How was it with us? How many cubic feet of air have our men had to breathe in the wretched and monotonous tenements in which they were compelled to live? Houses must be built that way, I am told, because the land is dear. Who made the land dear and men cheap?
Men in many callings could not obtain a living wage. Some weird economic law--'supply and demand' or other phrase—made it impossible to give the worker more! But, suddenly, a struggle for national life is thrust upon us, and there is money enough!
I know it is a very complicated question, but it is there. We must face it; we are 'our brothers' keepers.' They are like 'sheep without a shepherd,' unless they are cared for. It is a national obligation to provide right conditions of life, proper education for mind and body for the boy who is going to be the unit in the man-power of the nation.
We must organize our national life to allow of this, for we have no right to permit our industrial development to outpace our humanitarian provision of the fair conditions of a full-orbed, manly life. Each nation contending is 'up against it.' Men are precious in France, but scarce. The birth-rate has fallen off. Why? We leave it to French patriots to solve, and turn to our own affairs once more.
We have suffered in this war, and victory has been delayed because we lacked organization, and yet we prided ourselves upon being organizers.
The victories in war are manufactured in days of peace. We were not organized in pre-war days. Things happened. Under the pressure of war we have had to organize ourselves in many ways. The railways have been brought under central control to serve England and not companies merely. The vested interest of the Drink Traffic has had to be squeezed into more reasonable proportions, and may have to go altogether to secure victory. Men and women are being mobilized for national service, and agitation for women's suffrage is silenced for the present. In the silence it may be that we shall learn that the claim for suffrage depends not upon being but upon doing. National service is surely a good claim for suffrage. Representation should not merely depend upon taxation, but upon a wider qualification—service for the common good in war and peace.
We are not the only people under the pressure of war and compelled to listen to the will of the God of Battles.
We have seen an Anglo-Saxon nation, claimed to be the freest in the world, struggling to grasp at the same time peace and conserve its liberty, reluctant to grasp the sword even to protect its nationals. Led by a far-seeing, cautious, and astute President, it made a wonderful attempt to keep out of war; but the grim circles of battle have with ever-widening sweep reached this huge nation of peace-lovers, and it is learning that in citizenship quantity is not everything; quality, racial purity, counts for something.
Moreover, nations are not permitted, any more than individuals, by the God of Battles to evade or shirk the great moral issues of life:
Once to every man and nation