In return for what we give, we women of America have the right to demand certain things. First of all we can and must demand time that our boys may be trained. We have taken a long time to go into this war. And because the country would not believe that we must eventually be involved, we have lost precious years.
When, now nearly two years ago, I came back from the war in Europe, I brought with me two convictions: First, that the German Government had thrown aside its mask of law and order, and was following war along lines so atrocious that it must be checked or civilization dies. Second, after conferring with men high in the Allied Governments, that sooner or later we should inevitably find ourselves involved: it was but a matter of time.
I came home terrified. I tried to talk about it. It seemed to me that we could not sit back unarmed, with only our brave little army,—less than a single day’s losses in battle over there,—and do nothing.
But I was as a voice crying in the wilderness. I was not alone, of course, in my wilderness. There were many, but the country heard us not. It listened to Belgium, and sent aid. It helped the pathetic little French orphans. It shook its head over the Roll of Honor in the “Illustrated London News,” and it went to church on Sundays and thanked God that we were out of it.
An obstructive Congress, instructed from its constituencies, refused to listen to talk of preparation. The Army tried to get a hearing, and the Navy tried, but both failed. It is not the fault of the Democratic Party that we are to-day as we are, although, insomuch as our President is head of the Army and of the Navy, it is the Democratic Party which will control the war.
It was, indeed, that stanch old Democrat, Thomas Jefferson, who said:—
“We must train and classify the whole of our male citizens and make military instruction a regular part of collegiate education. We can never be safe until this is done.”
Later on he went still further:—
“I think the truth must be obvious that we cannot be defended but by making every citizen a soldier.”
It is the fault of a great people who have forgotten or have never learned that the world is only one tenth as large as it was when this Republic was founded. And that, instead of being isolated from this war, the conflict is and has been from its beginning but just over the edge of the horizon.