A soldier's mother in France

by Rheta Childe Dorr

That is the free world for which our sons have crossed the seas to fight. That is the freedom for which almost every country in the world has united against the only remaining countries that do not want it, Germany, Austria, Turkey, Bulgaria.

In these pages I have tried to tell America, and especially the mothers of American soldiers, the meaning of the war, as it was shown to me over there. I have tried to picture to them how their sons are preparing to take their part in the war. How they are growing up to their task, how they are building the strong structure of an army, how they are laying the foundation of true internationalism, how we through our army are forming with the democratic peoples of the world a holy alliance much greater and more permanent than anything kings or statesmen ever planned.

When this is being written the year is barely finished that saw the first American transports sail for France. Yet over hundreds of miles of territory behind the battle lines our men, with hard and grueling labor, have built the industrial forts that in this practical age are necessary to an army’s life. They have established a base of supplies for millions of fighting men. They have built barracks, airdromes, hospitals, warehouses, factories and repair shops.

They have laid railroads, built wharves, dredged a great river. They have done more, our men, than dig themselves in trenches over there. They have shown Europe and the world the true heart and metal of America. What they have built will remain a monument for generations to point to and admire.

In Paris there stands a noble monument to our Washington, and at no great distance there is another to the rugged giant Abraham Lincoln. Each February the French people go and lay wreaths on these monuments. For years they have done this, and since April 6, 1917, they have kept their colors entwined with ours there.

Those statues are symbols of the historic friendship of France and America. I like to think that after the war, when great ships sail out of an ancient port of France, the sailors will remember that once they had to wait for the highest tide, but that American brawn and engineering skill scooped out the centuries of sand and silt that their biggest transports might pass with ease.

I like to believe that France will grow and prosper because of the railroads we laid down, the wharves and warehouses we built. Not in a spirit of boastfulness, but of love and gratitude do I wish that France may benefit from the things we have created on her soil.

I like also to think that the France of to-morrow, and the Belgium which will be reborn, will be healthier, happier, stronger of mind and soul for the work of our Red Cross, for all the relief and succor we have been able to send there. They will never forget, those martyred Belgians, those hard pressed French. Our troops never pass through a village, our flag never appears that the children in the street fail to salute.

Once they had reason to believe, those brave allies in Europe, that we were merely generous of money, that we were willing to give only out of our overflowing pockets. But since we began to give our men they think otherwise. They know now that everything we have, everything we are, is pledged to the fight against tyranny and the world’s woe.

This spring and summer will see the preliminary work of building an army well nigh completed, and the men who have been handling picks and shovels, those who have been learning the war game, the men in camps and army schools will be ready to fight. Already they have won their spurs in several fierce engagements, and not yet has any fight of theirs been lost. Already American soldiers are in Lorraine and Alsace, fighting on what Germany calls her soil, but which will never be hers, even in name, again.