"I speak of him because the way he died reminds me of what I read in that newspaper Mr. Jenkins brought in here when he came. I read in that paper of how a captain in our army wasn't true to our side because his parents were Germans and he had relatives in Germany, and of how he was sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labor. That and lots of other things I've read show what we are up against in this country. My uncle says our Northern States are full of foreigners who came over here just to make money, and they and their children still love the countries they came from, the Germans especially, who, I've read, claim twenty millions in our country that are German by birth or descent."
"Gee-whiz!" cried Buck Hardy, quick to see the boy's point.
"Of course, most of these have been here long enough to become real Americans. My uncle thinks there is doubt about only the more recent immigrations. But even these are a great population, and the things that have happened prove that very many of them are working for the Kaiser with all their might. They spy for Germany and blow up and burn down munition plants. They do even more harm by their cunning whispers and continual talk. They get hold of ignorant people and try to persuade them that it costs too much in blood and money to fight Germany and that, anyhow, the world would be better off under the Kaiser's rule. I read of one German, a professor in one of our colleges, who actually argued in print that the wisest thing to do is to submit and make peace on any terms. You see, they are not real Americans, and still love and admire Germany; they would really enjoy having the Kaiser walk on their necks, and they may think that to try to make this country one of the tails to the Kaiser's kite is just the thing they ought to do. Besides, they know that German rule would bring them forward and make them the aristocrats in this country."
The listeners to this boyish, but pointed and intensely earnest harangue were all of old American stock and at this point all of them, without exception, were visibly indignant.
"Don't you see what this brings us up against?" asked Ted. "And what we are up against reminds me of the way Mr. Jackson died. This great German element that is secretly for the Kaiser is our Snake in the Grass that watches and waits and will come out and strike openly if ever a German army lands on our shores. Meanwhile it tries to poison the minds of our people and it does all the damage it possibly can on the sly. You see what we have to fight right here at home and how, in a way, we have a harder pull and need more help than any of our Allies.
"Now this is my answer to the argument I have heard in this camp. Some of you have said that you are not needed because the country is so big and powerful and has so many men. We are powerful, but, you see, we have the secret foe at home as well as the open foe on the French border, and we need all our strength—all our able-bodied young men—so that we can go ahead in a big way and smash the hateful Huns. Our country needs you, and you, and you," cried Ted, nodding his head toward Buck Hardy, and then toward every man around the camp fire in turn.
"Do you want to see a German viceroy taking orders from the Kaiser at Washington?" he demanded. "Do you want to see a German general in command of Atlanta and of every other State capital? Do you want to see a strutting German boss lording it over every town and county in this country? If you do, then you can say that you are not needed. Maybe you can't be stirred up by the President's call to make the world safe for democracy, because that may sound to you like something far away—though it isn't—But don't you—" cried the boy, tears starting in his eyes—"don't you want to see the American flag keep on flying? Don't you want to see your neighbors and all our people live in freedom and safety? Don't you want Americans still to rule in the country which our ancestors fought for and won and built up? Even little children have not been safe from the cruelty of the Germans. Do you want them protected? Do you want to keep our young women from being carried off into slavery? Do you want your mothers and sisters and sweethearts to belong to foreign beasts? Do you want to see in your own neighborhoods the dreadful things that have been seen in Belgium and France? The people in France have suffered so that when our first soldiers landed some of the French kissed the very hem of their garments. Do you want to wait until we feel like that toward any people who might come to help us to drive back the German hordes?
/* "'Breathes there a man with soul so dead Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!' */
"Breathes here, to-night, a man with soul so dead that he thinks of the safety of his own skin instead of the safety of his country, his people, his women, and who is not willing to stand up and fight for freedom, for security, for the right to live in peace, against powerful and wicked aggressors? Oh, God, I wish I were old enough to go to the war and do my part!"