Out To Win: The Story of America in FranceDawson, Coningsby
History
Out To Win: The Story of America in France
Dawson, Coningsby
World War, 1914-1918 -- United States
Later I met with many instances of the various forms in which this
thought is taking shape. I was in America when the Liberty War Loan
was so amazingly over-subscribed. I saw buses, their roofs crowded
with bands and orators, doing the tour of street-corners. Every store
of any size, every railroad, every bank and financial corporation had
set for its employes and customers the ideal sum which it considered
that they personally ought to subscribe. This ideal sum was recorded
on the face of a clock, hung outside the building. As the gross
amount actually collected increased, the hands were seen to revolve.
Everything that eloquence and ingenuity could devise was done to
gather funds for the war. Big advertisers made a gift of their
newspaper space to the nation. There were certain public-spirited men
who took up blocks of war-bonds, making the request that no interest
should be paid. You went to a theatre; during the interval actors and
actresses sold war-certificates, harangued the audience and set the
example by their own purchases.
When the Liberty War Loan had been raised, the Red Cross started its
great national drive, apportioning the necessary grand total among all
the cities from sea-board to sea-board, according to their wealth and
population.
One heard endless stories of the variety of efforts being made.
America had committed her heart to the Allies with an abandon which it
is difficult to describe. Young society girls, who had been brought
up in luxury and protected from ugliness all their lives, were banding
themselves into units, supplying the money, hiring the experts, and
coming over themselves to France to look after refugees' babies.
Others were planning to do reconstruction work in the devastated
districts immediately behind the battle-line. I met a number of these
enthusiasts before they sailed; I have since seen them at work in
France. What struck me at the time was their rose-leaf frailness and
utter unsuitability for the task. I could guess the romantic visions
which tinted their souls to the colour of sacrifice; I also knew
what refugees and devastated districts look like. I feared that the
discrepancy between the dream and the reality would doom them to
disillusion.
During the month that I was in America I visited several of the camps.
The first draft army had been called. The first call gave the country
seven million men from which to select. I was surprised to find that
in many camps, before military training could commence, schools in
English had to be started to ensure the men's proper understanding of
commands. This threw a new light on the difficulties Mr. Wilson had
had to face in coming into the war.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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