His mind wanders to his native land across the sea. True the Government is behind him—but all the people are not behind the Government. The International Socialist is still bent on destruction, and working for Germany; the pro-German is hiding his galvanized Americanism behind Red Cross and Liberty Loan buttons; the chatauquaized pacifist bemoaning this “terrible bloodshed” is trying to dig himself into a hole, where he can escape the U. S. draft. The foreign-language minister—exempted from military service, the only privileged class in America—is still talking denominationalism instead of patriotism; the Big Business banker, a deacon in church, prays with the Methodist sisters, works hand in glove with monopolists who have preyed upon the people, then offers 5 per cent in competition with the Government 4-1/4 per cent. He wants to make a profit for himself, rather than have the Government use the money to feed and clothe the soldiers on the front. The prohibitionists, not satisfied with war-time prohibition, with the control of liquor by the Government, through the Food Administration, wants to further embarrass the Government by agitating minor issues when every ounce of energy is needed to win the war. They know the soldier will come back a broader and wiser man, and they want to slip this legislation over in his absence. Then there is the political lawyer who thrives on trouble, gets fat on disaster, whose capital is wind, surplus hot air, whose services are for sale for cash. Usually a trimmer who crawled on his stomach for favors, he pledged himself in advance for votes. Backed by special interests, these decoys play upon the passions and prejudices of men, they array class against class, religion against religion, section against section. Elected by the people whom they betray, the people in return organize for protection, then the hypocrites wrap the robes of loyalty about themselves, rush to the head of the procession, climb the band wagon, seize the bass drum, and cry out: all those who don’t follow are “drunken, dishonest or disloyal.”
Beclouding the main issue—of America’s danger—scheming for power while soldiers die, too busy serving themselves, they have not time to serve the nation, they cannot see that their day is past and that they must give way to the men who will win the war—the soldier, the laborer, the producer.
The living soldier is part of the Government, he sees through and past the self-seeking tool or profiteer. He is not fooled by the political machine. He is no longer Republican, Socialist or Prohibitionist—he is American.
Supported by the non-denominational Red Cross and Y. M. C A., he is no longer Baptist, Methodist or Mormon—his religion is confined to Right and Wrong.
That may be all right living; but what of the dead? Dead? Who are the dead? Surely not the unselfish spirits who sacrificed their bodies on the altar of freedom. Their deeds and glory are immortal. Are they, themselves; anything less?
“They have passed into eternity,” we are accustomed to say. Eternity? Do you limit eternity? Can you locate eternity’s beginning, eternity’s end?
Then shall we presume to think those noble spirits who went forward to keep our own temporary abiding place safe for us a while longer, dead?
Water rises to its source—that is common knowledge. But, if we actually cannot see the thing, we often rely on established mental habit, prescribed for us, long since, by others.
The soldier, facing the truly big things of life, who learns to discard, in emergency, the book of rules, cannot believe his comrade, whose lifeless, torn body he left on the field, but whose spirit still inspires him, dead. In the strong days of his youth, he remembers, now, his Creator. He knows his absent comrade’s spirit lives—as does his own, responding to that urge to victory! and he knows that they shall both return unto God who gave them.
It is for us, still humanly on the job, to so manage that, when such brave spirits come back, either to resume their interrupted tasks or to take on greater, we shall have faithfully done our bit to make this old world a better place in which to live and work.