Winning a Cause Part 1

Winning a Cause.

by John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood.

PREFACE

_Lest We Forget_, the first volume of World War stories, gave an outline of the struggle up to the time of the signing of the armistice, November 11, 1918, and contained in general chronological order most of the stories that to children from ten to sixteen years of age would be of greatest interest, and give the clearest understanding of the t.i.tanic contest.

This; the second volume of the same series, contains the stories of the war of the character described, that were not included in _Lest We Forget_,--stories of the United States naval heroes, of the Americans landed in France, of the concluding events of the war, of the visit of President Wilson to Europe, and of the Peace Conference. In a word, emphasis is placed upon America's part in the struggle.

This volume should be of even greater interest to American children than the first, for it tells the story of America's greatest achievement, of a nation undertaking a tremendous and terrible task not for material gain, but for an ideal.

No more inspiring story has ever been told to the children of men than the story of America's part in winning the greatest cause for which men have ever contended. President Wilson said in Europe, "The American soldiers came not merely to win a war, but to win a cause." Every child in every home and in every school should be made familiar with how it was won, and with the separate stories which go to make up the glorious epic.

The two volumes of the series give for children, in a way that they will comprehend and enjoy, through stories so selected and so connected as to build up an understanding of the whole, the causes, the conduct, and the results of the World War.

The thanks of the authors and publishers are hereby expressed to Mr.

Edwin Rowland Blashfield for the permission to reproduce his poster, "Carry On"; to Mrs. Ella Wheeler Wilc.o.x for "Song of the Aviator"; to George H. Doran Company, Publishers, for "Pershing at the Tomb of Lafayette" from "The Silver Trumpet," by Amelia Josephine Burr, copyright 1918; for "Where Are You Going, Great-Heart?" from "The Vision Splendid" by John Oxenham, copyright 1918; for "Trees" from "Trees and Other Poems" by Joyce Kilmer, copyright 1914; to _Collier's_ for Lieutenant McKeogh's story of "The Lost Battalion"; to Mr. Roger William Riis for his article "The Secret Service"; and to Mr. John Mackenzie, Chief Boatswain's Mate, U. S. S. _Remlik_, for the facts in the story, "Fighting a Depth Bomb."

WINNING A CAUSE

WHY THE UNITED STATES ENTERED THE WAR

The United States was slow to enter the war, because her people believed war an evil to be avoided at almost any cost except honor. In fact, "Peace at any price" seemed to be the motto of many Americans even after two years of the World War.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The standard bearers and color guard leading a column of the Fifth Artillery of the First American Division through Hetzerath, Germany, on their way to the Rhine.]

President Wilson declared in a speech at Philadelphia on May 10, 1915, that there is such a thing as being too proud to fight. He was severely criticized for his statement, and yet it is very true, and for more than a generation it had been taught to American boys and girls.

Peace societies had sent lecturers to the public schools to point out the wickedness of war and the blessings of peace. Prizes had been offered to high school, normal school, and college students for the best essays on _Peace_, _How to Maintain the Peace of the World_, and other similar subjects. To get ready for war by enlarging the army and navy was declared to be the very best way to bring on war. School reading books made a feature of peace selections, and school histories were making as little of our national wars as possible. These teachings and the very air of the land of freedom made people too proud to fight, if there were any honorable way of avoiding it.

It is said that "People judge others by themselves." So Americans, being peaceful, contented, and not possessed with envy of their neighbors, supposed all other civilized people were like themselves.

Therefore they could not at first believe that the Germans were different and looked upon war as a glorious thing, because through it they might get possession of the wealth and property of others.

Perhaps the Germans, judging other people by themselves, believed that the French and Russians and English, like the Germans, stood ready to go to war whenever through it they might gain wealth and territory; but the Germans did not think this of the people of the United States.

They thought that they were a nation of traders and money-getters in love with the Almighty Dollar. As events proved, this idea was a fatal mistake on the part of the Germans.

In entirely different ways, both Americans and Germans were taught that they were the people above all other peoples in the world. The German insolently sang "Germany above All" while the American good-naturedly boasted his land as the freest, the n.o.blest and best, leading all the other countries and showing them the way to become greater and better.

The American people, however, did not intend to force their beliefs upon other nations. But the Germans were led by the idea that German Kultur would be a blessing for all mankind and that it was their destiny to conquer and improve all other nations.

Thor stood at the northernmost point of the world.

His hammer flew from his hand.

"So far as my hammer this arm has hurled, All mine are the sea and the land."

And forward flew the giant tool Over the whole broad earth, to fall At last in the southernmost pool To prove that Thor's was all.

Since then 'tis the pleasant German way By the hammer, lands to win, And to claim for themselves world-wide sway, As the Hammer-G.o.d's nearest kin.

But the American does not go this far. While he is inclined to believe himself and his country better than any other people or nation, yet he is content to let others live in their own way as long as they are honest and do not interfere with him and his business. He is, to be sure, desirous of improving them, but by peaceful means, by building dams and railroads for them, and by giving them schools and sending them missionaries.

It was difficult therefore for Americans to realize that the Germans really planned and desired the war in order that they might rule the world. It took months and even years of war for the majority of Americans to come to a full realization of this truth. This should be remembered when the question is asked, not why the United States entered the war, but why she did not enter it earlier.

Americans are honorable and look upon the breaking of a pledge or an agreement as a shameful thing. It was almost impossible for them to believe that a nation, far advanced in science and learning of all kinds, could look upon a treaty as a sc.r.a.p of paper and consider its most solemn promises as not binding when it was to its advantage to break them. Americans in their homes, their churches, and their schools had been taught that "an honest man is the n.o.blest work of G.o.d." They had heard the old saying that "All is fair in love and war"; but they could not think for a moment that a whole nation of men and women had been taught that lies and treachery and broken promises were fair because they helped the Fatherland work out its destiny and rule the world.

They knew that Chancellor Bismarck falsified a telegram to bring on the war with France in 1870, and they learned to their dismay that Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg in 1914 declared the treaty with Belgium only "a sc.r.a.p of paper" when Germany wished to cross that country to strike France. Americans kept learning that Germany's promises to respect hospitals and hospital ships, stretcher-bearers and the Red Cross, not to interfere with non-combatants, not to use poison gas, not to bombard defenseless cities and towns were all "sc.r.a.ps of paper."

They discovered even the naturalization papers which Germans in America took out in order to become American citizens were lies sworn to, for the German who declared his loyalty to his new mother country was still held by Germany as owing his first fealty and duty to her. It must be said, however, that many Germans who became naturalized in the United States did not agree with these secret orders of their Fatherland; but many others did, and the rulers of Germany encouraged such deception.

It was many months after the beginning of the World War before the large body of American citizens would believe that the German nation and the German people made a business of lies and deception, and considered such a business just and proper when in the service of the Fatherland. But when Germany--after having promised the United States on May 4, 1916, that merchant ships would not be sunk without warning or without giving the crews and pa.s.sengers an opportunity for safety--on January 31, 1917, informed Washington that she was not going to keep her promise and told the German people that she had only made it in order to get time to build a great submarine fleet which would bring England to her knees in three months--then the American people saw Germany as she was and in her shame.

Of all the peoples of the earth, the Americans are probably the most sympathetic and helpful to the weak and the afflicted. They are the most merciful, striving to be kind not only to people but even to animals. The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, another for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the numberless Bands of Mercy show the feeling of the people of America toward the helpless. Americans supposed that other people were like them in this respect. They knew of the German pensions to the widows and to the aged, and they supposed that the efficient and enlightened Germans were among the merciful and sympathetic to the weak and dependent. The people of the United States knew, of course, of the Zabern incident where two German soldiers held a crippled Alsatian cobbler while a German officer slashed his face with his sword for laughing at him,--they knew that the German army officers were haughty and overbearing, but they thought this came from their training and was not a part of the German character. Americans had read the Kaiser's directions to the German soldiers going to China during the Boxer uprising to "Show no mercy! Take no prisoners! Use such frightfulness that a Chinaman will never dare look at a German again. Make a name for yourselves as the Hun did long ago." But the Americans, or most of them, did not believe that in the twentieth century a nation cla.s.sified among the civilized nations could or would adopt _Frightfulness_ as a policy. But when they read of the devastation of Belgium and northern France; of the destruction of Louvain; of whole villages of innocent men, women, and children being wiped out; of the horrible crimes of the sinking of the _Lusitania_, the _Falaba_, and the _Laconia_; of the execution of Edith Cavell; of the carrying off into slavery, or worse than slavery, of the able-bodied women and men from the conquered territory--when Americans learned these horrors one after another, they at last were forced to acknowledge that, like the brutal a.s.syrian kings who sought to terrify their enemies into submission by standing as conquerors upon pyramids of the slain, the modern Huns sought mastery by _Frightfulness_.

When most Americans came to realize that Germany was fighting a war to conquer the world, first Russia and France, then England, and then the United States--for she had written Mexico that if she would attack the United States, Germany and Mexico would make war and peace together--when they came to know the German nature and the idea of the Germans, that Might makes Right and that truth, honesty, and square dealing like mercy, pity, and love are only words of weaklings; that they were a nation of liars and falsifiers and the most brutal of all people of recorded history; when, added to this, the Americans realized that for over two years France and England had really been fighting for everything for which the United States stood and which her people held dear, for her very life and liberty, then America almost as one man declared for war.

Meanwhile Germany had declined to recognize the laws of nations which allowed America to sell munitions to the Allies. She had scattered spies through the United States to destroy property and create labor troubles. She had challenged the right of peaceful Americans to travel on the high seas. She had sunk the _Lusitania_ with a loss of one hundred twenty-four American lives; the _Suss.e.x_, the _Laconia_ with a loss of eight Americans, the _Vigilancia_ with five, the _City of Memphis_, the _Illinois_, the _Healdton_, and others. She had tried to unite Mexico and j.a.pan against us.

Not until then, after the American people had become fully aware of the German character and purposes, did Congress on April 6, 1917, declare a state of war existed between Germany and the United States. On that day the outcome of the war was decided. Through her hideous selfishness, her stupidity, and her brutality, Germany, after having spent nearly fifty years in preparation, lost her opportunity for world dominion. The resources and the fighting power of what she looked upon as a nation of cowardly, money-loving merchants decided the conflict.

AMERICA COMES IN

We are coming from the ranch, from the city and the mine, And the word has gone before us to the towns upon the Rhine; As the rising of the tide On the Old-World side, We are coming to the battle, to the Line.

From the Valleys of Virginia, from the Rockies in the North, We are coming by battalions, for the word was carried forth: "We have put the pen away And the sword is out today, For the Lord has loosed the Vintages of Wrath."

We are singing in the ships as they carry us to fight, As our fathers sang before us by the camp-fires' light; In the wharf-light glare, They can hear us Over There When the ships come steaming through the night.

Right across the deep Atlantic where the Lusitania pa.s.sed, With the battle-flag of Yankee-land a-floating at the mast We are coming all the while, Over twenty hundred mile, And we're staying to the finish, to the last.

We are many--we are one--and we're in it overhead, We are coming as an Army that has seen its women dead, And the old Rebel Yell Will be loud above the sh.e.l.l When we cross the top together, seeing red.

KLAXTON.

PERSHING AT THE TOMB OF LAFAYETTE

They knew they were fighting our war.

As the months grew to years Their men and their women had watched through their blood and their tears For a sign that we knew, we who could not have come to be free Without France, long ago. And at last from the threatening sea The stars of our strength on the eyes of their weariness rose; And he stood among them, the sorrow strong hero we chose To carry our flag to the tomb of that Frenchman whose name A man of our country could once more p.r.o.nounce without shame.

What crown of rich words would he set for all time on this day?

The past and the future were listening what he would say-- Only this, from the white-flaming heart of a pa.s.sion austere, Only this--ah, but France understood!

"Lafayette, we are here."

AMELIA JOSEPHINE BURR.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Lafayette, We Are Here!" The immortal tribute of General John J. Pershing at the grave of the great Frenchman. Notice the difference between the American and French salutes.]