“It has taken me all these months to realize what Germany’s invasion of Belgium meant, the abysmal depravity of it. It has taken me all this time to understand that her attacks on treaties and laws were attacks on personal freedom.
“I have only to look around in Sabinsport among our own people to see this. There is Nikola Petrovitch—a sober, honest, industrious man, who twenty years ago was forced, in order to earn bread for his wife and children, to leave a country that he loved as well as any man in Sabinsport loves America. Why should he have been forced to do this? For no other reason than that Germany and her kind wanted this land which belonged to Nikola. He loved it so well that two and a half years ago he went back, and we know what he has been through since. He and his people were literally swept into the sea by those who wanted Serbia, wanted her wealth—the things that belonged to Nikola and Marta and Stana.
“And there are many men and women in Sabinsport from many different lands, who have been forced to leave these lands. Now it is time that this kind of thing stopped, and the only way to stop it is for us to take a hand, and to take a hand at once. All the documents are in. It is for the President of the United States to declare war to-day.
“The case is closed for me. This is the last article that I shall write for the Argus until Germany is conquered. This afternoon I enlisted in the United States Army, and I hope soon to be doing my part toward staying the evil which I have so long denied to be loose on the earth.”
It is safe to say that there was nobody in Sabinsport who took the Argus that did not read that article from start to finish. It is also safe to say that the one person to whom it meant a thousandfold more than to anybody else was Patsy McCullon. She read it with exultant heart and wet eyes, and laid it down only to call the editorial rooms of the Argus. It was Ralph who answered the telephone.
“Ralph,” she began, “I—” and her voice broke in sobs.
“Why, Patsy,” he said, “what’s the matter?”
And then he had a great light, and for the first time in eight months, the old dominant voice of Ralph Gardner rang out:
“Patsy, I’m coming right out. Will you see me?”
And Patsy uttered a faint and broken, “Ye—s.”