"Industrial help, again. We are making munitions for you, night and
day. It is true that we are being paid for our trouble; but the cost
of living has risen almost as much here as in your own country. Also
let me tell you that we are making no munitions for Germany, and would
not do so, money or no. The same with financial help. Loan after loan
has been floated in this country for the Allied benefit. How many
loans have been raised for Germany? Not one! That is not because
German credit is so bad, but because no true American will consent to
lend his money to such a cause. Believe me, the attempt has been made,
and strong influence brought to bear, more than once, but the result
has been failure every time.
"Red Cross Work, again. There are hundreds of Americans driving
ambulances in the Allied lines to-day, and hundreds of American women
working in Allied hospitals. There are complete hospital units over
there, equipped and maintained by American money and American service.
Have you ever heard of the Harvard Unit, for instance?"
"Vaguely. Tell me about it."
"Well, I mention the Harvard Unit because it was about the first; but
others are doing nobly too. Let Harvard serve as a sample. At the
outbreak of the War, Harvard put down ten thousand dollars to equip
and staff the American Ambulance Hospital in Paris. Then, in June,
1915, Harvard took over one of your British Base Hospitals, with
thirty-two surgeons and seventy-five nurses. That hospital has been
maintained by Harvard folk ever since; they go out and serve for three
months at a time. Harvard also sent an expedition to fight typhus in
Serbia. Harvard's casualty list, in consequence, has grown pretty
long. Not a bad record for one neutral University, eh? I don't seem to
remember your Oxford or Cambridge sending out a medical unit to help
us, when we were fighting for a moral issue too, away back in the
'sixties under Lincoln."
"I knew nothing of all this. People at home must be told," says the
Briton, earnestly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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