Defenders of Democracy Part 5

(Shudders) How long will it last?

DARTREY

Until the Hun is beaten.

GILRUTH

Years, eh?

DARTREY

It looks like it. We've hardly begun yet. It will take a year to really get the ball rolling. Then things will happen. Tell me.

How do they feel in America? Frankly.

GILRUTH

All the people who matter are pro-Ally.

DARTREY

Are you sure?

GILRUTH

I'm positive.

DARTREY

Are you? Come, now.

GILRUTH

Why, of course I am.

DARTREY

They may be pro-Ally, but they're not pro-English.

GILRUTH

That's true. Many of them are not. But if ever the test comes, they will be.

DARTREY

(Shakes his head doubtfully) I wonder. It seems a pity not to bury all the Bunker-Hill and Boston-tea-chest prejudices.

GILRUTH

You're right there.

DARTREY

Why your boys and girls are taught in their school-books to hate us.

GILRUTH

In places they are. Now that I know the English a little I have been agitating to revisit them. It all seems so d.a.m.ned cheap and petty for a big country to belittle a great nation through the mouth of children.

DARTREY

There's no hatred like family hatred. After all we're cousins, speaking the same tongue and with pretty much the same outlook.

GILRUTH

There's one race in America that holds back as strongly as it can any better understanding between the two countries, and that's my race--the Irish. And well I know it. I was brought up on it.

There are men to-day, men of position too, in our big cities who have openly said they want to see England crushed in this war.

DARTREY

So I've heard. It would be a sorry day for the rest of civilization, and particularly America, if we were.

GILRUTH

You can't convince them of that. They carry on the prejudices and hatred of generations. I have accused some of them of being actively pro-German; of tinkering with German money to foster revolution in Ireland.

DARTREY

Do you believe that?

GILRUTH

I do. Thank G.o.d there are not many of them. I have accused them of taking German money and then urging the poor unfortunate poets and dreamers to do the revolting while they are safely three thousand miles away. I don't know of many who are willing to cross the water and do it themselves. Talking and writing seditious articles is safe. Take my own father. He says frankly that he doesn't want Germany to win because he hates Germans. Most Irishmen do. Besides they've done my father some very dirty tricks. But all the same he wants to see England lose. All the doubtful ones I know, who don't dare come out in the open, speak highly of the French and are silent when English is mentioned. I blame a great deal of that on your Government. You take no pains to let the rest of the world know what England is doing. You and I know that without the British fleet America wouldn't rest as easy as she does to-day, and without the little British army the Huns would have been in Paris and Calais months ago. We know that, and so do many others. But the great ma.s.s of people, particularly the Irish, cry all the time, "What is England doing?" Your government should see to it that they know what she's doing.

DARTREY

It's not headquarters' way.

GILRUTH

I know it isn't. And the more's the pity. Another thing where you went all wrong. Why not have let Asquith clear up the Irish muddle? Why truckle to a handful of disloyal North of Ireland traitors? If the Government had court martialed the ring-leaders, tried the rest for treason and put the Irish Government in Dublin, why, man, three-quarters of the male population of the South of Ireland would be in the trenches now.

DARTREY

Don't let us get into that. I was one of the officers who mutinied.

I would rather resign my commission than shoot down loyal subjects.

GILRUTH