“Oh, something like that. There’s one thing I’ve got out of the war. A theme—a thumping big theme for a novel. It’s the sense of our national unity. Before the war there used to be talk about America being a conglomeration of races. This war has proved for all time that we are a real nation, a single people, united so strongly by an ideal that we have been able to sacrifice everything in a common war with an enemy separated from us by three thousand miles of water. What other nation can show such a record?
“France was fighting for her life. Naturally she was united. Germany for an extension of her trade. England to oppose it and protect her own. Belgium had been invaded. Russia was afraid of losing her interest in the Balkans. All the other countries had economic or political interests one way or the other, and in the end they were fighting for their lives.
“But we had absolutely nothing tangible to fight for—nothing but an ideal, or set of ideals. Making the world safe for democracy may seem too simple a formula to explain the complex political and economic motives for our entering the war, but it was true in the main. As far as the soldiers were concerned, that’s exactly what they were fighting for—what we used to tell them at training camp. You didn’t find any difference in the courage or loyalty of your men, simply because of their parentage, did you?”
Hamilton considered.
“No. I don’t think so. I haven’t really thought it out. There might be an advantage in favor of one nationality or another—but it would probably be small. Of course, we got most of the lower east side element in our companies, a lot of little sweat-shop tailors, Jews. Most of them had probably never seen a rifle before in their lives. But they turned out surprisingly well. They’ve got intelligence.”
“Well, it’s this feeling of national unity I want to express. This unity we used to talk about in the training camps—that we used to instill into the men with their bayonet drill and manual of arms. This unity of America’s children, regardless of race or creed.”
“‘Long, too long, America,
Traveling roads all even and peaceful you learn’d from joys and prosperity only,
But now, ah now, to learn from crises of anguish, advancing, grappling with direst fate and recoiling not.
And now to conceive and show to the world what your children en masse really are,