Show 1 book A aion i the spring of 1017 certain groups T of patriots in the east particularly in new york and boston did a great deal of worrying about the middle and western states these Eust easterners erners would como together at luncheons and committee meetings and utter after getting into a condition of collective depression about the apathy of the country they would appoint one of their number cumber to act ns as an oratorical commission rudiger go out there they would say isay to him It Rudl ger for gods sake go out there ond and rouse the middle festl and rudiger would go out on his rousing expedition and make speeches before commercial clubs and at larger meetings and then go buck back home without having noticed that the tha middle and western states were already passing their quotas for enlistments of fighting men whereas rudl rudi gers own state at that time had filled just about l lacs M I 1 j it a third of its own enlistment quota however the Rud igers were not at all I 1 E easterners ast erners about people seemed to feel that the united states did not realize that it was waa nt at war Rud igers name was not legion but populace and yet lie he believed that he was almost the only person in america who comprehends comprehended the full seriousness of tile the situation ile he got a somber satisfaction out of his big forebodings seel lie he would predict wake up and find out what in for some lay day when its too late maybe but I 1 tell you they wont know what it means I 1 at war with the greatest military power in the world and sound asleep I 1 tell you it drives a ruan man almost crazy to see its is I 1 to do what this war means and then look about him at all these millions of people behaving as if there any afar war at all I 1 east wesl north and south rudiger got the habit of scolding ile he felt that lie he had bad the whole war on ills his one pair of shoulders for a day he he might forget it a little and go out and play golf then another day would come when the weight of the war would lie heavily on him and hed see some other rudiger playing golf and rudiger would watch him from the clubhouse veranda and groan and scold the big dunderheads dunder heads V I 1 he be would sputter ep utter they just cant realize iti nobody doing anything i nobody even worrying yes almost all of us had a touch of rudiger in those days we imagined that we felt the war more than our neighbors did the thought made us irritable and there was a vast scolding we produced many thousands of editorials and posters founded on the YOU theme the kaiser will got get YOU it if YOU XOU dont enlist or if YOU dont subscribe to the red cross or if YOU dont buy liberty bonds are YOU doing your duty if not YOU wl will ll 11 be painted yellow of course this going after YOU in such an obstreperous us way was con eldered by advertising experts to be the most effective form of rousing but in the light of later events one may venture to express a doubt and to express also an opinion that the YOU campaign was inspired mainly by its congeniality with the nervous irritability of the time it was rudiger ism whereas what has really made things happen on the great scale Is neither the acack on YOU nor YOUR susceptibility to scolding but tile the WE US and OUR 0 ifft spirit when a poster shouts at me YOU arent in the trenches I 1 am apt to floetl feet in n little antagonized and my thought may be what business busine sg Is it of yours you poster man or advertising specialist YOU arent in the trenches either YOUR YOU ire are as safely at home as anybody and YOU the right to be screaming reproaches and warnings at me YOU dont know what im doing or trying to do for our cause YOU seem to think its more your war than it Is mine and YOU think YOU have to wake me up and YOU make maka roe rne tired 1 or if im a selfish end gnat brained person the kind at whom the YOU shooting is chiefly aimed my emotional process processo proc essl may take this form cut out the built yelling YOU going to get I 1 me to do anything I 1 dont want cant to do you cant work ME bo I 1 of course there were individuals who bo had bad to be shamed into war efforts and no doubt the YOU work helped to get them into line but the really important american pronouns have proved to be those of the first person plural it was WE US and OUR that reached those citizens whom we formerly called german americans it wn was s WE US and OUR that left nothing of the hyphen and the hyphen had only smarted the redder under the mustard plaster pronoun YOU when the german americans as we called them found that OUR country was at war they erased the hyphen they might have remained german americans it we had gone to war with any country except germany and this Is one great benefit that germany conferred upon Us when she attacked us she killed the hyphen she counted on killing it and so far her calculations were correct but she Is not pleased with her success in the matter for she made a mistake in an important detail she thought the german G erman americans am erl cons of the hyphen she ehe thought they were really germans they the hyphen Is gone forever and there arent any german american citizens any more in our country there tire are only american citizens from august 1914 until april 1917 the german americans often said YOU to the rest of us and the rest of us often said YOU to them but now all of us say WE US and OUR A young friend of mine of german descent told me how it was with him until april 1917 he had been pro german and at times critical of our governments attitude toward germany only a week or so after war was declared I 1 met him and lie he was in uniform a fighting mans uniform of course I 1 am I 1 he said oh yes everything was jas different until my country went to war I 1 loved Ger germany madr and I 1 naturally thought that germany was right in her struggle with other foreign countries dont you take your old and admired friends side when he gets into a controversy with people who are strangers to you well I 1 think I 1 was all right to have felt that way and to have taken that attitude up to the time the united states went to war and I 1 cant be ashamed of it even though I 1 may have been mistaken but germany Is no friend of mine now no earl sir I 1 not from the moment when she became the recognized enemy of my country my count rys enemy Is my enemy and im going to fight this enemy of my country it if it costs my life germany Is my enemy 1 im out to help get the kaiser and were going to do it I 1 V the german americans encountered skepticism from people who found it to see sec how n viewpoint can change with changed circumstances cum stances and the doubt was sailing galling find and unhelpful as suspicious doubts nearly always are A great many good americans who get into uniform and fight germans felt the need of attacking somebody the they y co could ah get at and make wince they suffered from the natural and just finger against germany but germany was too far away and too loo sheltered behind hindenburg to be directly affected and a lot of us just contain ourselves we were so hot we had to let out and give something or somebody within our reach a good cussing bussing cus sing we cussed the gernian german amerl ameri cans and made it a little harder for them to declare their loyalty but the vast majority of them behaved so well under the stress that after a while we had to abandon tills this means of blowing off our steam so we picked up the british word slacker and used used it to vent our irritation find and perhaps haps we did a little good here and there with our sI slacker ficker talk and certainly we did some borm we were very free with the word we editors writers and speakers wife wh 0 were not in uniform ourselves ww we were especially bitter against what we liked jo ito call the i swivel eb chair a ir warriors in was washington there were men of draft age I 1 it t appears serving in some of the ibe departments in washington gt n find without pausing to inquire how many of these were physically unfit for service in n the field or how many had he be come indispensable in the positions the they were ere filling we ve raged against the them i m virtuous congressmen who themselves had no intention of ever being ex america aroused and united Is following tho the shining figures of the leaders of 76 pose posed d to polson poison gas or liquid fire felt aliat it imposed a reputation for to make virulent oratorical at attacks tricks on these swivel warriors lors who were remaining out nut of the zone of fire remaining in III washington with the congressmen and so some of the lie departments yielding to oratory find other pressure threw out many anany men who hild had learned their jobs and were working more hours a day than tiny any union would have allowed and then other men some of them fur far less competent find and fill all of them beginners were put fiut into the swivel chairs and the work of tile tho war vas thereby just so much disarranged and just so much delayed all of which means something in tho the casualty lasts we aind had to learn that criticism must know its own jo jod it inus tnt bo be merely blowing off on steam and enthusiasm Is useful only when it never takes its eye off the ball Thou thousands ands of unfit menbere men were themselves III used and made a useless expense to uncle sam by too much indish indiscriminate i ri minitte en 10 thu on the part of boards that 0 packed them off to training camps and too often certain dratted drafted men were sent to the camps in sullen Ill moods when tact and an eye on the ball would have sent them not in a mood at all but at least beginning to glow with that steady fire of patriotism which no normal man can lack when lie he feels feela and knows kiowa understandingly that thai his country needs him no doubt the word slacker has had its uses but it Is possible that we should have done better not to adopt it and one thing Is certain those of us who have never worn a uniform are not well entitled to use slacker in its military sense as a condemnation of any other man who la Is not in uniform we can use the word traitor when we can make it good by brocof but we should leave slacker to soldiers and those who have been soldiers we must judge not lest we be judged let us save our bitterness for our enemy to it a nation war comes its as a great trouble comes to a family when a great trouble comes to a family the members of that family draw closer they depend upon one another as never before and they are kinder to one another than they have been in happier times they forget differences that have come among them and they make sacrifices to help one another they find many good nesses and nobilities in one another that they have not discovered before their strength to meet their trouble comes from their unity they cannot meet it it if they bicker and fall apart if one does not do his share the others will get less from him by scolding than if they say eay come brot brother hert 1 one day last april we had a liberty loan parade in indianapolis some of fis us marched and the rest looked on and helped to cheer and perhaps tried not to cry when the flags went down the street with the people who carried them singing glory glory hallelujah I 1 there were soldiers infantry and artillery tn in the parade and hospital units and lines and lines of surgeons and nurses and there were state and city officials and governors and senators and ex ambassadors but the great part of the marchers barchers mar chers were just the people of a city at war factory owners marched with their men labor leaders marched with millionaires and unless you knew them you tell which was which the merchants the bankers the lawyers the doctors the dentists the clerks the railroad men the barbers the bricklayers the steel workers the canners the carpenters the plumbers they all marched and they all sang when the bands played and when the bands the catholic organizations marched find and the protestant organizations marched thousands of negroes marched in their church orders singing and free and in the war like the rest and there were great clubs and organizations that had been called german but would no longer be called Ger german mall they marched and sang and were most absolutely and violently a part of the war on germany there were bulgarians Bulga rians shouting the allied battlo battle call singing the battle cry of freedom and there were Roum anians and serbians Serb Ser ians blans and greeks and russians all americans and all in this war there were chinese and there was a band of japanese dressed its as antique bowmen nowhere in the city was there anything that at war with the germans and overhead sailed the airplanes but it was not so with indianapolis alone or with all the cities and towns and villages and country sides oj of indiana alone the same manifestation was wag visible all over america where there are people so we said it if that rosenkranz and GuIlder stern pair of worth worthies les in germany and ludenburgh could only get a birdseye birds eye view of what Is showing forth today if they could get but a glimpse of this america roused they might also get a glimpse of what Is coming to them I 1 america n ot of only roused but america united our trouble has taught us our unity we have said come br brother otherl and we stand together steadfast we are at war with militarism the katier kaiser knowing that lie he Is the front and symbol of i said those who wish to destroy us fire are digging their own graves 11 ae ie knows well enough what we mean to destroy and in ills his rage lie he talks graveyard to frighten us his worst mistake has been his thinking that terrifies that murdering a mans child subdues the man and keeps him quiet zeppelins zeppelina Zepp elins submarines 70 mile guns poison gas rape setting peaceful towns on fire turning machine guns on women children priests and old men these are the raw head and bloody bones he uses ilsa hoping through fear to make all the wide world his own private ogres agres castle but america will not have it so let him wave ills his raw head and bloody bones let him threaten us with graves and let him make the german people believe that it Is germany we mean to destroy he knows what this republic means to do he kno knows ws what the united democracy of the world means means to do a and ad it ft Is he that Is afraid find and proves ills his fear like a coward talking big in the dark america Is marching leaders go before us mighty and implacable for america and for the freedom of man and we see them not in dimness but as shining figures alive today and alive forever at the head of the nation washington and franklin and hamilton and adams and jefferson and patrick henry and francis mitrion marion find paul jones find and light horse harry lee and decatur and Mf idison and scott and william henry harrlson and zachary taylor and the solemn great figure of lincoln marches there at our hea head d with grant and sherman and sheridan and robert E lee and stonewall jackson we know what these men said to us that the word to us was always the same yesterday and today and tomorrow always their word to us Is forward and we follow them their way lies straight upward over emperors and kings icings for a while in our prosperity it seemed tint we fiat biad forgotten our leaders that we ire had forgotten that the power of the spirit is greater than tile the power pow er of dollars alint we ind had even forgotten to keep heep ourselves a nation one and indivisible and had become n collection of grabbers living on fat and laughing ni at corruption and shame and it ans thus the german thought of us never was there so false a liel lie the time lime has come that brings us our test america woke find woke in arms not one true son of america doubts the future |