Wounded Men in a Hospital Weaving Rugs 232 Unloading Wheat at a French Port 248 In a Red Triangle Hut in the Battle Zone 288 A Pleasant Evening in a Hostess House 296 Salvation Army Lassies at the Front 296 Woman’s Land Army Members Sorting Potatoes 312 Training Camp of Woman’s Land Army 312 View from Washington Monument, August, 1917 340 Same View One Year Later 340 WHAT AMERICA DID FOREWORD: ENTERING THE WAR When the United States entered the war, April 6th, 1917, she had an army, including all the forces of the Regular Army, the National Guard and the Reserve Corps, totaling 202,510 men and 9,524 officers, a navy not large but well prepared, and the nucleus of an aeronautical section so small and undeveloped that it was negligible. Behind these fighting forces that, except the navy, were insignificant in comparison with the vast numbers of men swaying back and forth across the battlefields of Europe was a nation that ever since its birth had held the profound conviction, a fundamental of its political creed, that this country should never allow itself to be drawn into the quarrels of Europe. Generation after generation had watched transatlantic wars blaze up and go their bloody way and had seen their flames fed by racial hates and jealousies, commercial greed, desire of territory, and dynastic and personal ambitions. And each successive generation had detested more deeply the whole foul crew of those motives and had been more determined that America should have no concern in the struggles they inspired. No one who does not understand how deeply rooted was this conviction in the political beliefs and ideals, the traditions, the very life of the American people can appreciate what it meant to them to plunge into the war. It demanded no less than a revolution in their methods of thought and in their attitude toward the rest of the world. The Monroe Doctrine, moreover, which for nearly a century had been almost as fundamental in our political life as the Constitution itself, made our abstention from interference in Europe a point of honor. For in its declaration that Europe must keep its hands off the western hemisphere was the implied and recognized obligation that the United States must keep its fingers out of Europe.