Mr. La Follette tells us that we are going to war to protect our investments, and we are. We have entered this war for just that purpose; we have gone to war to protect our investments, but not our stocks and bonds. Do you realize that ever since this war broke out in 1914, not a ship has sailed from any Atlantic port of America or Canada, but that it has carried Americans, men of our flesh and blood, speaking our language to fight this battle against the Beast. Wherever men have fallen, these have fallen; wherever men have died, on the land, in the air, on the sea or in German prison camps, these have died; their ashes lie mingled with those of England's best, their bones rest in the soil of Serbia, Italy, Belgium and France.
"We cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our power to add or detract.... It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced ... that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain."
We all remember the vision of Constantine; that flaming cross gleaming in the sky with the words written over it: "In hoc signo vinces." But there is another vision of crosses that rises before our eyes. Little crosses, white crosses, wooden crosses, that march in serried ranks across the trench-scarred face of Europe from the North Sea to the Black Sea—a veritable forest of crosses, low-lying, yet they throw a longer and a darker shadow than cypress, hemlock or than pine, for beneath them lie the great hearts of the Empire, of Belgium, France, Italy, Serbia, and Roumania; they call to us, they wait for us.
"Who says their day is over, while others carry on
The little wooden crosses spell but the dead and gone?
Not while they deck a sky line, not while they crown a view,
Or a living soldier sees them and sets his teeth anew."
(E. W. Hornung.)
Now, listen:
"In Flanders' fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place;
While, in the sky,
The larks still bravely singing fly
Unheard amid the guns.
We are the dead; short days ago
We lived, saw dawn, felt sunsets glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders' fields.
Take up our battle with the foe;
To you, from falling hands we throw
The torch, be yours to bear it high.
If ye break faith with us who die,
We shall not sleep, though poppies blow
In Flanders' fields."
(John McRae.)