The Audacious WarBarron, Clarence W. (Clarence Walker)
History
The Audacious War
Barron, Clarence W. (Clarence Walker)
World War, 1914-1918
And this successful multi-millionaire replied quietly, "Stocks are
going up because I am buying them and every other intelligent
capitalist is buying them. Look out of the window there. That sweeper
at the crossing has straightened up and is sweeping that crossing
better and with more energy because the flags are flying, and the bells
are ringing, and the guns will soon be booming. War is the greatest
energizer of a people. There is now profit in industry and enterprise,
and financial equities have increased value." And for nearly ten years
the stock market booms followed in the wake of that war boom, while
construction and upbuilding went steadily forward despite agitation and
restricting laws.
It would astonish Mr. Wilson and Mr. Bryan to know how many patriotic
Americans are helping France and what they are doing in Red Cross and
other work. I was surprised to meet a former member of the New York
Stock Exchange in a khaki uniform. I said, "Are you still an American
citizen?" He responded promptly, "Certainly I am, but would not the
boys on the floor of the Exchange be astonished to see me in this
uniform?"
I said, "Were there not men enough here to do this work?"
He responded, "Possibly, but quick organization was wanted, and I
volunteered and have held the job." And he was off in his high-powered
automobile for a run down behind the firing line to one of the Channel
ports.
As the casualties of the French have been ten times those of the
English, American and English sympathizers have turned to France to see
if they might "do something." An English lady with small feet and
delicate hands responded to the spirit of the hour, left her English
home and her servants, and went to the hospital front in France. She
wrote home: "I am helping not only to dress the wounds, but to wash
dishes. My soft hands are parboiled but hardening; my feet are sore;
and my legs are swollen. I lie down thoroughly exhausted every night,
but I am doing something and am happy."
Mrs. W. L. Wyllie, wife of the famous marine etcher on the south
English coast, looked out upon the Channel war-scenes, and took ship
for France. She found the center and south of the country one vast
hospital. At Limoges alone she found more than 12,000 wounded, and
32,000 wounded had passed through that city. She found the hospital in
need of special bandages and cross-bandages for multiple wounds, and
back she flew to England for bales of bandages. For weeks she was
crossing and recrossing the English Channel. Soldiers have recovered
from as many as twenty and thirty bullet-wounds in the flesh.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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