This opinion changed in a remarkable way during the war and before the United States had sent a single soldier to French soil. The cause of the change was mainly the immensely generous, and marvelously efficient, campaign of rescue for war-stricken and starving people by the American Relief Committee under the direction of Mr. Hoover.
In February of 1915 I left the war zone for a little while on a mission to Holland, to study the Dutch methods of dealing with their enormous problem caused by the invasion of Belgian refugees. Into one little village across the Scheldt 200,000 Belgians had come in panic-stricken flight from Antwerp, utterly destitute, and Holland was choked with these starving families. But their plight was not so bad at that time as that of the millions of French and Belgian inhabitants who had not escaped by quick flight from the advancing tide of war, but had been made civil prisoners behind the enemy lines. Their rescue was more difficult because of the needs of the German army, which requisitioned the produce and the labor of the peasants and work-people, so that they were cut off from the means of life. The United States was quick to understand and to act, and in Mr. Hoover it had a man able to translate the generous emotion in the heart of a great people into practical action. I saw him in his offices at Rotterdam, dictating his orders to his staff of clerks, and organizing a scheme of relief which spread its life-giving influence over great tracts of Europe where war had passed. My conversation with him was brief, but long enough to let me see the masterful character, the irresistible energy, the cool, unemotional efficiency of this great business man whose brain and soul were in his job.
It was in the arena of war that I and many others saw the result of American generosity. After the battles of the Somme, when the Germans fell back in a wide retreat under the pressure of the British army, many ruined villages fell into our hands, and among the ruins many French civilians. To this day I remember the thrill I had when in some of those bombarded places I saw the sign-boards of the American Relief over wooden shanties where half-starved men and women came to get their weekly rations which had come across the sea and by some miracle, as it seemed to them, had arrived at their village close to the firing-lines. I went into those places, some of which had escaped from shell-fire, and picked up the tickets for flour and candles and the elementary necessities of life, and read the notices directing the people how to take their share of these supplies, and thanked God that somewhere in the world—away in the United States—the spirit of charity was strong to help the victims of the cruelty which was devastating Europe.
An immense gratitude for America was in the hearts of these French civilians. Whatever causes of irritation and annoyance may have spoiled the fine flower of the enthusiasm with which France greeted the American armies when they first landed on her coast, and the admiration of the American people for France herself, it is certain, I think, that in those villages which were engirdled by the barbed wire of the hostile armies, and to which the American supplies came in days of dire distress, there will be a lasting reverence for the name of America, which was the fairy godmother of so many women and children. Over and over again these women told me of their gratitude. "Without the American Relief," they said, "we should have starved to death." Others said, "The only thing that saved us was the weekly distribution of the American supplies." "There has been no kindness in our fate," said one of them, "except the bounty of America."
It is true that into Mr. Hoover's warehouses there flowed great stores of food from England, Canada, France, and other countries, who gave generously, out of their own needs, for the sake of those who were in greater need, but the largest part of the work was America's, and hers was the honor of its organization.
In the face of that noble effort, revealing the enormous pity of the United States for suffering people, and a careless expenditure of that "almighty dollar" which now the American people poured into this abyss of European distress, it was impossible for France or England to accuse the United States of selfishness or of callousness because she still held back from any declaration of war against our enemies.
I honestly believe (though I shall not be believed in saying so) that the Americans who came over to Europe at this time, in the Red Cross or as volunteers, were more impatient of that delay of their country's purpose than public opinion in England. I met many American doctors, nurses, Red Cross volunteers, war correspondents, and business men, during that long time of waiting when President Wilson was writing his series of "Notes," and I could see how strained was their patience and how self-conscious and apologetic they were because their President used arguments instead of "direct action." One American friend of mine, with whom I often used to walk when streams of wounded Tommies were a bloody commentary on the everlasting theme of war, used to defend Wilson with a chivalrous devotion and wealth of argument. "Give him time," he used to say. "He is working slowly but surely to a definite conviction, and when he has made up his mind that there is no alternative not all the devils of hell will budge him from his course of action. You English must be patient with him and with all of us."
"But, my dear old man," I used to say, "we are patient. It is you who are impatient. There is no need of all that defensive argument. England realizes the difficulty of President Wilson and has a profound reverence for his ideals."
But my friend used to shake his head sadly.
"You are always guying us," he said. "Even at the mess-table your young officers fling about the words 'too proud to fight!' It makes it very hard for an American among you."