The Altar of Freedom

by Mary Roberts Rinehart

To such women comes the call for their sons, who are still to them, though men grown, but the little boys of the stockings, and the small wounds, and Christmas trees, and the Fourth of July.

I do not fear for these women, but we cannot minimize what they do. They will send their sons, because they know that a nation is but a great home, consisting of many small ones. Homes are the units of a nation, as men are of an army. And these women know that our homes are only safe so long as the country is. They know too that peace has fled from the earth and cannot be brought back but by God and the sword.

Perhaps my own experience will be helpful. I am a home-woman, although now and then my profession has called me to strange places. Our family life has been very close. And, while I have little fear for myself, I am a coward for my children.

When, some weeks ago, war began to come close, I weakened, and I wrote my oldest son a letter. I was willing to have him do his duty, but I asked him to wait. Womanlike, I wanted time. I felt that surely this cross was not for me to bear so soon.

Then,—and may he forgive me for telling this, because of its purpose,—after a day or two, he wired, asking his father and myself if we wanted him to be a quitter.

I came to my senses then, and the necessary permission to enlist was signed and sent. Then I sat down and wrote to him, and said we would stand squarely behind him in whatever he did.

Easy? It was the hardest thing I have ever done. But I am glad now. I would never have forgiven him, I think, had he failed his country. But I nearly failed him.

So I have given one son, and I stand ready to give my other two, if their country needs them, when they are old enough to go.

But I am finding some things to cheer me. There is, for instance, the knowledge that the scandals of the Southern camps during the Spanish War will not be repeated. There we lost ten boys from disease to every one killed in battle. Think of it! We learned nothing from that war, but we have learned greatly from the war in Europe. There will be no cruel and useless waste of life from disease. On the Mexican border there was practically no sickness, although the natural conditions were in favor of it. We have sanitarians, now, and water supplies will be watched. The inoculation against typhoid, too, has eliminated the disease, both in the European armies and here. Because it is waste that we fear.

We are trying to feel, we women, that no cost is too great, if needful to preserve our country. But we will never be reconciled to waste of life through negligence. And this I promise, now. Let such negligence occur, and let me know of it, duly investigated, and I will make the press of the country ring with it, to the eternal shame of those who are responsible.