CHAPTER VIII

THE AMERICAN’S PART

Entering the great war after it had already waged for nearly three years, the United States learned many of the lessons that experience had taught to the Allies, and outlined a programme that was designed to promote speed and efficiency. Every programme that is dependent upon human action is, of course, imperfect; but the programme of our country in this war has, at least, given to the citizens of our land opportunity for service in the prosecution of the war. No man, woman, or child in the nation need be idle or useless. He has the chance now of helping his country as he has had in no other time in her history.

[Illustration: Boys at work in their war garden

No ... child in the nation need be idle or useless. He has the chance now of helping his country as he has had in no other time in her history]

Why should the American help America?

There is, to begin with, in the soul of every human being a love of country that should come next to a love of God. Love of country is not only next to love of God, but is part of genuine love of God. No man who loves his God sincerely fails to love his country. Even those countries which have not been kind or just, or fair to their peoples, countries where men are not given the chance for freedom or opportunity, have their patriots. But the United States of America, more than any other country in the world, has given to her people liberty, justice, opportunity, freedom. It is, therefore, the grateful duty of every American to do what he can to keep his country what she has been.

For those men who are in the army or navy the duty is clear. They are making the supreme sacrifice in standing ready to give their lives in the defense of our nation. For those who stay at home the path may not be as plain, but it is there, and no one should fail to find it and travel upon it, for it is the road of patriotism, and patriotism is a divine duty.

The United States, as we have seen, entered the war to uphold those principles of right which all great Americans, from Washington and Patrick Henry to Abraham Lincoln, have cherished. For freedom of the seas, for the safekeeping of the Monroe Doctrine, for the right of arbitration in international disputes, for the right of small nations to govern themselves, for the preservation of those free institutions of democracy which the autocracy of Germany strives to conquer, our nation took up the burden of conflict. While it is the first war in which we have sent our troops to foreign soil, it is a war in keeping with the basic principles of our nationality. It is being fought for the same freedom for which the thirteen Colonies fought in the War of the Revolution. It is being fought for the same maritime right for which the War of 1812 was fought. Both these struggles were, it is true, against England, who is now our cobelligerent in the war against Germany. By our winning of those wars the United States helped the people of England to see that light for which they are now sacrificing everything. There were men in England, even in the times of the War of the Revolution and in the War of 1812, who believed America right, and who proclaimed their belief in the halls of Westminster. Their courage and our success set beacons on the hills of history for the lighting of those who followed. The same spirit that inspired our nation in its beginnings is the spirit that inspires not only ourselves but those against whom we fought until they, too, are fighting for it now on the fields of Flanders and France.

It is a war which is being fought for the same basic principles on which the War of the States was fought in the sixties of the last century. For while the North fought for the freedom of the slave, the South fought, not for his continuation in bondage, but for the rights of the separate States. Both issues were fundamentally right. The greater--for the freedom of the individual is greater than the constitutional right of a State--triumphed. But the spirit of both is American, and part of our reason for entering this war.

Since it is a war in keeping with American traditions, it is the part of the American, in service or out of it, to keep up the standard of our country in it.

How shall he do it?

Every man sees his own duty clearest. But there are certain lines of life in which this duty is so clear that it is easy to mark. One of these lines is that of the American of foreign birth or parentage, now a citizen of the United States. Another is that of the families of officers and soldiers. A third is that of the industrial workers of the country. The men, women, and children in any one of these zones have definite standards to uphold. If they fail to do so, they are not less traitorous than the sentry who falls asleep at his post and lets the enemy in.

The American of foreign birth or parentage is a citizen of this country because he or his parents saw that America offered an opportunity which could not be secured in the old country. He is the recipient of favors of freedom, liberty, and such wealth as he did not before enjoy. His allegiance is doubly owed. It is therefore his part to do everything in his power to prove his gratitude. It is his part to combat all disloyalty, to uproot all treason, to stand firm for American principles at home and abroad, to proclaim by word and deed his loyalty to our country.

Because this is a war for democracy it is the part of every American to maintain that democracy at home and in deed as well as abroad and in word. Military organizations have a tendency to create distinctions, unless the people of the country keep close watch on themselves. Military discipline must be maintained, but any line drawn between officer and private must end with discipline and not be carried into private life. The private in the ranks is as great an American, if he does his duty, as the general in command; and no one knows it better than the general. It is not in the army or navy, but in the civilian families of soldiers and sailors, that the danger lies. Therefore, it is the part of every member of these to bear in mind constantly and continuously that every man in the service is equal; that the commissioned officer is giving no more than the man in the ranks; and that both are giving up everything else in life for the one thing of paramount importance, the winning of the war. “No snobbery” is as good and as great an American watchword as “Give me liberty, or give me death.” For snobbery is the death of liberty as surely as the will of a tyrant. The “Junker” class of Prussia is the officer class who look down upon all others, and who have come to believe the world to have been made for their rule. We are fighting “Junkerism” in Europe. It is the American’s part to fight the slightest trace of it at home.

Every war has its home heroes as well as its field heroes. Since this war is, more than any other, a war of resources, it follows that the part of labor is more important than it has been in any previous war. If the working men and women of any one of the great warring nations should refuse to continue at work, that nation would be defeated as surely as if the armies had laid down their arms in the field. American victory is as dependent upon American labor as it is upon American manhood. And it is with pride that it may be said that American labor has been found worthy of all American traditions.

The United States has been pre-eminently the nation of the working man. Its legislation has continuously tended toward the betterment of his condition. Nowhere else in the world has he enjoyed the lot that has been his in America. Nowhere else has he the voice, the power, the future that our nation accords him. And upon him in this war has fallen the duty of speeding up the war production of the country, a task so important that those men of draft age engaged in such occupations have been exempted from military service in order that they may continue at their work. For the making of munitions is as necessary as the firing of guns.

It has become the duty of American labor to keep at the allotted tasks. No one must shirk. No one must fail. No one must delay. No matter how trivial the task may seem in the sum of the war work, it may be the one whose lack of doing may be the breach in the wall through which the enemy may enter.

“For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost. For the want of a shoe, the horse was lost. For the want of a horse, the rider was lost. For the want of the rider, the message was lost. For the want of the message, the battle was lost. For the loss of the battle, the kingdom was lost. All for the want of the nail of a shoe.”

And the maker of the horseshoe was one of the factors of his country’s defeat!

The civilian’s part in this war has been outlined by the President of the United States in his proclamation of the 16th of April, 1917:

[Illustration: The launching of the U. S. S. _Accoma_

Scarcely a minute after this 3,500-ton wooden cargo-ship had been launched the keel of another ship was swung into place]

“These, then, are the things we must do and do well besides fighting--the things without which mere fighting would be fruitless; we must supply abundant food for ourselves, our armies, and our seamen, not only, but also for a large part of the nations with whom we have common cause, in whose support and by whose side we are fighting. We must supply ships by the hundreds out of our shipyards to carry to the other side of the sea, submarines or no submarines, what will every day be needed there, and abundant materials out of our fields and our mines and our factories with which not only to cloak and equip our own forces on land and sea, but also to clothe and support our people for whom the gallant fellows under arms can no longer work; to help clothe and equip the armies with which we are co-operating in Europe and to keep the looms and manufactories there in raw materials; coal to keep the fires going in the ships at sea and in the furnaces of hundreds of factories across the sea; steel out of which to make arms and ammunition both here and there; rails for worn-out railways back of the fighting fronts; locomotives and rolling-stock to take the places of those every day going to pieces; mules, horses, cattle, for labor and for military service; everything with which the people in England, France, Italy, and Russia have normally supplied themselves, but cannot now afford the men, the materials, or the machinery to make.”

America is the factory of the world. The American who stays at home is the worker in the factory, and it is his part to do his work so well that the man who fights overseas for the same cause may hold his hand in the essential brotherhood of equal service.