 I assured him it was. Although I didn't 
 say what I thought — that Al must have been 
 making some invidious comparisons between 
 the fare Uncle Sam sets out and the meals 
 provided by a certain lady ogre of a Brooklyn 
 boarding-house ! 
 
 I suppose Harry will be writing next that 
 there is nothing in the world to compare with 
 army beans ! 
 
 Cheer up, beans won't hurt him. 
 
 41 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Molly dear, 
 
 How shall you feel toward German moth- 
 
 ers 
 
 You say the human heart is the human heart 
 the world over, that a Prussian mother can 
 just as easily be broken with grief as can an 
 American or British or French. That is very 
 true. Mother love is a universal element. 
 The mothers of Germany in the age of that 
 nation's greatest and tenderest sentiment were 
 enthroned above all else. Some of that senti- 
 ment remains in the masses of the German 
 people to-day. Yet the training of the last 
 three generations in Germany has not been di- 
 rected toward a cherishing of the mother ideal. 
 
 The Prussian ideal for a woman is to bear 
 children — as many as she can — cook the 
 meals and represent the family at divine wor- 
 ship. This has had a terrible effect on both 
 men and women. It has made the woman a 
 mere bearer of burdens. It has made the man 
 less the companion of his wife and more her 
 
 42 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 43 
 
 overlord. The man was highly prized because 
 he was a potential fighting unit. He fitted 
 exactly into the Prussian military scheme, and 
 so did the woman, if kept in her place as con- 
 stant child-bearer, cook and church attendant. 
 
 From this has come the servility of German 
 womanhood, and a lowering of the national 
 ideals. For the nation that degrades its wo- 
 men must inevitably become gross, coarse, and 
 brutal. 
 
 Do you remember my writing you last 
 month the way Harry expressed it? "We are 
 not naturally brutes. We treat our women 
 differently. That's one way you can tell." 
 There you have a concise summary of a Ger- 
 man national characteristic. Of course, there 
 are countless exceptions, but the Prussian ideal 
 remains dominant. And the Prussian ideal is 
 what we are fighting to crush. 
 
 Some years back I was sitting on the steps 
 of a hotel at Cortina watching a number of 
 Germans come up the mountain. They were 
 on a walking tour. The men came first, bur- 
 dened only by their own corpulence and 
 alpen-stocks. Several moments after the 
 women hove in sight. Each woman carried a 
 
44 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 heavy knapsack, and she dragged along as 
 though she simply could not walk another step. 
 
 Later in the evening a girl of our party fell 
 into conversation with one of the women and 
 was bold enough to ask, "Why don't you 
 women make the men carry the knapsacks on 
 these tramps?" 
 
 "Oh, but I am the wife," the frau answered 
 cheerfully. And she really didn't seem to 
 mind it at all. 
 
 This is a peaceful example of Prussian Kul- 
 tur in the working. It coarsened the men and 
 hardened the women beyond complaint or re- 
 monstrance. 
 
 Don't waste your time, Molly, wondering 
 if German mothers feel anguish as deep as 
 American mothers. It would be utterly in- 
 human to say that they do not. They suffer 
 even more. They have almost been forced to 
 become numb, cold and acceptant. But it is 
 for you to look ahead to that day when, 
 through our victory over the Prussian ideal, 
 German womanhood will be emancipated. 
 
 The boys who are in France may not be 
 aware of it, but their fighting is a piece of no- 
 ble gallantry. Victory for their arms will 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 45 
 
 mean victory for German women. The bur- 
 dens our soldiers bear in France to-day and 
 you bear here in your heart are carried for the 
 women on the other side of No Man's Land. 
 . . . Some day they will understand this. 
 
On the road 
 Dear Sis, 
 
 An intense longing for quiet crept over me. 
 I took a book, and followed the river road up 
 to a lake in the hills, and sat down to enjoy 
 what I had come to find. 
 
 What a disillusion! 
 
 I had thought it would be peace, ineffable 
 peace, to lie beside the limpid, lustral waters 
 of that lake. 
 
 Then suddenly came the consciousness that 
 beneath its calm was a buried tumult — the 
 constant urging of bottom springs, the blind 
 groping of roots into the dark earth, the tire- 
 less reach upward and outward of branch and 
 stem and leaf. . . . Only the stones would 
 seem to scorn the tumult, stones that had 
 passed through the trying fires and the cooling 
 of ages and have at last attained the serene 
 inaction of maturity. 
 
 4G 
 
The Office 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Yes, I know the bayonet practice that 
 Harry describes is vivid. And I guess the 
 actual practice is much more vivid than his de- 
 scription. But please, Molly, don't worry 
 about its ruining his morals. 
 
 Remember this — our Allies fought with the 
 accepted instruments of war until the Hun 
 turned loose his insane fury of gas and fire 
 and contagious germs. These were the things 
 he had solemnly pledged at The Hague not 
 to use. 
 
 Thank God, we have not yet taken to scat- 
 tering contagious germs ; please God we never 
 shall. But we must meet the foe with steel of 
 his own strength. It would be wrong to do 
 otherwise. You cannot argue with a machine 
 gun; you can only answer it with a machine 
 gun of greater capacity for destruction. You 
 cannot compromise with a mad beast or a man 
 who deliberately rapes, murders, loots and 
 burns ; you must kill him. 
 
 47 
 
48 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 If you feel that jabbing six inches of cold 
 steel into Germans will make brutes of Harry 
 and his fellows, what would you think about 
 him if he refused to do it? Eh? 
 
 In times of peace the man who refuses to 
 defend his fellow man against the unjust and 
 murderous assault of a thug is called a cow- 
 ard. How much more is he a coward who sees 
 the bleeding and mutilated forms of outraged 
 men and women and the ruins of their homes, 
 and does not rush to their defense? This sort 
 of bravery, Molly, is what you gave the boy 
 yourself. 
 
 No parents could have watched over the 
 training of their boy more devotedly than you 
 and George. You taught him tenderness, un- 
 selfishness, loyalty, laughter, courage, and en- 
 durance, and with these things to play the 
 great game. Put a bayonet in such a man's 
 hand and tell him to kill his foe. He will kill 
 not because he has a lust for blood, but be- 
 cause of the righteousness of his cause. 
 
 You can differentiate between the men 
 who have a lust for blood and those who have 
 not by the way they treat the vanquished foe. 
 The difference between the German treatment 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 49 
 
 of prisoners and the allies, clearly illustrates 
 this point. 
 
 There have been too many proven cases of 
 Germans' shooting, mutilating, torturing and 
 committing other unspeakable retaliations on 
 the man who is down to leave the slightest 
 doubt in my mind that the Prussian ideal is an 
 ideal of blood lust. 
 
 When Harry and the other boys finish with 
 this war there is no reason to believe that they 
 will be anything but morally and physically 
 strengthened. They will be so sickened of 
 fighting, of bloodshed and destruction that 
 they will never be able to think of taking up 
 arms again. 
 
 But, also, we will never be able to accuse 
 them of cowardice. They are fighting a beast 
 that brooks no opponent, even the weakest. 
 Six inches of cold steel is the only thing that 
 can halt that beast. 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 To-day I left the office early, came up to the 
 country, and started out for a long tramp with 
 Smudge. Faithful beast, he heeled every 
 step of the way, and when I slashed the road- 
 side bushes in my wrath and talked aloud, he 
 never so much as growled. I am feeling much 
 better now — less discouraged and more capa- 
 ble of looking facts in the face. A good walk 
 in the country is the best antidote for war 
 blues. 
 
 When you wrote me that the bad news of 
 the U-boat attacks and the feeble advances of 
 the French and British had thrown you into 
 the depths of despair, I had a secret feeling of 
 gratitude. 
 
 Please do not misunderstand me. 
 
 You are just a mother- woman, concerned 
 with your home and the welfare of your boy, 
 and the great world events have not meant so 
 much to you before as they do now. There 
 are thousands of other mothers here in Amer- 
 
 50 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 51 
 
 ica who have read the war news for three 
 years, have taken sides, have suffered dismay 
 or triumph, yet to whom the war was not a 
 vital, burning subject until the participation 
 of their own sons in it brought it vividly home 
 to them. 
 
 Had the powers that sunk our ships been 
 permitted to go unpunished and unthwarted, 
 the peace and security of your home in the 
 golden fields of the South and my little old 
 mill beside the quiet waters of Silvermine 
 would have been threatened. Life would have 
 meant a shuttered house in a dark street. 
 
 We do not recognize the right to murder, to 
 rape, to loot, or to destroy. Our forefathers 
 sacrificed and we, too, fought that life might 
 be more precious, womanhood more revered, 
 property more secure, and the worth-while 
 things of this world made abiding. 
 
 To hold fast these liberties, bought with so 
 much precious blood, we must win — and win 
 in the right way. 
 
 We are not sudden haters ; but by dint 
 Of many horrors all our hearts are quick. 
 
 Germany reached the zenith of her aspira- 
 
52 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 tion in a hymn of hate. We must reach ours 
 not in hate, but in a grim determination to 
 fight until the principles of decency and right 
 are unquestionably secure against further at- 
 tack. We must do more — we must set up 
 such a noble standard that the German people 
 will see through the gross deception that has 
 been played on them and rise in their might 
 to cast it forever from their nation. 
 
 Many times have the Allies met with terri- 
 ble defeat and appalling losses. The losses 
 and delays last week are infinitesimal com- 
 pared with some that have gone before. Our 
 American troops will also meet with reverses, 
 and line after line will have to fall. We are 
 not superhuman — and the foe is desperate. 
 But in no wise must we permit this to under- 
 mine our loyalty to our causes or weaken our 
 belief in the ultimate victory. 
 
 In dark days such as these, remember the 
 pledge the great English statesman made. 
 It is among the world's noblest utterances: 
 "Never shall the sword be sheathed until the 
 object is accomplished for which it was 
 drawn." 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 My neighbor Walton has said unmention- 
 able things about the censor. He speaks of 
 him in vivid adjectives, calls him rural, hand- 
 hewn, New England pseudonyms. 
 
 I know. 
 
 Did he not hurl these adjectives over my 
 back fence this morning? And did it not re- 
 quire all my powers of persuasion to get the 
 old gentleman back into a presentable frame 
 of mind? 
 
 Apparently Al must have been too meti- 
 culous about geographical identification in his 
 letter, and the censor exercised summary 
 measures. 
 
 The envelope was in Al's handwriting, but 
 the enclosure was in another's. It bore the 
 message : 
 
 Dear Sir, 
 
 Your son is well and happy, but he talks too much. 
 
 Perhaps this may explain some of Harry's 
 future silences. 
 
 53 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 You can't understand the slacker? 
 
 I do not wonder. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how a man can 
 refuse to defend his motherland when she is 
 attacked and her principles flaunted. And 
 yet, dear Molly, for the same reasons that man 
 would refuse to defend his mother. 
 
 The slacker is fundamentally a coward. 
 
 Now cowardice involves many things. 
 Fear of physical discomfort, injury and death 
 is one — and this is the least fear the slacker 
 knows. Fear of material loss is another. 
 And this is his greatest fear. 
 
 He does not fear death, because he cannot 
 look that far. He very much fears material 
 loss, because that marks the breadth and zen- 
 ith of his vision. 
 
 If the slacker could see some way to gain 
 advantage or make money out of war, he 
 would go, and go gladly. The slacker looks 
 on war as a business proposition: it interferes 
 
 54 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 55 
 
 with commerce, it destroys capital, it causes 
 mercantile uncertainty. This no one would 
 deny. 
 
 It is also part of the metabolism of the race 
 — the constant tearing down and tireless build- 
 ing up, the growth and decay that constitute 
 the human struggle toward perfection. 
 
 This war must have come sooner or later, 
 for the cancer of German autocracy was fast 
 spreading over the fair body of the world. 
 Only an heroic measure could stop it. And 
 we chose that measure. 
 
 What if our wealth does slip through our 
 hands, what if the fields do whiten with the 
 bones of countless sons, if only we can ac- 
 complish this purpose? For we live not for 
 to-day but for to-morrow. 
 
 Life begins to-morrow. 
 
 You gave of yourself in pain that a son 
 might be born, and his father labored not for 
 his own advantage but that that son might be 
 better fitted to carry on the work in his own 
 generation. You have lived and worked for 
 to-morrow. 
 
 To-day, your son bears onward that ideal, 
 willing, if need be, to give his life for it, even 
 
56 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 as you were willing to give your life for it. 
 
 Of these things the slacker knows naught. 
 To-morrow is only another day to him. 
 
 To you and to the men in France, to-mor- 
 row is a huge opportunity toward which the 
 race must progress at all costs. They are 
 storming the ramparts of the future, these lads. 
 Their eyes behold the to-morrow of the world. 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear Molly Mine, 
 
 To-day as I was going for my train, traffic 
 was blocked to let a regiment pass. It was 
 marching off to camp. 
 
 There was some sporadic cheering; a woman 
 behind me broke into tears. But, on the 
 whole, the pavements were quiet. It was no 
 hour for exultation, and I was glad there was 
 little of it. The men slipped by, rank on rank, 
 in that quiet fashion our soldiers march. Fi- 
 nally came the line of mounted police, and the 
 crowd surged across the street. 
 
 "All kids," remarked a man at my elbow. 
 
 And they were, for the most part, — "big, in- 
 tolerant, gallant boys." 
 
 It seemed a hideous waste to send such lads 
 forth to battle. It seemed to be robbing 
 them of so much of life — life full of oppor- 
 tunity, of sunshine and laughter. Yet, as 
 they passed, I could not help saying to them, 
 "Young men, I hail you on the threshold of 
 great careers!" 
 
 57 
 
58 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 In our poor, blind, stupid way we try to 
 measure the value of life by length of years. 
 We have fallen into the habit of extolling old 
 age, of thinking that long years are necessa- 
 rily full years. And it is all wrong. 
 
 Time has little to do with achievement. 
 Earnestness, sincerity, devotion have; and 
 these qualities youth possesses. Old men daw- 
 dle, procrastinate, question; youth plunges 
 ahead, drives direct to his goal and never rests 
 until he achieves it. Life is valuable only ac- 
 cording to the intensity with which it is lived. 
 
 There are, of course, hundreds of men who 
 have not achieved until well past middle life. 
 But they are exceptions. This is the age of 
 the young man. The young man who has not 
 achieved something definite by thirty-two, or 
 is on the road to attaining it, had better look 
 to his honors. As William Allen White said: 
 "Few men who have much to say or do, say it 
 or do it after forty." 
 
 Thousands of lads have gone down in this 
 war whose civil careers were suddenly and cru- 
 elly cut off. Yet, wouldn't you say that their 
 death was their crowning achievement? 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 59 
 
 "These laid the world away; poured out the red 
 Sweet wine of youth; gave up the years to be 
 Of work and joy, and that unhoped serene, 
 That men call age." 
 
 We cannot measure the fullness of a man's 
 life by the fact that he appears to get the best 
 out of life, but that life gets the best out of 
 him. A man starts to die the day life ceases 
 to draw from him some contribution for the 
 race. 
 
 In the ranks of those men I saw to-day there 
 may have been scores who ceased living long 
 ago, who ceased giving to life. To them the 
 war has come as another chance, a veritable 
 resurrection wherein they will redeem the debt 
 charged against them by the one huge pay- 
 ment of life itself. 
 
The Club 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 I am watching an extraordinary sight. 
 
 It is five o'clock. The grill is filled to ca- 
 pacity. Every table is occupied and extra 
 chairs have been brought in from the writing- 
 room. 
 
 Half the men are in khaki — officers fgr the 
 greater part, with a scattering of navy men in 
 white suits. And — this is the extraordinary 
 part — not a man in that grill is drinking any- 
 thing stronger than ginger ale. 
 
 The club complies with the law which for- 
 bids the sale of intoxicants to men in uniform. 
 The men in civilians' comply with good taste, 
 and do not drink intoxicants in the presence of 
 men who cannot have them. 
 
 A year ago most of those men would have 
 been drinking cocktails and highballs. 
 
 The good or evil of these drinks is not my 
 concern. The fact is that prohibition is com- 
 ing in a way we least expected. It is non- 
 drinking by mutual consent. 
 
 60 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 61 
 
 If you want to stop an evil, put it in the 
 category of those things which "aren't done." 
 That is what the army did, and to-day the man 
 who drinks an intoxicant in the presence of 
 the man in uniform is simply out of it. We 
 require no presidential exactment or ukase 
 from a tsar to prohibit strong drink. The 
 consensus of opinion considers it bad taste. 
 
 Nor do I think the fashion will come back. 
 Over a million soldiers in America to-day are 
 not drinking. Some, because the law forbids, 
 but most of them because a man cannot be a 
 drinker and a good soldier at the same time. 
 When peace comes, there will be a million men 
 who will have learned that a clear head is the 
 principal essential in business for holding 
 down any kind of a job. 
 
 Yes, war is a terrible thing. It is a con- 
 suming fire. But fire is also cleansing. 
 
The Office 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Can a man retrieve himself by the manner 
 of his dying? 
 
 The other day I wrote you that I believed 
 he could. I said that some men would redeem 
 the debt charged against them by the one huge 
 payment of life itself. There are many of 
 our soldiers who will. I know of a number of 
 men in the British and Russian army who al- 
 ready have. 
 
 There was Ivan S , captain of the 4th 
 
 Amur Rifles, a Cossack I met in Blagowest- 
 chensk. I was dining at the "Metropole" 
 when he first came in — a huge mountain of a 
 man with a face like a clenched fist, and a most 
 unenviable record. He had been sent out to 
 a Siberian command to "cool off," having dis- 
 graced himself by debauchery and cruelty in 
 St. Petersburg which even that giddy capital 
 could not condone or forget. Scarcely a man 
 in his barracks mess but loathed him, for, in- 
 stead of cooling off, S grew all the worse 
 
 62 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 63 
 
 in this Asiatic frontier post. Nightly, his 
 orderly would take him home intoxicated, and 
 nightly he would thrash his orderly. It was 
 rumored that he had killed two orderlies al- 
 ready. 
 
 I knew S because he challenged me to a 
 
 duel. After that we were friends — bowing 
 friends. 
 
 A mutual acquaintance in the Russian army 
 has just written me that he fell in the Caucasus 
 campaign last winter. 
 
 It was a bitterly cold night. His company 
 had been cut off from communication with the 
 rear by heavy snow-drifts. Man after man 
 had been killed or frozen to death trying to 
 
 bring up food. This night S kept his 
 
 men in the dugout where there was a fire and 
 took the watches on the listening post himself. 
 
 They found him the next morning several 
 yards in front of the trench. His body was 
 riddled with bullets and frozen stiff. Beside 
 him lay a dead Turk with fresh bandages on 
 
 his head. S had heard his cry for help 
 
 during the night and had crept out to dress his 
 wounds. 
 
 Thus died one of the vilest blackguards I 
 
64 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 have ever known — an utterly wicked man, a 
 murderer, a drunkard, a lecher. But he went 
 out alone, and in the darkness gave his life to 
 
 succor a foe. If S that night did not 
 
 sweep the books clear by the huge gift of life 
 itself, then I am willing to become an uncom- 
 promising atheist. 
 
 Thousands of deeds like this, and even 
 braver, have been crowded into the past three 
 years. Men who in their private lives have 
 refused to live and labor for an ideal have been 
 willing to fling away their lives for it. From 
 the nadir of evil many a man has risen to a 
 sublime occasion in this war, risen to the very 
 zenith of moral achievement. It is not when 
 nor where they died that counted, but how. 
 And because they died so magnificently, the 
 world is a better place for you and me to live 
 in. 
 
 "I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto 
 me," runs the promise. 
 
 In that lonely hour, poor S was indeed 
 
 lifted up — lifted up from a plane of evil living 
 and crime to a plane of uttermost sacrifice and 
 purity, lifted up as an example to men, that 
 they might be nobler for his one noble deed. 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Don't blame me if I get blasphemous. The 
 mere mention of disloyal, alleged Americans 
 sickens me, makes me suspicious, ashamed. 
 Yet, on second sober thought, I have the most 
 serious heart-searchings. 
 
 If our foreign born citizens — our Irish- 
 Americans, German- Americans, and Russian 
 Jews are so bitterly opposed to our part in this 
 war, then something must be wrong with 
 American methods of naturalization. Our 
 boasted melting pot isn't working the way it 
 should. If after these generations of peace 
 and ^prosperity we have failed to absorb these 
 people, failed to make our country their coun- 
 try and our flag their flag, then it is about time 
 we looked into the matter. 
 
 It is easy enough to blame German propa- 
 ganda and bribery for this, but something is 
 wrong with us if it is possible to bribe these 
 people. 
 
 The other day I was reading an article on 
 
 65 
 
66 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 gardens by George Cable that gives an inter- 
 esting parallel. 
 
 "As soon as you pass out of the domain of 
 formal gardening, gardening submitted to a 
 severe architecture, our gardening is a con- 
 quest of nature around us ; but it is not a Ger- 
 man conquest. It is a benevolent, gracious 
 naturalization of nature to citizenship under 
 the home's domain, and an American garden 
 should remain American whatever it borrows 
 from Japan, England, Italy or Holland. . . . 
 At least four-fifths of all the commonest and 
 most beautiful things in our garden are ex- 
 otics, but they are naturalized citizens and 
 have themselves long forgotten that they came 
 from China, Scotland, Persia, or the islands of 
 the seven seas." 
 
 A benevolent, gracious naturalization to 
 citizenship under the home's domain. 
 
 We have been benevolent. No nation un- 
 der the sun is more benevolent to its newcom- 
 ers. We have been gracious and hospitable 
 and willing to tolerate all manner of misun- 
 derstanding and imposition. But I wonder 
 if we have been naturalizing these new people 
 to citizenship under the home's domain? 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 67 
 
 Our great wealth and the apparent ease 
 with which money can be made here have given 
 us the reputation of a purely material people. 
 Many foreigners come to America in the same 
 spirit that a man goes to a sanitarium — not to 
 dwell there for the rest of life, but to recuper- 
 ate or gain immediate financial health in the 
 shortest time possible and by the most inten- 
 sive methods. 
 
 The second generation of foreigners — de- 
 scendants of the men who came to stay — are 
 unquestionably loyal to this country, because 
 they have been naturalized to citizenship under 
 the home's domain. The first generation has 
 a divided allegiance because we Americans 
 have failed to make the home the reason for 
 living here. America was once a harbor for 
 the persecuted, where they could set up their 
 homes and live without molestation. To-day 
 it is a place to make money. 
 
 I do not mean to make a sweeping general- 
 ization about the weakness of the American 
 home, but I do know that on the other side the 
 American home has been painted in colors 
 which make it a byword and a mockery. Our 
 divorces reek to Heaven, our over-night mil- 
 
68 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 lionaires act like mad men, our slavery to ab- 
 surd conventions, our respect for material ac- 
 cumulation and our socially ambitious middle 
 class — all these pale the ideal of home into 
 insignificance. 
 
 Simplicity, loyalty, thrift, hard work — on 
 these principles the domain of the home is 
 built. Let us set up these standards, let us 
 impress them on every foreigner coming to 
 our shores. Let us forever stamp out that vile 
 reputation of easy money, fast living and loose 
 loving. Let us give these exotics, whom we 
 would naturalize in this beautiful garden of 
 America, a decent soil in which to take root 
 and grow sturdily. Then and only then will 
 the flower of their loyalty blossom. 
 
 No, Molly, the fault is not so often in the 
 seed. Where most gardens fail, and where 
 America has failed, is that we have not chosen 
 and prepared the right soil in which to plant it. 
 
The Office 
 Dear Sis, 
 
 I often wish you were in New York these 
 days. There are so many unforgetable sights. 
 Enthusiasm keeps at a white heat here. 
 There is constant parading. Khaki crowds 
 the pavements. The city wears a cosmopoli- 
 tan air with its allied flags and men in varied 
 uniforms — Kilties and French poilus and Brit- 
 ish officers and an occasional Cossack in full 
 sweeping skirts and black sheepskin hat. 
 You would wonder how the exalted spirit can 
 be sustained, yet with each new parade the 
 crowds grow larger. 
 
 Last week I looked up Fifth Avenue, and 
 as far as the eye could see stretched a field of 
 bayonets, swaying to the rhythm of a march, 
 like wheat blown by the wind. 
 
 This week it was a vision of great mercy. 
 Red Cross nurses paraded — thousands of 
 them. The whiteness of their uniforms was a 
 strange contrast to the earth-brown of the men 
 who had marched before. I never saw so 
 many women with kindly eyes. 
 
 69 
 
70 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 All these parades have been going south — 
 toward trains and ferries and camps and 
 troopships. As they pass I close my eyes and 
 dream for an instant that they are marching 
 north, up that avenue — toward home. 
 
Quebec 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 I am writing on Dufferin Terrace, the 
 broad esplanade that looks out over the St. 
 Lawrence and the houses huddled at the foot 
 of the hill. From the citadel above comes the 
 occasional rant of bugles and the "pock" of 
 guns at target practise. A Scottish regiment 
 is barracked there. I fell in with a group of 
 the men yesterday. They have not yet been 
 across, and barracks life is beginning to get 
 on their nerves. 
 
 "Better be fightin' than loafm'," one burly 
 Scot remarked. 
 
 "Loafing is safer," I suggested. 
 
 "Yes, but what difference does it make?" he 
 answered. "You've got to go out some way, 
 sometime. Lots of 'em have." 
 
 It sounded strangely like fatalism, yet the 
 more I thought of it, the more I see that fatal- 
 ism is the wrong word. 
 
 We hear a lot about soldiers being fatalists, 
 71 
 
72 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 not caring how they die because they have to 
 die sometime. It paints a picture of men 
 cruel and unbelieving, scornful of the ends of 
 living. 
 
 This may have been true of previous wars; 
 certainly it was true of some soldiers in the 
 Russian and Japanese armies. But the Russo- 
 Japanese War was a picayune game of capi- 
 talists righting for commercial control over 
 territory. The war we are in is the biggest 
 event the world has ever seen; it is being 
 fought for the maintenance of the fundamen- 
 tal ideals of civilization. The philosophy be- 
 hind it is bewildering, the heroism it has called 
 forth is amazing, the destruction it has occa- 
 sioned appalls even the most hardened. Men 
 who go into it are engulfed in a thing so 
 supremely bigger than themselves that per- 
 sonal safety, personal considerations, personal 
 interests are entirely dwarfed and over- 
 whelmed. They lose identity in the vastness 
 of the cause they serve. One man writing 
 from the trenches has put it: "We have no 
 business worries, everything we do is under or- 
 ders, and we have the perpetual sense of mak- 
 ing our infinitesimal contribution to the biggest 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 73 
 
 and most unselfish sacrifice that the world has 
 seen up to date." 
 
 Perhaps you have felt this at times — how 
 insignificant you are, how entirely submissive 
 you become in the presence of some great nat- 
 ural phenomenon — a storm at sea, a terrific 
 clap of thunder, the roar of Niagara, the in- 
 comprehensible and silent immensity of the 
 Grand Canyon. Your physical being may 
 stiffen, but at heart you are resigned, humbled, 
 emptied of self. You become obedient to a 
 will not your own. Something of that same 
 spirit makes the soldier unafraid to die. 
 
 It is the psychology of heroism that in the 
 face of inexorable duty man loses the recollec- 
 tion of self and acquires a contempt of fear. 
 The instinct of self-preservation fails to func- 
 tion once a man is flooded with the vastness of 
 his purpose. 
 
 The immediate purpose of battle, the pur- 
 poses the soldier feels at the time, is to kill his 
 enemies — as many of them as he can. Don't 
 make any mistake about that. Don't think 
 that the soldiers of France or England or Can- 
 ada bother their heads about autocracy or de- 
 mocracy when they go over the top. They are 
 
74 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 fighting for very life itself — theirs and ours. 
 They are glad to give their lives if, by the sac- 
 rifice, they can avenge the brutal death of their 
 comrades and the filthy and diabolical outrages 
 committed upon their women, their children, 
 and their homes. 
 
 But back of this hate looms the gigantic fig- 
 ure of the ideal, an ideal bigger than any man 
 and the dreams of any man. 
 
 From a war against invasion has developed 
 a war against tyranny. We are fighting as 
 much for the foe as for ourselves. Your son is 
 offering his life to-day that German boys a 
 century from now will not be driven forth to 
 certain death by a military machine. "This 
 war must not be sterile," said Alfred Cazalis. 
 "From all these deaths there must burst forth 
 new life for mankind." 
 
 True, hundreds of men do not comprehend 
 the vastness of the ideals for which they are 
 fighting. What overwhelms them is the im- 
 mediate clash of arms symbolizing the call to 
 duty and sacrifice in defense of these ideals. 
 
 That is what overwhelmed my Kiltie friend 
 of Dufferin Terrace. There was a deep and 
 sober thought behind his apparent cynicism 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 75 
 
 about going out "sometime, somewhere." 
 What he really meant was that living can be- 
 come inconsequential when there is something 
 bigger to die for. 
 
Quebec 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 They were of that caste one sees creeping 
 out of big office buildings at dawn — scrub- 
 women; oldish, with patched clothes, trailing 
 skirts, hats tilted over one eye, and hands 
 gnarled from a lifetime in the suds. 
 
 "I wish to God my own was on her!" one 
 said. 
 
 "I wish to God my own was on her, too," 
 the other replied. 
 
 "Her" was a boat that lay beside the wharf. 
 She wore white with a broad green girdle below 
 her guard rail and huge red crosses, two to a 
 side and one in electric lights swung between 
 her funnels. Her rails were manned with 
 khaki — earth-brown men, with here and there 
 the blue of a nurse's uniform and the white 
 flutter of her veil as the wind played with it. 
 
 There were eight hundred of them, wounded, 
 broken, parts of men. But as the hawser slid 
 down over the wharf bits they raised a cheer 
 that ricocheted for blocks along the waterfront. 
 
 76 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 77 
 
 These eight hundred had been over there, 
 done their bit, and were being sent home. A 
 few months hence they would be civilians 
 again, going about their various duties through 
 the Canadian streets, with naught to mark 
 them save a service button on their coat, that 
 limp, that missing limb, those scars. To-day 
 they were taking their first step back to the old 
 life. They hobbled down the gangplank, 
 sniffed the air, and passed through the gate 
 into the city. 
 
 It isn't the going over there that's so hard, 
 they say, but the coming back. When you 
 part, every one else is parting — that makes it 
 easier. When you come back there are those 
 who wish to God their own were on her — and 
 are not and never can be. 
 
 They were a quiet crew, despite their cheers. 
 They asked for cigarettes and telegraph blanks 
 — that was the extent of their desires. They 
 had little to say about themselves, for such men 
 are "purged of pride"; and but little to say 
 about the men who would not return. They 
 were changed. They had "conquered self for 
 the sake of an ideal"; they were reborn men. 
 You could see it in the glint of the eye, the 
 
78 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 carriage of the head, the way they looked at 
 you. 
 
 Yes, we were all changed — even the crones. 
 
 "I wish to God my own was on her!" the one 
 kept moaning. 
 
 "Cheero, dearie!" the other said. "Remem- 
 ber, dearie, we've got to keep the home fires 
 burnin'." 
 
Quebec 
 Dearest Molly, 
 
 The three of them are sitting on a sofa in the 
 opposite corner of the lounge. His mother 
 and father came yesterday — a tall, raw-boned, 
 sallow man with a scrawny neck, a pronounced 
 Adam's apple and a fringy mustache; and a 
 round-faced, red-cheeked, dumpy little woman 
 in her best clothes. They are evidently from 
 the country, and have come up to meet him 
 and are staying at this big, expensive hotel so 
 that he can have every possible comfort. 
 
 He arrived to-day in the Red Cross ship. 
 His left arm is gone. 
 
 When I passed him a moment ago, I noticed 
 how young he was. The down is still on his 
 cheeks although he stands over six feet. He is 
 fair haired and blue eyed ; and his color is rosy. 
 He cannot be more than twenty. 
 
 They have been sitting there for half an 
 hour, now. They do not say much. 
 
 The mother looks as though she had been 
 
 weeping inside — weeping without tears. She 
 
 79 
 
80 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 busies herself with little attentions for him — 
 fetches him a match, gets him a paper; a mo- 
 ment ago she bought him a bar of chocolate. 
 She cannot sit still, although she is trying very 
 hard to be cheerful. She laughs, but the smile 
 dies off the corner of her mouth. Now and 
 then she steals a glance up at him, and looks 
 away quickly. She seems to be trying to think 
 of things to do to please him, things she is 
 going to do in the days when they get back 
 home — pies and cakes, and comfortable chairs 
 in the sun, and clean, snow-white sheets on the 
 bed, and soft pillows. 
 
 His father sits very still and says scarcely 
 anything. Now and then he tugs at his fringy 
 mustache, and his Adam's apple bobs convul- 
 sively. He is on the side of the missing arm. 
 He tries not to see it, but leans back against the 
 cushions occasionally, and furtively glances up 
 at the boy's profile. I cannot tell what he is 
 thinking. He seems dulled by an amazement 
 of inarticulate pride. 
 
 Between them the boy sits very straight and 
 unbending. He nibbles at the chocolate and 
 smiles down occasionally at his mother. Most 
 of the time, though, he looks straight before 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 81 
 
 him, and his glance penetrates time and space. 
 
 I would not presume to say what he is think- 
 ing. I only know that his face to-day is not 
 the face of the lad who left home for the serv- 
 ice three years ago. Faces like that do not 
 grow on farms. It is beautiful beyond words, 
 tender, strong and glistening. The light that 
 glows from it is transcendent, glorified. He 
 has looked on the Thing which ever after makes 
 a man homesick in his home, unable to rest on 
 earth again. There is a great desire in it, the 
 light of a vast comprehension, the radiant fire 
 of a consuming love. 
 
 I wonder if his mother and father guess what 
 that look means! 
 
En route to Montreal 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Here's a new brand of pro-Germanism. It 
 came from a stranger — evidently a Jewish- 
 American — who drifted into the smoking-car 
 this morning. 
 
 "Well, after all," he said deprecatingly, "we. 
 Americans aren't really interested in this war. 
 We're in it now and we've got to see it through, 
 but the general feeling isn't strong and 
 united." 
 
 When I got through with him he ate his 
 words. 
 
 For only last week on my way up here I 
 passed through a number of small towns and 
 the sort of feeling I discovered, even in the 
 most out-of -way village, was a burning, ardent 
 patriotism. 
 
 There was Montague, for instance, where I 
 put up over night. Montague has no more 
 than two hundred souls all told, most of them 
 old folks and little children, for the young men 
 go to the cities as soon as they reach an earning 
 
 82 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 83 
 
 age. That accounts for the fact that, when the 
 call came, Montague had but one boy to give — 
 Jim, the hostler at the hotel. 
 
 Jim didn't want to go. He had been at that 
 job for eight years and had not gone farther 
 away from the town than a radius of ten miles. 
 He liked his work, he was steady, faithful, 
 kind. He loved the horses and used to talk to 
 them in his own peculiar brand of Yankee dia- 
 lect. No, war didn't attract him at all. 
 
 Then the boss and he had a quiet session to- 
 gether in some corner of the barn, and from 
 that moment on Jim flamed with ardor for the 
 service. He is drilling at a camp down South 
 now, and the old folks in town speak of him as 
 a hero. A rumor ran through the town last 
 Sunday night that Jim had leave of absence for 
 a couple of days and might be back — soldier 
 clothes and all. Half the people sat up till 
 midnight waiting for him. But something 
 happened and he could not get there. They 
 spoke of it in tones of genuine regret. 
 
 For to the natives of Montague Jim is more 
 than a common soldier. He is their personal 
 representative at the front, their sole contribu- 
 tion, their link with the terrible things going on 
 
84 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 over there. They speak of the war in terms of 
 Jim ; they eat no beef two days a week because 
 of Jim; they bake less wheat bread and more 
 corn bread because of Jim; they knit hour by 
 hour and snip lint and roll bandages because 
 Jim has gone to the front. 
 
 The natives of Montague do not consider 
 Jim a symbol, but a symbol Jim is, neverthe- 
 less, just as to you Harry is a symbol and to 
 my neighbor Walton Al is a symbol. 
 
 We live our lives in symbols and for symbols 
 we make our sacrifices — for a bit of bunting, 
 for a uniform, for a sign set in the sky. The 
 great ideals of this war are too gigantic for us 
 to grasp in their entirety. In the white heat 
 of the world's fury we cannot see the crucible 
 that holds our precious aspirations. We can 
 only see, looming large before us, the figures of 
 the men who tend that furnace. They are our 
 boys. The war means them. For them we 
 are a united people, and for them we will make 
 our sacrifices. We will eat less, we will spend 
 less, we will do without, that added strength 
 may be given them. 
 
 Our unity lies in our abiding interest in the 
 symbols that represent us and our cause. 
 
Montreal 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 The thing that amazes me about these re- 
 turned Canadian soldiers is their infinite supe- 
 riority to the rest of the people. Not that 
 they show it, not that they speak it, but that 
 they are. 
 
 In the presence of a common soldier with the 
 gold braid of a wound on his arm I feel pecul- 
 iarly humbled. I owe so much to him. He 
 has been fighting for three years to keep our 
 homes safe. We have only just discovered 
 that they were in danger. 
 
 85 
 
Montreal 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 This morning I drifted into a church. I had 
 not intended going, because it was so warm and 
 sunny outside, but the sound of an organ 
 caught my ear and I went in. 
 
 I expected a congregation crowded with 
 black, for this city has paid a heavy toll of lives 
 in the recent British advances. The women 
 wore anything but black. Later in the day I 
 mentioned it to my host. 
 
 "No, we aren't wearing mourning, by com- 
 mon consent. Too many of us have lost our 
 dear ones to mourn, and the work ahead is too 
 gigantic for us to stop and think about the con- 
 ventions of dress." 
 
 It sounded a bit cruel at first, but I saw 
 what it meant. These Canadian women have 
 thrown everything into the crucible of the war 
 — their husbands, their sons, their brothers, 
 their pride and vanities, their hopes and dreams 
 — even their sorrows. It takes great faith to 
 do that, Molly dear, and greater fortitude to 
 
 86 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 87 
 
 go on doing it when the end is nowhere in sight. 
 Of you American mothers the same price will 
 be exacted. In that day I know you will all 
 be as brave. 
 
 Not long ago I sat with a mother whose son 
 has gone to France with our army. She had 
 seven children, and she brought up each of 
 them according to his capacities. One adopted 
 the army as his profession, and he has been in 
 it now four years. When the order came to 
 go abroad he wrote his mother, "I am going to 
 France. I may never come back. But with 
 that I am satisfied. I know this is exactly the 
 sort of thing you hoped I would do if the 
 chance came." 
 
 "And it is," she said. "I raised him to be a 
 soldier. He is my youngest, and he always 
 wanted to be a soldier, so I helped him all I 
 could to be a good one. If he had failed now, 
 I would consider that I had failed as a mother. 
 I would be ashamed, not because of his weak- 
 ness, but because of mine." 
 
 She knows little of the world, this mother, 
 little of books and dress and the things most of 
 us take pleasure in. Her world is her children. 
 She has lived for them alone, and her devotion 
 
88 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 encompasses them. Her reward is their suc- 
 cess — the attainment of the men and women 
 she dreamed they would be. She is but one of 
 the million mothers in America to-day who 
 have sent their sons forth to battle, but to me 
 she is the mother of America. 
 
 I take her frail hands and feel in them the 
 strength of myriad sons and daughters. I 
 look into her eyes and behold the rapturous 
 triumph of complete surrender. I touch her 
 lips and am made clean and noble and strong. 
 
 The strength of America is the vitality of 
 her energizing love. Among shifting illusions, 
 in the strife and greed and lust and empty 
 mirth of life, above the smoke and wrack of 
 battle, in the midst of foes, this abides — the 
 vision of her abundant sacrifice. She who 
 gladly would have lost her life that life be 
 found, renewed, reborn, surrenders it once 
 more in her sons. And in their going forth she 
 has given them, to treasure everlastingly, the 
 image of all that they might be. 
 
Toronto 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 I am in a strange household. It is a big 
 country place outside of Toronto — an estate, 
 in fact, and save for the host and his wife I 
 am the only man in mufti here. All the others, 
 
 fifty of them, are officers . Mr. turned 
 
 over his place as a recuperation camp to the 
 
 government. He and Mrs. are living in 
 
 the lodge. I have a cot in what used to be a 
 hostler's room. The big house is fitted out 
 with all modern facilities for the care of the 
 wounded, and both these good people spend all 
 their time helping the doctors and nurses look 
 after the men. They are all fine chaps. Some 
 of them will return to the service, but several 
 of them will never be able to do much except 
 sit about in the sun until the Night comes 
 down« 
 
 One of these chaps has quite won my heart. 
 He is a university man, was specializing in law 
 when the war broke out. He was gassed and 
 
 89 
 
90 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 lost an arm at Mons. But he's plucky, and 
 plans to go on with law when he's better. 
 
 Yesterday I sat by his chair and he showed 
 me a collection of addresses to soldiers that he 
 was making. They were reports from papers, 
 scraps of translation, and bits of diaries record- 
 ing what commanders had said to their men as 
 they went into battle. 
 
 I am copying out three of them for you. 
 Perhaps you might like to send them on to 
 Harry. 
 
 The first is the address given his men of the 
 Expeditionary Force by Field Marshal Kitch- 
 ener. The men were told to keep it in their 
 active service paybook which they always 
 carry. It goes as follows : 
 
 You are ordered abroad as a soldier of the King, to 
 help our French comrades against the invasion of a com- 
 mon enemy. 
 
 You have to perform a task which will need your cour- 
 age, your energy and your patience. 
 
 Remember that the honor of the British army depends 
 on your individual conduct. 
 
 It will be your duty not only to set an example of 
 discipline and perfect steadiness under fire, but also to 
 maintain the most friendly relations with those whom 
 you are helping in this struggle. 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 91 
 
 The operations in which you will be engaged will for 
 the most part take place in a friendly country, and you 
 can do your country no better service than in showing 
 yourself in France and Belgium in the true character of 
 the British soldier by being invariably courteous, consid- 
 erate and kind. 
 
 Never do anything likely to injure or destroy prop- 
 erty, and always look upon rioting as a disgraceful act. 
 
 You are sure to meet with a welcome and to be trusted. 
 Your conduct must justify that welcome and that trust. 
 
 Your duty cannot be done unless your health is sound, 
 so keep constantly on your guard against any excesses. 
 
 In this new experience you may find temptation both 
 in wine and women. You must entirely resist both temp- 
 tations, and while treating all women with perfect cour- 
 tesy you should avoid any intimacy. 
 
 Do your duty bravely. Fear God and honor the King. 
 
 Another was the address made by a Japa- 
 nese officer to his men just before they went 
 into a charge. It is one of the noblest utter- 
 ances I know: 
 
 Soldiers: Some of us will not be so fortunate as to 
 have the honor of giving our lives for our country to- 
 night, and we must endeavor not to give them unneces- 
 sarily, as they may be wanted for another occasion. 
 
 The strangest of all was an order once issued 
 to the Russian Army by General Dragomiroff 
 of St. Petersburg. It is called "The Soldier's 
 
92 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 Memento," a strange mixture of piety and 
 practical advice. It sheds a light on the Rus- 
 sian Army that used to be and the deep fire of 
 religion that drove its men to Titanic sacri- 
 fices: 
 
 The soldier is Christ's warrior. 
 
 Do not think of yourself, think of your comrades. 
 Perish if necessary, but save your comrades. 
 
 Under fire, scatter yourselves. March in groups under 
 attack, for one must strike with the fist, not with fingers 
 — foot helps foot, hand strengthens hand. 
 
 One misfortune is no misfortune, two misfortunes are 
 only half a misfortune. Breaking the ranks, that is mis- 
 fortune ! 
 
 Only he is conquered who is afraid. 
 
 Strike; do not ward off blows. If your bayonet 
 breaks, strike with the butt-end ; if that breaks, use your 
 fists; when your fists are bleeding, use your teeth. One 
 only really fights when fighting to the death. 
 
 In the battle the soldier is sentinel; do not let your 
 weapon fall from your hands, even in death. 
 
 Take aim for each shot: shooting right and left only 
 amuses the devil. 
 
 Be careful with the cartridges, for if you shoot at 
 distance, you will find an empty case when you ought to 
 have a full one. For a real soldier thirty cartridges 
 would suffice in the hottest fight. Pick up the cartridges 
 of the wounded and dead. 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 93 
 
 God protects the brave. 
 
 The good soldier has no sides or back — the front is 
 always to the enemy. 
 
 Always face cavalry — let it come to 200 paces, fire, 
 fix bayonets, stand firm. 
 
 In war you will neither eat nor sleep your fill; you 
 will be worn out. That is war, and it is a difficult trade 
 even for a soldier; but it is terrible for a soft soldier. 
 But if it is hard for you, it is no better for the enemy. 
 You see only your own trouble, not his; all the same it 
 is there. So do not be discouraged. You will conquer! 
 "He who perseveres to the end shall be saved." 
 
 Victory is not gained by one blow. Sometimes you 
 will not succeed at the second or third — attack a fourth 
 time, and more often if necessary, until you have attained 
 your end. 
 
 He who leaves the ranks during a fight to help the 
 wounded is a bad soldier and not a man of feeling. His 
 comrades are not dear to him, but his skin is. Beat the 
 enemy and all will be well, the wounded as well as the 
 whole. 
 
 Never leave your place in a march. One minute, and 
 you are 120 steps behind. March gaily. 
 
 Rest is not even for all at bivouac. Some sleep, some 
 watch. 
 
 If you are in command, keep your men together 
 solidly ; give them reasonable orders, and do not command 
 them as you would a brute. Begin by saying what they 
 must do, so that every man will know where and why he 
 goes. 
 
94 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 Die for your faith, for your Tsar, for Russia; the 
 Church will pray for the dead, and also for those who 
 will live to get honor and glory. 
 
 Never ill-treat the inhabitant; he will supply your 
 bread. The soldier is no brigand. 
 
 Let your clothing and weapons always be in order. 
 Take care of your gun, your cartridges, your" biscuit and 
 your legs as if they were your eyes. Wrap your feet 
 well in linen, and rub them with fat: it is good. 
 
 The soldier must be strong, brave, firm, just and pious. 
 May God grant him the victory ! 
 
 Heroes, God leads you. He is your General! 
 
Toronto 
 Dear, dear Molly, 
 
 I am too busy to write much of a letter. 
 Haven't the heart for it either. One of our 
 men died last night — a lad of twenty-five who 
 won the D.S.O. at Loos. He was an orphan, 
 thank God, and we are the only ones to whom 
 his going means much. He was wounded 
 three times, and each time he went back. 
 Then the Bodies gassed him. 
 
 Three years ago he was a station agent at 
 some little town on the C. P. K. He started 
 in as a private and worked his way up to a 
 commission by sheer bravery. It had made a 
 gentleman of him. He told me so himself — 
 gave him wider visions and bigger thoughts. 
 
 He believed he was getting better and he 
 looked forward to his life ahead like a child 
 on the night before Christmas — impatient, 
 eager, anxious, fearful with the very anticipa- 
 tion of it. Then suddenly he took a turn for 
 the worse, and to-night he went out. 
 
 I know now that a man can lose the whole 
 world and gain his soul. 
 
 95 
 
On the way home 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 You have heard George and me speak of 
 Barker, Sidney Barker? He was with us in 
 college, in the class below. A whole-hearted 
 sort of chap, with a twinkle in his eye. He 
 used to have a fine voice too, and was in great 
 demand at college affairs. 
 
 I haven't seen Sid for fifteen years. This 
 morning as I was sitting in the chair car he 
 came in. Same old boy! He slapped me on 
 the back and asked if I was making money 
 in the writing game. I retaliated with the 
 same question about automobiles. 
 
 "Money in automobiles? Why, I haven't 
 made a cent of money for the past month. 
 Not a sou markee!" 
 
 "The war hit you?" I asked. 
 
 "Well, ah, not the way you mean." He set 
 down his bag and shoved his hat on the back 
 of his head. "Come on in the smoker. I've 
 two of the rottenest cigars you ever tasted. 
 Friend gave 'em to me." 
 
 They turned out to be the sort that bank 
 
 96 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 97 
 
 directors smoke at meetings, but that is neither 
 here nor there. Between puffs he told me the 
 story of the past few months. 
 
 For the last ten years he has been in the 
 automobile business, making money hand over 
 fist. He had a big house and entertained a 
 lot. His boy — the only child — was up at col- 
 lege and was graduated this June. The first 
 day out of college he joined the marines and 
 went across with Pershing. Just a private. 
 
 He did it with his father's consent. Barker 
 always was a big man. 
 
 But as the days went on, Barker realized 
 that giving his son to the cause was not enough. 
 He wanted to give himself. 
 
 He and Mrs. Barker talked it over, laid their 
 plans, and before the week was out they were 
 ready to throw up their own interests and join 
 the big game. He sold out his business, sold 
 his house and most of the furniture, gave half 
 of the proceeds to the Red Cross, and then 
 offered his services to the Y. M. C. A. 
 
 When they asked him what he thought he 
 could do, he said he could sing. Imagine it! 
 A millionaire, a big executive, giving that as 
 his talent! 
 
98 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 Well, they took him at his word. He could 
 sing. What's more he could get along with 
 men. The next thing he knew he was ordered 
 to a cantonment as a song leader. 
 
 To-day Mrs. Barker has two rooms in a lit- 
 tle country hotel in a town near the canton- 
 ment and Barker sleeps in a bunk in the back 
 room of a Y. M. C. A. building. 
 
 "And d'you know, boy," he said, laying his 
 hand on my arm, "it's taken ten years off our 
 lives. We're absolutely wrapped up in it. 
 We've never been so well and so happy. The 
 car's down there. The Missus has it most of 
 the time, because I'd rather hoof it. She 
 comes over every day and sees that I change 
 my shirt, and the rest of the time she's play- 
 ing around with the officers' wives and knit- 
 ting. Oh, she's a great little knitter!" 
 
 "What do you do?" I asked. 
 
 "Well, I hang around the building, help 
 sweep it out in the morning, take my turn back 
 of the counter, talk to the fellows who look 
 lonely — and a lot of 'em did at first — work 
 the picture machine and lead the singing. We 
 sing almost every night — all the old college 
 stuff and a lot of new songs besides. D'you 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 99 
 
 remember 'The Bells of Hell'? We call that 
 'Hymn No. 9.' You ought to hear 'em sing 
 it!" And he went off into a great guffaw. 
 
 "Yes, sir, I'm up at six every morning, eat 
 three square meals a day, walk about ten miles, 
 and when nine o'clock comes, believe me, I'm 
 ready for the hay!" 
 
 I only wish he could have been with me 
 longer. But he had to stop off at Buffalo. 
 He was going to "hold up" a millionaire for 
 "fifty thou." 
 
 And to think this was the Barker I used to 
 paddle in his freshman days! 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Home again, and off to-morrow. Between 
 Barker and Canada, the war has got under my 
 hide. It is silly to work at a desk any longer. 
 To-morrow I go to the cantonment where 
 Barker is. If they can find a place for me, I'll 
 take it. I don't care what it is. 
 
 Meantime, here is your letter of the 17th 
 awaiting me when I come home. 
 
 I knew you would understand my letter 
 about the mothers of America. I often think 
 of George these days, too. Dear fellow, how 
 proud he would have been of Harry! 
 
 Perhaps it is only right that you mothers 
 should have all our sympathy, but the fathers 
 of America are also carrying a burden in their 
 hearts these days. Don't forget that. You 
 women can shake off your loneliness and be- 
 wilderment by knitting sweaters and doing 
 Red Cross work, but a man can only go on 
 at the same old job and give every possible 
 
 cent to the cause. 
 
 100 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 101 
 
 I don't suppose you mothers could be im- 
 proved much, yet you are not the only ones. 
 The going of their sons has worked a great 
 transformation among fathers. They look 
 ahead, just as you look ahead, fearful of the 
 outcome. The man child who bears their 
 name is at the front. Here is pride for you! 
 Here is also dread and anxiety and speechless 
 horror. 
 
 For a man looks on a son as an artist looks 
 on the statue or the painting that his hands 
 have created. He is the embodiment of his 
 dreams, his wealth, his playmate, his scholar, 
 his tutor, his available future. The mistakes 
 he has made he shall rectify in his boy. The 
 weaknesses to which he has succumbed, his boy 
 shall conquer. To a father his son is his sec- 
 ond chance, his beginning again, his hope of 
 eternal salvation. So long as he has that boy 
 he is immeasurably rich and his future is safe. 
 When he loses him, he loses his immortality 
 in the flesh. 
 
 Christopher Morley has put this feeling ex- 
 actly in a little poem : 
 
 There is a secret laughter 
 That often comes to me, 
 
102 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 And though I go about my work 
 As humble as can be, 
 There is no prince or prelate 
 
 I envy — no, not one. 
 No evil can befall me — 
 
 By God, I have a son ! 
 
 Fathers feel more proprietary about their 
 boys than mothers do. That perhaps accounts 
 for the fact that some fathers do not get 
 along with their sons; to youth ownership is 
 a galling yoke. But that very sense of own- 
 ership makes the loss of a son all the harder 
 to bear. 
 
 Create an image after your own fashion. 
 Mold it to the perfection of your dreams . . . 
 Then send it forth, fling it away . . . Look 
 ahead to thwarted years, to dreams that never 
 can come true. Live on and work on with 
 nothing more to sustain you than the bitter 
 consolation that in the hour of trial he did not 
 fail. . . . 
 
 My God, Molly, is it any wonder men have 
 stopped drinking? 
 
Camp 
 
 Dear old Molly, 
 
 Three months ago this was a farm. A little 
 whitewashed stone farmhouse stood near the 
 road with its red barns and cow sheds on the 
 hill behind. Before it, to a wood a mile or 
 more away, stretched the fields, with corn in 
 tassel and rustling wheat and apples greening 
 on the bough. 
 
 To-day seven hundred buildings stand there 
 —barracks and store sheds and artillery sta- 
 bles and power stations and water towers and 
 the myriad mushroom shacks of construction 
 work. Macadam roads circle the camp and 
 cut through it. Down toward the wood is a 
 huge drill ground with the corn stubble still 
 standing. The corn shocks now hang from 
 stanchions in grewsome rows against the sky, 
 like murderers on a gallows tree; and eight 
 hours a day men rush at them with bayonets 
 and stab into the heart where the golden ears 
 were. 
 
 Stand wherever you are, and on all sides are 
 
 103 
 
104 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 men drilling — in company streets, before bar- 
 racks, in corners of the fields, along the great 
 macadam highways. They are eternally 
 marching, wheeling around, counting off. In 
 a few weeks these thousands of men will move 
 and act as one. When the hour of attack 
 comes they will respond subconsciously to 
 commands, think about them as little as you 
 and I do about breathing and walking. 
 
 The purpose of military drill is to reduce 
 men to a common factor. First they receive 
 the uniform, which molds them into a stand- 
 ardized being; then they are drilled to stand- 
 ardized actions. In the hour of battle the 
 commander will know exactly what his men 
 will do. Without this endless drilling they 
 would be nothing more than a uniformed mob 
 — cannon fodder at best. 
 
 These men were all taken by the selective 
 draft — plucked out of jobs, from family 
 hearths, off the streets. They represent all 
 walks of life, kinds of work and professions, 
 social and educational classes. The men here 
 and those in the fifteen other cantonments to- 
 tal much over a million. Their transfer from 
 civil life was effected by the agency of public 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 105 
 
 opinion speaking through the enactment of 
 Congress. In no country in the world has 
 such a universal and democratic movement 
 ever taken place. Objection to it was negligi- 
 ble. Most of the men, once they had broken 
 off the old ties, were keen for the life. They 
 are better fed, live more regular and normal 
 lives, and consequently are in better health 
 than they ever were before. All this, Molly, is 
 the will of the people. 
 
 If you want to see democracy in the work- 
 ing, visit a cantonment. Here you see the 
 very practical side of our nation. And that 
 practical side is this: that in a democracy we 
 are all equal shareholders. The country's 
 prosperity is our prosperity, its danger is our 
 danger. And as we share its prosperity, so 
 must we share its evil times and be willing to 
 defend it against their repetition. 
 
 America will have a million better citizens 
 in a few weeks. For here, as nowhere else, a 
 great amalgamation is taking place. In these 
 sixteen cantonments scattered over the coun- 
 try we have set up our melting-pot, and the 
 fire that burns under it is the ardor of patri- 
 otism. 
 
106 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 Although I hate the destruction of war, as 
 every just man should, I know that this war 
 has come to us as our great spiritual oppor- 
 tunity. Kipling has put it in a verse: 
 
 Then praise the Lord Most High 
 Whose strength has saved us whole; 
 Who bade us choose that flesh should die, 
 And not the living soul. 
 
 We have held our liberties too lightly. We 
 have taken our freedom as a matter of course. 
 Now comes the test. Do we care enough for 
 liberty to defend it? Is it so sacred to us 
 that without it life is not worth the living? 
 
 This time a year ago these were banal ques- 
 tions, the rubber-stamp phrases of bombastic 
 Fourth of July orators. Suddenly they as- 
 sume reality and become a live thing. 
 
 To the 30,000 men in this camp the mainte- 
 nance of the ideal of American freedom is ab- 
 solutely vital. It is their business to know 
 and to prevent it, just as a few weeks ago it 
 was their business to earn bread and clothes 
 and shelter. No discipline is too great if that 
 is the end. 
 
 And these men are going to the work with 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 107 
 
 a song on their lips. They are being trained 
 to face death light-heartedly, as befits gentle- 
 men. Nightly for a week now I have heard 
 them in the Y. M. C. A. halls, crowded on 
 the benches, singing for dear life. Last night 
 three thousand of them packed the big audito- 
 rium. And what do you think was their fa- 
 vorite? A fine, rollicking ballad with the re- 
 frain: 
 
 God help Kaiser Bill ! 
 
 They sang it over and over. They stamped 
 their feet to it. They waved their arms. But 
 from a rollick it became a solemn event ; from 
 a street ballad a hymn of heroes, a prayer of 
 dedication. 
 
 God help Kaiser Bill ! 
 
 I hope He does. I hope He helps him see 
 the light before it is too late. For, as the other 
 song that these men sing goes, 
 
 We won't come back till it's over Over There! 
 
Camp 
 
 Dear Sis, 
 
 What do I do down here? 
 
 I play ragtime. I play it for an hour every 
 night, between seven and eight. And you 
 ought to hear me ! Barker stands on the plat- 
 form and leads the singing. I bang the box. 
 The boys do the rest. 
 
 Do you know, I never played ragtime be- 
 fore in my life, and as for jazzing into double 
 syncopation, it was an unknown world! For 
 the past five years I have been mooning around 
 with Tchaikovsky and Rimsky-Korsakoff and 
 Dubussy, playing the proper things, and think- 
 ing I was getting all there was to be had out 
 of music. Just as if music were only for the 
 cultured and the highbrow ! 
 
 Down here we have music for the mob, and 
 I'm beginning to see that .the men who wrote 
 "Keep the Home Fires Burning" and "Over 
 There" have done more for the people than all 
 the Tchaikovsky's in the world. It's the dif- 
 
 108 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 109 
 
 ference between riding in a Rolls Royce and 
 riding in a Ford. And I choose the Ford 
 every time now. 
 
Camp 
 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Yes, I have changed, and I'm not ashamed 
 to acknowledge it. 
 
 I used to look on the war intellectually, dis- 
 passionately. To-day it is a real menace to 
 me. And the sooner we can spread the fear 
 of this menace throughout America, the sooner 
 we will be able to crush it. 
 
 America is not awake to what it faces. We 
 haven't got past the flag-waving stage. Wait 
 until our papers are filled with casualty lists. 
 Wait until you read, with each breakfast, the 
 names of the men you knew who have made 
 the supreme sacrifice. Wait until our boys 
 crawl back to tell us the things that actually 
 happen. We dare not print them in our 
 papers. We can only hear them from men 
 who have seen them committed. 
 
 What does it mean to American mothers 
 
 that scores of hospitals in France hold their 
 
 hideous quota of outraged women, insane or 
 
 on the verge of insanity, pleading for the re- 
 
 110 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 111 
 
 lease of death? Does the awful collapse of 
 the morale of European womanhood mean 
 anything to you? Do crucified, maimed, 
 syphilitic children mean anything to you? 
 
 You want to know what you can do beside 
 Red Cross work and buying Liberty Bonds. 
 You can do this : You can go among the men 
 and women of your town and awake them to 
 the perils of America and the cause for which 
 we are fighting. 
 
 This war has only started. Tell them that. 
 Tell them that no sentimental twaddle will 
 do these days, that they must all be in this 
 war, and in it to their utmost. Grim deter- 
 mination. That's what we want! Realiza- 
 tion that Germany is winning. That's what 
 we want! Don't look on German atrocities 
 as idle gossip. They are true, and you have 
 heard only the least of them. Don't think 
 that we are winning. Look at the map of 
 Europe and see how much we are winning. 
 
 There's your work, Molly. Start in your 
 own town, and awake the men and women 
 there to the grave perils that confront us. 
 
Camp = 
 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Here is the real thing. 
 
 It happens every night on the parade 
 ground. 
 
 The field is a mile each way. For a back- 
 ground stand the trees, glorious in the red 
 and bronze of their autumn foliage. The sky- 
 line blurs off to nothingness in the night mist. 
 A darkening sky settles down fast to the west- 
 ward, shot with shafts of red and gray and 
 salmon. The welter of barracks softens, ages, 
 dims in the dusk. 
 
 The men march on the parade grounds — 
 three thousand or more of them. They come 
 from all directions in snaking columns of fours, 
 and stretch from one end of the field to the 
 other. The ends are lost in the distance. 
 Far down the field, a speck against the stub- 
 ble, stands the colonel. The little group be- 
 hind him is the band. The men move in a 
 sweeping rhythm, their lines double, extend. 
 Hands swing in unison. Feet scuffle to- 
 gether and grow still. 
 
 112 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 113 
 
 Of a sudden an appalling silence. Nature 
 was never so hushed. You catch at your 
 breath. Something unseen grips you, makes 
 you rigid. The brown lines, too, are rigid. 
 The sky darkens ominously. It portends a 
 great and solemn event. 
 
 Then the first notes of "The Star Spangled 
 Banner." 
 
 Three thousand hands spring to salute. 
 Three thousand faces turn toward a bit of 
 bunting slowly fluttering down the dusk wind. 
 A soldier reaches out to catch it in his arms. 
 
 The band ceases . . . Silence again. 
 
 A sudden command, and rank on rank the 
 men disappear into the dark. 
 
 I have often heard soldiers speak of the flag. 
 They talk about it reverently, with tender rec- 
 ollection, as a man talks about his mother. 
 Somehow, I used to think them a bit senti- 
 mental, probably cantish. I felt that their 
 fine words were merely the stereotyped phrases 
 of men drilled to say such things. I know 
 better now. It is a live thing to them, a real 
 presence — the presence of America and all that 
 she has been and will be. 
 
 A bit of bunting sliding down a pole . . . 
 
114 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 Three thousand men at salute . . . They call 
 the ceremony "Retreat." I think of it as 
 worship. 
 
 For to army men this nightly lowering of the 
 flag is an act of supreme worship. They take 
 it down with honor, for with honor it was 
 placed there. They receive it tenderly, be- 
 cause they love it. In its presence they are 
 reverent because to it they present the offer- 
 ing of their opportunities, their hopes, even 
 their very existence. 
 
 Crusaders battling to defend the Sacrament 
 . . . Soldiers to defend the flag, fighting for a 
 Real Presence. 
 
 And in their fighting lies the better part of 
 worship. For theirs is worship that presup- 
 poses action, service, sacrifice. Here nightly 
 men dedicate their lives. 
 
 Remember that whenever you see the flag. 
 Remember the men who have died for it and 
 will die. Remember these men standing in 
 the dusk, rigid with reverence. 
 
"The Mill," Silvermine 
 Dear old Sis, 
 
 They've given me three days' leave of ab- 
 sence. Things up here at The Mill needed at- 
 tending to, and I am hustling to get them all 
 arranged by Monday night. So this is just a 
 note to tell you of an incident. 
 
 Yesterday as I was working out on the 
 "perch" I heard footsteps on the stairs. Mr. 
 Walton was coming up. He was in his Sun- 
 day blacks. I wondered what it could mean. 
 
 As he came up I saw that his face was tense. 
 He carried a paper in his hand. When he 
 reached the top he dropped into a chair and 
 looked across at me. 
 
 "Well, Al's gone." 
 
 He handed me the paper. 
 
 Struck by a shell a week ago while moving 
 up ammunition. 
 
 For a moment neither of us said anything, 
 although we looked each other face to face. 
 
 "I would to God that I could . . ." 
 
 115 
 
116 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 He fell back in his chair, the oath unfinished 
 on his lips. 
 
 We sat together a long time silent. Finally 
 he got up, walked to the railing and looked 
 through the branches to the wide reaches of 
 the river beyond. 
 
 "Well, here's me and the Missus . . . And 
 there's Al — in France." 
 
 As I laid my hand on the old man's shoulder 
 he nodded his head slowly, and then went down 
 the stairs. 
 
Back in Camp 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 The passage you wanted is from "The Spi- 
 ral Way" by John Cordelier. 
 
 "Nothing shall explain the mystery of Love and Pain 
 but a sharing of it. Nothing shall initiate us into the 
 Life of God, which is our peace, if we turn from the 
 cleaving sword and outstretched arms that make up the 
 everlasting mercy of the Cross." 
 
 117 
 
Camp 
 
 Dear Molly Mine, 
 
 The going of Al Walton has made these 
 thousands of lads around here seem doubly 
 precious to me. Not that Al Walton meant 
 anything personal to me, or that these lads 
 would under other circumstances, save as hu- 
 man beings, American-born. I find myself 
 suddenly confronted with the realization that 
 these boys and those who have already fallen 
 have made the ordinary manner of dying a 
 sordid end. 
 
 Somewhere Dr. Johnson said that it was a 
 sad sight for a man to lie down and die. For 
 most of us death is a pitiful struggle. We 
 wear out, peter out, abuse to death our God- 
 given potentialities. We fight to hold the 
 mastery over things not worth the holding — a 
 world-worn carcass, a broken will, a disillu- 
 sioned faith, a rusty, old, sin-eaten conscience. 
 
 How much more do these lads give up! — 
 A strong body, an unsullied mind, a young 
 faith, a will to conquer. That is what makes 
 
 118 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 119 
 
 their dying so valuable. They offer for the 
 accomplishment of an ideal what you and I 
 can never offer — the things we have long since 
 lost. 
 
 I would not say that men go into battle 
 deliberately to die, but I do know that they 
 are willing to die, to suffer the exquisite agony 
 of wounds, if by that sacrifice their purpose be 
 gained. 
 
 There's the word! A soldier approaches 
 death "face-fronted, standing up." Flooded 
 with the grim necessity for victory, he walks 
 to it open-eyed and willing. He dies with a 
 purpose. 
 
 And the more I see of life and men, the more 
 I envy him his opportunities. 
 
 It is easy enough for me, I know, to sit here 
 and write on glibly about death being only a 
 bend in the road of life, the opening of a 
 bolted door. But these things it must be if 
 my faith is not vain. More, I am sure that 
 the way a man enters that door will have much 
 to do with his life beyond it — whether he 
 creeps in because he can't keep out, or walks 
 fearlessly to it and knocks to be admitted. 
 
Camp 
 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 When I was packing up my belongings in 
 Silvermine last week I came across some 
 things that made me quite a youngster again. 
 
 There was a box of toy soldiers that George 
 brought back to Harry from Paris. There 
 were also Harry's "patchy shoes." You re- 
 member them — how you had his shoes patched 
 because he had scuffed them out so quickly, 
 and how he refused to wear them because, as 
 he put it, "a gentleman never wears patchy 
 shoes." 
 
 These things have been up in my attic for 
 the past ten years or more. I am sending 
 them on to you by this post. 
 
 When I was packing up the music I came 
 across a lot of our old songs. There was 
 one book that George and I used to sing to- 
 gether. Do you remember that delectable 
 one about — 
 
 The chief defect of Henry King 
 
 Was chewing little bits of string. 
 
 120 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 121 
 
 At last he swallowed some which tied 
 Itself in ugly knots inside. 
 
 And there was the good boy — 
 
 The nicest child I ever knew 
 Was Charles Augustus Fortesque. 
 He never lost his cap, nor tore 
 His stockings or his pinafore : 
 In eating bread he made no crumbs, 
 He was extremely fond of sums. 
 
 Even now I can see George standing by the 
 piano — his mouth open like a gold fish — 
 pumping out a most profound basso, while 
 Harry and you doubled in delight on the 
 couch across the room. I am sure the boy 
 never learned a single moral from these "Cau- 
 tionary Tales." Boys never do. 
 
 And now George is gone, and Harry is over 
 there in the trenches, and you are hid away in 
 the South, and I, I am writing on a deal table 
 in a ten-by-six room while four hundred men 
 in the hall outside watch a picture show and 
 fill in between reels with — 
 
 "Pack up your troubles in your old kit bag 
 And smile, smile, smile." 
 
 I thought it would be hard to break away 
 
122 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 from The Mill and the quiet life up there. 
 But it wasn't. These aren't days for quiet 
 lives. 
 
 Only, now and then my thoughts steal back 
 to the big room and the fire and the singing 
 before bedtime, and I go on with my work 
 strengthened by the thought that space and 
 time and death can never entirely separate us, 
 that we are very close together, if love lies 
 between. 
 
Camp 
 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Perhaps I did mean that. 
 
 Anyhow, I believe it. I believe that the 
 dead are never very far away. I feel that they 
 come back to us on the currents of a great 
 and surging love, as electricity throbs along 
 wires to its appointed place. 
 
 Now and again I ask myself what would I 
 say to a man or woman who lost a son in bat- 
 tle. I have written perfunctory notes to par- 
 ents abroad — the conventional things all too 
 full of conscious lies. But they are not what 
 I would say were the parent or the wife near 
 and dear to me. 
 
 Telling them that their grief should be eas- 
 ily borne because so many others are grieving 
 is consolation that amounts almost to insult. 
 Saying that they should be proud is a bitter 
 thought. Pride they will have, but it will be 
 pride dimmed with tears. Acceptance of 
 God's will is easy enough to preach but not 
 easy to practice. It is this sort of preachment 
 
 123 
 
124 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 that makes men rail at God. No, we must 
 have something that comes closer to our feel- 
 ings than these, and I believe it is to be found 
 in the realization that the dead are very near 
 to us, much nearer than any of us ever realize. 
 
 What we dread most is their absence, their 
 not coming back. If we can believe that they 
 are not far away, that they can and do return 
 to us, then, why need we mourn? 
 
 "I believe in the Communion of Saints." 
 
Camp 
 
 Dear Sister, 
 
 It is silly for you to worry. The boy has 
 either not had time to write or his letter has 
 gone astray. 
 
 You must remember that the men in the 
 trenches have but few facilities for writing 
 letters because they cannot add even the light 
 weight of paper and pencil to their packs. 
 Then the letters have to be censored. Some- 
 thing may happen while the letters are being 
 transported back to the post. And then, be- 
 tween here and France the mails suffer many 
 delays. For a matter of fact, it amazes me 
 that we receive any mail at all from the men at 
 the front. 
 
 So, cheer up! You'll hear from him. 
 
 125 
 
Camp 
 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 In the next room they are having a French 
 class. The room is crowded with officers and 
 privates. A private from Wisconsin, who 
 holds a degree from Grenoble and the Sor- 
 bonne and who used to teach French out there, 
 is acting as tutor. It is the most rudimentary- 
 French, and he is teaching it after the parrot 
 fashion. He reads the English, then the 
 French, then they repeat each phrase after 
 him, reading it from their little pocket man- 
 uals. 
 
 The lesson to-night is "In the Hospital." 
 
 "You are better aren't you?" the instructor 
 asks. 
 
 "Vous etes bien mieux, n'est-ce pas?" 
 
 "You have slept well." 
 
 "Vous avez bien dormi." 
 
 "We are going to change the dressing." 
 
 "Nous allons changer le pansement." 
 
 126 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 127 
 
 "It will not take long, a matter of a few 
 minutes. " 
 
 "Ce ne sera long, Vafaire de quelques min- 
 utes." 
 
 "Oh! I am very uncomfortable!" 
 
 "Oh! je suis mal a Vaise." 
 
 "My back hurts." 
 
 ff Le dos me fait mal/ 3 
 
 "My foot is very painful." 
 
 ef Mon pied me fait souffrir." 
 
 "My pillow is so hot and hard. Will you 
 please turn it?" 
 
 "Mon oreiller est si chaud et dur. Voud- 
 riez-vous le retourner?" 
 
 "Thank you." 
 
 "Mercl" 
 
 "I am very thirsty. Some water, please." 
 
 " J'ai bien soif. De Veau, s'il vous plait." 
 
 "Open the window. I need air." 
 
 "Ouvrez la fenetre. J'ai besoin d'air." 
 
 "Will you please write my mother that I 
 have received the Croix de Guerre?" 
 
 "Voulez-vous, mademoiselle, ecrire a ma 
 mere que j'ai recu la Croix de Guerre?" 
 
 "Thank you very much." 
 
 "Merci bien." 
 
128 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 And so it goes on, over and over, backwards 
 and forwards, mixing the questions, halting to 
 correct pronunciations. It is all very serious. 
 
Camp 
 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 Still I would wait. 
 
 When men go into the first line trenches 
 they are very much cut off from the world. 
 Mails do get to them and do get out, but there 
 are times when it is difficult to bring up even 
 food and drink. The authorities know well 
 that news from home and letters written home 
 mean a lot to the men — keep their morale 
 steady and steady the morale at home — and 
 they do everything in their power to afford 
 facilities. In fact, a man is obliged to write 
 one letter to some member of his family before 
 he goes into battle. 
 
 If anything has happened to Harry — and 
 of course we must recognize that eventuality 
 — there may be a dozen reasons why he could 
 not write or send word. You know that he 
 would if he could. 
 
 Meantime, my dear sister, I beg you to keep 
 calm and to remember that you, too, hold a 
 trench — the trench that cuts through the heart 
 
 129 
 
130 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 
 of America. In these days of peril you must 
 be plucky. Our courage is the courage of 
 you mothers. 
 
Camp 
 
 Dear Molly, 
 
 A night without stars. 
 
 A night of teeming rain. 
 
 The roads as plowed seas of mud and run- 
 ning rivers. 
 
 Here and there a light blurs through the 
 blackness. A soldier stumbles past, the rain 
 streaming from his poncho. 
 
 Camp lies three miles down the road. The 
 station is warm and cheery. 
 
 I hesitate to step out into the dark. It is 
 so utterly unknown, for I have never come that 
 way before. Finally I pluck up my courage 
 and start. 
 
 Half a mile, and I am completely alone. 
 No sound save the rain. No companion save 
 rain and mud and the swish of my feet through 
 it. No light. No sign post. 
 
 I am soaked through to the skin. My hat 
 brim bends around my face. Water streams 
 from my finger tips. 
 
 I do not know the way. I can only go on. 
 
 131 
 
132 Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 
 It is such a night as when 
 
 . . . men walk nearer to God's throne 
 Because they find themselves alone. 
 
 A mile farther, and a sudden light throws 
 me into silhouette against the mud. I lurch 
 to the roadside. 
 
 A truck splashes past, inexorable, awful, 
 magnificent. Its tail light glows for an in- 
 stant through the gloom, like an evil eye, and 
 is lost around the bend. 
 
 I plod on, utterly miserable. I cannot go 
 back. I must go forward — like a man be- 
 tween worlds, like a soul driven forth into the 
 night. 
 
 On and on. Still no sign of human habita- 
 tion, still no light. Only a great desire to be 
 home seizes me. I plunge forward through 
 the merciless rain. 
 
 Then the bend! 
 
 A sentry halts me. His gun touches my 
 coat. He peers into my face. 
 
 "Pass on, friend!" 
 
 Yes, I am coming to it! Already I have 
 passed the outposts. . . . Home lies yonder 
 where the lights cut the rain! 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 133 
 
 I turn down a road that rings hard to my 
 heels. Sentries challenge and cheer me with 
 a word. I hurry by a line of darkened bar- 
 racks, mount the steps and fling open a door. 
 
 A fire crackles on the hearth. A soldier 
 sits by it gazing into the flames. He rises 
 when I approach. 
 
 "Welcome home!" 
 
 And now it seems as though the night were 
 never dark, nor the rain pitiless. It seems as 
 though the journey between worlds were a 
 little thing — an instant's space — and then the 
 welcoming. 
 
Camp 
 
 My dearest Sister, 
 
 Valor? 
 
 No, you must have even more than valor. 
 You who are capable of courage must be cour- 
 ageous. 
 
 Valor is a brilliant thing and young, bred 
 of an hour's need. She has a flashing eye and 
 a quick arm. She marches with head erect, 
 and the boulevards echo her welcoming. Her 
 costume is the brilliant panoply of war, and 
 myriad banners flutter around her. Music- 
 ally her side arms clink. She fears nothing. 
 Death is the crown of her sacrifices. 
 
 But Courage — Courage is a homely soul. 
 Her face is seamed and her hair grayed. Her 
 hands are gnarled from hard labor and her 
 back bent with carrying great burdens a long 
 way. Silently she stumbles forward, alone; 
 and few know her passing. Her arms are 
 prayer, hope, faith. She fears naught save 
 the mercy of God. Death is the least of the 
 sacrifices she can make. 
 
 134 
 
Letters to the Mother of a Soldier 135 
 
 For Courage picks up her burden after 
 Death has passed, and she carries it on, tire- 
 less, unreluctant, her eyes fixed upon the hori- 
 zon. There she knows will appear, in His 
 good time, the Dayspring of Peace. 
 
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