VI[F]
“Women are young at politics but they are old at suffering.”
NOTHING I can put into words can ever make you Canadians realise what it means to me—a returned war veteran—to get back to Canada. I am a peculiar person, and yet I am a fortunate one. The Good Book says “the greater the love, the greater the life,” and I have many loves. Being born a Virginian, I began by loving Virginia first. You Canadians should also love Virginia. She gave you some of your common laws, and Virginia led the way to America being governed by the best laws that any country has ever, so far, invented—the common laws of England. When people think—and voters should think—they will see that every citizen born and living on this great continent of America owes more than they know to the men who fought for freedom in England long before America was ever thought of at all. The British fought their first battle against autocracy in 1214. King John learnt then what the poor old Kaiser had to learn in 1918. Let the whole world remember that the men who first fought for modern democracy, fought at Runnymede.
There is nothing in being a Member of Parliament in any country; we politicians know that. But there is something very satisfactory in being the first woman to represent a constituency of the fighting men of Devon—my second love.
My third love is Canada. I do not love Canada for her hills or plains, or vast resources, or snowy peaks, or anything which you read of in guide books. I love Canada because of her fifty thousand men who gave their bodies as a loving sacrifice for their hills and plains and homes. The only thing worth loving is unselfishness. The only thing which mars life is selfishness. It was at Plymouth I first saw them land, your Canadian sons, and it was there that I realised that heroes away from home take a lot of watching.
I gave them all that I could, and how splendidly they accepted it. I found out there, during the war, that if you really love people you can say anything you like to them—if you don’t—you can’t say “Bo” without somehow hurting them. I wish you Canadians could all have seen that realest bit of Canada in England—“Cliveden.” We, my husband and I, only gave some of the buildings and the grounds and a few odd things. The Canadian Red Cross gave the rest, and I should like to say here in Ottawa that I saw a great deal of what all countries did for their soldiers, and no country did more than Canada. No hospitals were better equipped, no doctors more skilled, no nurses more devoted, and no men were braver. This may be forgotten in after-war grievances, but it should never be.
When I speak of what men stood from me, perhaps I had better give you some idea of what they bore with patience and fortitude. Many times a month I would give them a temperance lecture. Temperance lectures were needed—in war as well as peace. I would not begin with: “Thou shalt not.” I began with a picture of Canada, their mothers, their sweethearts at home, what they wished and prayed for them. Then I would paint a picture of what having a “grand time” meant—drink, women, etc., and then the awful consequences which so often followed a “grand time“—sometimes prison, sometimes worse than prison, nearly always misery. They would listen because they knew I cared. I did care—and I still care. That’s why I am in politics. One boy came up to me as he was going on leave, after one of my horrible talks, gave me his money and said: “Here, Mrs. Astor, you’ve just ruined my holiday.” I might have ruined what he thought would be a good holiday, but I realised I had done what his mother wanted me to do.
I only did what hundreds of English women did for your sons. I never like speaking of war without speaking of what the women did. I know what Canadians who got the chance did—no women ever did better. In England the whole nation had the chance and the whole nation took it. No, not the whole nation. Some wrote diaries. The people who wrote diaries in the War—well, they wrote diaries! Never judge the people of England by the people who wrote diaries!
But war is over; the men have gone; they can’t come back. The question is—will their spirits go “marching on”? One looks round the world and wonders if they have died in vain. They did not die in vain; but they will unless we, with their unselfishness, go “marching on.” America started the idea of a league of nations. Some persons for political purposes, started the idea that a league of nations would make American mothers send their sons across the sea to fight for unheard-of countries. All countries are alike in this—they all have a vast amount of ignorant voters and prejudiced politicians, always playing the political game. All countries have some apathetic people who are frightened of being drawn into public life; but let us thank God that all countries have some people of high ideals, true patriotism and sound sense—people who, having adopted the religion of Christ in its various forms, remember the Tenth Chapter of St. Luke, and feel they can’t pass on as the Priest and Levite did, for they feel that those that lie stripped and wounded are their concern. Those are the people who will save Christian civilisation as we know it, not the civilisation we see, but as it might be. Even as it is, it is far better than any civilisation so far tried. You may say that this is idealism. Well, we have tried materialism and it has very nearly wrecked civilisation; another time it will—so it ought. Civilisation based on materialism has been wiped out before, and pray God it always will be. So don’t let us be afraid of trying more idealism. I have spoken to many thousands of people in America. I can’t pretend to know all the problems of America; they are enormous. I only pretend to know a little, and that little is more than some politicians know, but they will know when it is too late. Now when politicians lack a great principle to fight for they have to fall back on something that will stir the popular imagination. In a country with a mixed population that is easy enough—there are some politicians in America who would be willing to win on any anti-British policy. Some people in America would try to misrepresent the League of Nations as a league started in England by England, for the benefit of the British Empire; they know perfectly well that it is not true, and politicians, like people, who are not telling the truth, are playing a losing game. I don’t say that they will lose at once, but lose they will. All politicians and all nations who appeal to prejudice, hate, and self-preservation, which is only a form of selfishness, have missed the new spirit, the spirit of hundreds of thousands of men whose souls go “marching on.” They are not so far away as some would think. These men belong to all countries, enemy as well as Allies. In the hearts of mothers of all countries the seeds of peace are sown. They are dumb as yet in some countries, they are apathetic in others, but, mark me, they are there.
Women are young at politics, but they are old at suffering; soon they will learn that through politics they can prevent some kinds of suffering. They will face the political issue as they have faced all others when called upon; few men have tried their mothers and found them wanting, and nearly all men have tried their mothers at some time. If women will only do their own thinking and base that thinking on Christ’s teaching, I feel that our entry into politics will be worth while. We are the mothers of nations. If we individually judge our neighbours by their best and not their worst, the nation will do the same.