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 ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
Class _^ 
 
 Book . 
 
 Copyright N°. 
 
 * ■ 
 
 COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 
 
4Sp iflarp Eobertfii Etneljart 
 
 T I S H . Illustrated in color. 
 
 THROUGH GLACIER PARK. Illustrated. 
 
 K. Illustrated. 
 
 THE STREET OF SEVEN STARS. 
 
 THE AFTER HOUSE. Illustrated. 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 Boston and New York 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
THE ALTAR OF 
 FREEDOM 
 
 BY 
 MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
 
 The Riverside Press Cambridge 
 
 1917 
 
,"R5 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1917, BY THE CURTIS PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 COPYRIGHT, I917, BY MARY ROBERTS RINEHART 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published April iqij 
 
 .-$"0 
 .MAY 12 1917 
 
 ^CU460759 
 
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 (2 
 
 THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 Remember, boy, that behind all these men 
 you have to do with, behind officers, and 
 government, and people even, there is the 
 Country Herself, your Country, and that 
 you belong to Her as you belong to your own 
 Mother. 
 
 The Man Without a Country. 
 
 We are virtually at war. By the 
 time this is published, perhaps the 
 declaration will have been made. 
 
 And even now, all over the country, 
 on this bright spring day, there are 
 mothers who are waiting to know what 
 they must do. Mothers who are facing 
 the day with heads up and shoulders 
 back, ready to stand steady when the 
 
 s 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 blow falls; mothers who shrink and 
 tremble, but ready, too; and other 
 mothers, who cannot find the strength 
 to give up to the service of their coun- 
 try the boys who will always be little 
 boys to them. 
 
 I love my country. There is nothing 
 she can ask that I will not do. I am 
 ready to live for her or die for her. 
 Last stand of the humanities on earth, 
 realization of a dream and fulfillment 
 of an ideal, my home, my native land, 
 — that is America to me. Because I 
 am a woman, I cannot die for my coun- 
 try, but I am doing a far harder thing. 
 I am giving a son to the service of 
 his country, the land he loves. 
 
 4 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 When I was a child, I lived on a 
 quiet, tree-shaded street in this very 
 city where now I am writing this. And, 
 late in May of each year, when the 
 ailanthus trees were in blossom, the 
 street put up fresh curtains and red- 
 washed the brick pavements. The 
 cobblestones were swept, too. And 
 then the procession came. 
 
 I was twelve, I think, before I be- 
 gan to get a lump in my throat as the 
 long line of veterans went by. It was 
 a long line then. I did not know ex- 
 actly why I cried, except that those 
 men and those tattered flags stood for 
 something heroic and very sad. I 
 know now, but it has taken years to 
 
 5 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 put it into words, and in those years 
 the line has shortened to a handful. 
 Even the one-armed drummer has 
 gone now. The street, which was rough 
 and hard to march on in those days, 
 has been made smooth for their feet, 
 but few are left who can march to that 
 quiet God's-acre on the hill above. 
 
 Now I know why, as a child, I wept. 
 Those men had fought for something 
 that was a part of me, like my mother, 
 or my home : for my country. 
 
 Many years later I again saw march- 
 ing men. But now the men were young, 
 and there were no flags and no drums. 
 They were marching into battle. And 
 they were not fighting for my country. 
 
 6 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 But they were fighting for the ideal 
 on which my country was founded, for 
 humanity against oppression and cru- 
 elty, for the right of a man to labor 
 in his own field, for the principle that 
 honor is greater than life. 
 
 I saw them living and fighting, and 
 I saw them dying. I saw strange na- 
 tions, men of different tongues and 
 different colors, gathered together and 
 becoming as one, against a common 
 foe. And then I learned this: that the 
 world is now but one great nation, 
 drawn close by the creed that all men 
 are brothers; and that in the midst of 
 that great nation of the world had 
 broken loose something terrible, some- 
 
 7 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 thing that must be killed, or the world 
 dies. 
 
 Once over there I saw a boy dying 
 in a railway station. He knew two 
 English words, so he said : — 
 
 "All right. All right." 
 
 It was all right with him. He had 
 done his bit, and he knew that there 
 were others to take his place, and that 
 the world-nation would not rest until 
 the war-beast was chained. It was 
 "all right." 
 
 And so now, on the brink of war, I 
 know it is all right with us. 
 
 We have been the melting-pot, but 
 under the pot there has been no fire. 
 Now the fire has come, a white flame, 
 
 8 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 and we will fuse at last. But it will 
 burn and sear. And to that, I wonder, 
 can we say, "All right"? 
 
 War is a great adventure, the great- 
 est adventure in the world. The adven- 
 turers go forth to battle, eyes ahead. 
 Mostly they are boys who go, because 
 war is the young man's game, the 
 young man's call. All over Europe 
 boys have left their homes, with a 
 shame-faced tear or two, perhaps, but 
 with the great adventure ahead. And 
 they have left at home a great empti- 
 ness, a quiet that is not peace. 
 
 Then, — and very suddenly, — they 
 
 have ceased to be boys on a great 
 
 9 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 adventure, and are men, fighting men, 
 patriots and soldiers. Something that 
 had always been theirs had become a 
 thing that had to be fought for. Not 
 until it was menaced had they known 
 how dear was their country. The flag 
 had been but a flag. It became a sym- 
 bol of home. 
 
 I have lived to see my country's flag 
 beside the altar of my church. 
 
 Men fight wars, but it is the mothers 
 
 of a nation who raise the army. They 
 
 are the silent patriots. Given her will, 
 
 every mother in this great land would 
 
 go to war, if by so doing she could keep 
 
 her sons in safety. It is easier to go 
 
 than to send a boy. 
 
 10 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 Yet war is not necessarily death. I 
 try to comfort myself with this. Per- 
 haps it will help other mothers. It is 
 a hazard, but it is a thing of vast re- 
 wards and much cheerfulness, of de- 
 mocracy, of big moments and little 
 feasts, of smiles and grumbling, of 
 labor and rest, and of that joy in his 
 own kind that only the boy knows. 
 And underneath it all, buried deep 
 and never articulate, is that feeling of 
 doing his bit for his country, which is 
 the foundation on which a nation rests 
 secure. 
 
 I wish I could always remember 
 
 these things. I have panicky times, 
 
 when the sun dies for me, and my 
 
 ll 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 world goes black. But I am like the 
 other mothers. I shall go through with 
 it, and I would not have things other- 
 wise. I would not have my son do 
 other than he is doing. He is still in 
 his 'teens, but he is a man, and this 
 is his country. I have not raised him 
 to be a shirker. 
 
 Only — this is a matter for every- 
 body. It is not my war, or his, or the 
 war of those other college boys who 
 are always the first to go. Just as we 
 all benefit by the country, so must we 
 share — and share alike — its dangers. 
 
 Unless it is your war, this is not a 
 democracy. If, as in the past, we have 
 allowed the few to do our political 
 
 12 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 thinking for us, as even now in the 
 churches the few earn for all of us the 
 right to call this a Christian land, if in 
 this war we allow the few to fight for 
 us, then as a nation we have died and 
 our ideals have died with us. Though 
 we win, if all have not borne this bur- 
 den alike, then do we lose. 
 
 Sometimes, in these last troubled 
 days, when every newsboy on the 
 street under my window has been cry- 
 ing War, I cover my eyes and see that 
 gallant little first army of England, 
 springing to the call, and facing, 
 without hope, the great trained Ger- 
 man army. It was the best England 
 had, and it is gone, almost to a man 
 
 13 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 — because the mothers of England 
 had not insisted that every man in the 
 empire bear his share. 
 
 What if now your boy and mine 
 could be a part of a vast trained army? 
 His chance would be better. Better? 
 There would be no war. You and I, 
 trembling for what may come, are 
 paying the price of not having risen, 
 an army of women, and demanded 
 what now may come too late. 
 
 Because we did not rise this situa- 
 tion confronts us. For this is what a 
 volunteer army means in this country 
 to-day. For every high-spirited lad 
 like yours and mine who goes out to 
 
 fight, there are a hundred, a thousand, 
 
 14 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 men of fighting age and strength who 
 will not go, men who have no country, 
 but only a refuge from the oppression 
 of Europe. 
 
 Are we to suffer that they may live? 
 Is this liberty of ours, this Land of the 
 Free, without price? And will those 
 hold it dear whom it has cost nothing? 
 
 Yet, so great is my faith in this 
 great nation, so sure am I that the 
 principles on which it is built are en- 
 during, that I believe all these things 
 will be set right in time. The one thing 
 that matters now is to do our part, to 
 show to the world that America still 
 believes that there is such a thing as 
 honor, and such a word as right. 
 
 15 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 For — and this I believe as I do in 
 my country — we are to end this war. 
 And that is the greatest privilege a na- 
 tion of the world may have. We have 
 sat by, through such horrors as have 
 turned the world to blood. But now 
 we can come in our strength, and 
 mighty strength it will be. So rich we 
 are! So strong! So young! 
 
 And the enemy is old — jaded and 
 crafty and old : as old as cruelty is old. 
 We are young and tireless and unafraid. 
 
 I have seen a sixteen-year-old Bel- 
 gian sentinel keeping watch over a 
 part of the German army, and all its 
 science was powerless against his keen 
 young eyes. 
 
 16 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 But we must pay the price. And the 
 cost falls heaviest on the women. 
 
 No woman has the right to hold her 
 son back if he desires to go to war. 
 It is the fruition of the years in which 
 she sought to make him a man. It is 
 the vindication of his manhood. It is 
 the crystallization of those very ideals 
 which she taught him with his prayers. 
 
 I decline to believe that there are 
 mothers who will not let their boys 
 strike back when they are attacked. 
 
 But it is hard. Always the relation 
 
 between mother and son is very close. 
 
 As the boy grows up, the mother faces 
 
 this, that he needs more than she can 
 
 give him. He is still her world, but she 
 
 17 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 is no longer his. Life calls, work and 
 play and love, and sometimes battle. 
 And the mother cannot hold him. 
 
 Everywhere are mothers, women 
 who have patched small garments and 
 tied up little wounds, who have built 
 up a house of life out of millions of 
 loving services, whose world has been 
 the four walls of home. 
 
 To such women comes the call for 
 their sons, who are still to them, 
 though men grown, but the little boys 
 of the stockings, and the small wounds, 
 and Christmas trees, and the Fourth 
 of July. 
 
 I do not fear for these women, but 
 we cannot minimize what they do. 
 
 18 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 They will send their sons, because they 
 know that a nation is but a great 
 home, consisting of many small ones. 
 Homes are the units of a nation, as 
 men are of an army. And these women 
 know that our homes are only safe so 
 long as the country is. They know too 
 that peace has fled from the earth and 
 cannot be brought back but by God 
 and the sword. 
 
 Perhaps my own experience will 
 be helpful. I am a home-woman, al- 
 though now and then my profession 
 has called me to strange places. Our 
 family life has been very close. And, 
 while I have little fear for myself, I 
 am a coward for my children. 
 
 19 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 When, some weeks ago, war began 
 to come close, I weakened, and I wrote 
 my oldest son a letter. I was willing to 
 have him do his duty, but I asked him 
 to wait. Womanlike, I wanted time. 
 I felt that surely this cross was not for 
 me to bear so soon. 
 
 Then, — and may he forgive me for 
 telling this, because of its purpose, — 
 after a day or two, he wired, asking 
 his father and myself if we wanted him 
 to be a quitter. 
 
 I came to my senses then, and the 
 necessary permission to enlist was 
 signed and sent. Then I sat down and 
 wrote to him, and said we would stand 
 squarely behind him in whatever he did. 
 
 20 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 Easy? It was the hardest thing I 
 have ever done. But I am glad now. 
 I would never have forgiven him, I 
 think, had he failed his country. But 
 I nearly failed him. 
 
 So I have given one son, and I stand 
 ready to give my other two, if their 
 country needs them, when they are old 
 enough to go. 
 
 But I am finding some things to 
 cheer me. There is, for instance, the 
 knowledge that the scandals of the 
 Southern camps during the Spanish 
 War will not be repeated. There we 
 lost ten boys from disease to every one 
 killed in battle. Think of it! We 
 learned nothing from that war, but 
 
 21 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 we have learned greatly from the war 
 in Europe. There will be no cruel and 
 useless waste of life from disease. On 
 the Mexican border there was prac- 
 tically no sickness, although the nat- 
 ural conditions were in favor of it. We 
 have sanitarians, now, and water sup- 
 plies will be watched. The inoculation 
 against typhoid, too, has eliminated 
 the disease, both in the European 
 armies and here. Because it is waste 
 that we fear. 
 
 We are trying to feel, we women, 
 that no cost is too great, if needful 
 to preserve our country. But we will 
 never be reconciled to waste of life 
 through negligence. And this I prom- 
 
 22 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 ise, now. Let such negligence occur, 
 and let me know of it, duly investi- 
 gated, and I will make the press of 
 the country ring with it, to the eternal 
 shame of those J^ho are responsible. 
 
 I have been to war, and I know this : 
 that men living in fearful surroundings 
 may be kept healthy by proper care. 
 This care is what we demand, those of 
 us who cannot fight, but who are bear- 
 ing our own burdens, nevertheless. 
 
 One or two things have helped to 
 make our decision hard for us. Per- 
 haps the most important is this : there 
 is no great hatred of the enemy, how- 
 ever much we abominate the things 
 the German Government has driven 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 an acquiescent people into doing. We 
 all know Germans here whom we like 
 and respect. We see them, family folk, 
 sober and industrious and God-fear- 
 ing, all about us. They are not Huns 
 or vandals. And all the knowledge we 
 have of a nation gone mad to order 
 hardly counteracts the effect of the 
 friendly human contacts of our daily 
 lives with the Germans we know. 
 
 We forget that the German we know 
 has come here to escape the very thing 
 that has wrecked the old world ; that in 
 coming to this land of the free he has 
 followed an ideal as steadily as back 
 in the fatherland his kindred are follow- 
 ing after the false gods of hate and war. 
 
 24 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 He is German, but he is not Prus- 
 sian, although he may be Prussian- 
 born. 
 
 Then, too, women know too much 
 now of war to enable them to make 
 the sacrifice easily. War has become 
 more than a word. It is become reality, 
 and only its horrors live for them. 
 And so far but little emphasis has 
 been laid on the great things for which 
 we will fight. We talk in numbers. 
 We stress the fine points of interna- 
 tional law. We think of bond issues 
 and submarines and guns — and the 
 women sit and roll bandages and 
 brood, and care little for all these 
 things. Why not something of the 
 
 25 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 real reason for this war, of the hatred 
 for ruthless cruelty, the contempt for 
 our rights, the scorn of the little na- 
 tions, and of the privilege of helping to 
 bring back to a world that is destroy- 
 ing itself the priceless boon of peace? 
 
 How afraid we are of airing our love 
 of our country! How shame-facedly 
 we rise to the national anthem! How 
 many excuses a man will give for going 
 to war, except the fundamental one 
 that he loves his country and is going 
 to stick by her though the heavens fall ! 
 
 Little boys, these men of ours, hid- 
 ing their deepest feelings with a gibe! 
 
 Some things we women must learn, 
 and now is the time to learn them. 
 
 26 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 Sacrifice is an old story to women. 
 They have always known it. But not 
 sacrifice to an abstract ideal. Sacrifice 
 to an ideal, then, — and personal service. 
 
 And this personal service, mothers of 
 America, is not rolling bandages for the 
 other woman's son. 
 
 That hurts, but it is true. This is 
 no time for evasion. And it is not be- 
 cause I have made my sacrifice that I 
 say it. It is because, unless we all give, 
 unless our army is large enough, those 
 who have failed in their duty are send- 
 ing the best youth of the country to 
 death. It will be murder. 
 
 In return for what we give, we 
 women of America have the right to 
 
 27 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 demand certain things. First of all we 
 can and must demand time that our 
 boys may be trained. We have taken 
 a long time to go into this war. And 
 because the country would not believe 
 that we must eventually be involved, 
 we have lost precious years. 
 
 When, now nearly two years ago, 
 I came back from the war in Europe, 
 I brought with me two convictions: 
 First, that the German Government 
 had thrown aside its mask of law and 
 order, and was following war along 
 lines so atrocious that it must be 
 checked or civilization dies. Second, 
 after conferring with men high in the 
 Allied Governments, that sooner or 
 
 28 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 later we should inevitably find our- 
 selves involved: it was but a matter 
 of time. 
 
 I came home terrified. I tried to 
 talk about it. It seemed to me that we 
 could not sit back unarmed, with only 
 our brave little army, — less than a 
 single day's losses in battle over there, 
 — and do nothing. 
 
 But I was as a voice crying in the 
 wilderness. I was not alone, of course, 
 in my wilderness. There were many, 
 but the country heard us not. It lis- 
 tened to Belgium, and sent aid. It 
 helped the pathetic little French or- 
 phans. It shook its head over the Roll 
 of Honor in the " Illustrated London 
 
 29 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 News," and it went to church on 
 Sundays and thanked God that we 
 were out of it. 
 
 An obstructive Congress, instructed 
 from its constituencies, refused to 
 listen to talk of preparation. The 
 Army tried to get a hearing, and the 
 Navy tried, but both failed. It is 
 not the fault of the Democratic Party 
 that we are to-day as we are, although, 
 insomuch as our President is head of 
 the Army and of the Navy, it is the 
 Democratic Party which will control 
 the war. 
 
 It was, indeed, that stanch old 
 Democrat, Thomas Jefferson, who 
 said: — 
 
 30 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 "We must train and classify the 
 whole of our male citizens and make 
 military instruction a regular part of 
 collegiate education. We can never be 
 safe until this is done." 
 
 Later on he went still further: — 
 
 "I think the truth must be obvious 
 that we cannot be defended but by 
 making every citizen a soldier." 
 
 It is the fault of a great people who 
 have forgotten or have never learned 
 that the world is only one tenth as 
 large as it was when this Republic was 
 founded. And that, instead of being 
 isolated from this war, the conflict is 
 and has been from its beginning but 
 just over the edge of the horizon. 
 
 31 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 What else must we demand, now 
 that the war-beast is creeping closer, 
 when his head is reared above the sky- 
 line? What else have we a right to 
 ask, we women who cannot sit in the 
 seats of the mighty, but to whom the 
 nation must turn for soldiers, now and 
 in future generations? 
 
 We can ask this: This country of 
 ours has been hag-ridden by politics. 
 We have the right now to demand that 
 party lines be forgotten, and that the 
 nation act as a whole, politically; that 
 the best man serve, regardless of his 
 party. 
 
 This must not be a "party" war. 
 If any man put his party before his 
 
 32 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 country, that man is a traitor. We are 
 no longer Republican or Democrat or 
 Progressive. We are Americans. 
 
 Not until universal service had re- 
 moved the war in England from party 
 lines was there anything adequate 
 done. Then, and only then, did Eng- 
 land begin to put forth her best ef- 
 forts. 
 
 And this we can ask: — 
 
 This must not be a bureaucrat's 
 war. 
 
 Civil administration in the field has 
 always failed. War is a highly spe- 
 cialized business, the most highly 
 specialized business in the world. And 
 
 we who give our best have the right to 
 
 33 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 demand the best. We can have no 
 bungling. 
 
 The English Field Marshal Wolse- 
 ley, writing of our Civil War as a 
 military expert, said: "The Northern 
 prospects did not begin to brighten 
 until Mr. Lincoln, in March, 1864, 
 with that unselfish intelligence which 
 distinguished him, abdicated his mil- 
 itary functions in favor of General 
 Grant." 
 
 War is not a thing for amateurs in 
 high places. 
 
 If our own history means anything 
 to us, if the tragic experience of Eng- 
 land has taught us anything, it is that 
 the army in the field should not be a 
 
 34 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 Washington-controlled army, beyond 
 the supplying of men, arms, and equip- 
 ment. 
 
 Do you know what a company com- 
 mander must do in the day's work? 
 He must enroll and recruit his company 
 to a strength of one hundred and fifty 
 men. He must get them clothed, 
 equipped, and fed, and he must keep 
 them clothed, equipped, fed, doctored, 
 sanitated, cheerful, and amused. 
 
 Any woman who has tried to do all 
 of these things for one stirring lad may 
 multiply these by a hundred and fifty, 
 and no maternal instinct to help out, 
 and see that the company commander 
 has a full day even in peace times. 
 
 35 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 Then he has to drill his men, and in 
 war he has to lead them. He must 
 give them every chance for life if he 
 can. He must die with them if it be 
 necessary. But he must do with them 
 the thing he has been assigned to do. 
 
 Is that work for the amateur? 
 
 In the Mexican and Civil Wars our 
 professional fighters were Indian fight- 
 ers and frontiersmen, splendid and 
 hardy men accustomed to hardship. 
 But they were not conversant with 
 modern military methods. The result 
 was civilian officers, taken from shops 
 and offices, and the further result, in 
 the Civil War, that a struggle which 
 might have ended in a year took four. 
 
 36 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 But we did not learn anything from 
 that lesson. For we are about to com- 
 mit again the same folly, and from the 
 same necessity. 
 
 Then, again, we have the right to 
 demand enough time. Because we 
 have wasted two years is no reason for 
 hurry now, when haste means sending 
 our boys untrained against a highly 
 trained enemy. 
 
 Do you know that McDowell was 
 urged to take his volunteers into ac- 
 tion by popular clamor and against 
 his better judgment before their three- 
 months' enlistment expired, and that 
 the result was the unhappy battle of 
 Bull Run? 
 
 37 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 All this means but one thing to me, 
 a mother. It means time to train our 
 boys and properly equip them. And 
 it means professional military leaders. 
 
 And this is pertinent now, because 
 what we have done before we may do 
 again. In the Civil War each State 
 was called on for a certain number 
 of regiments. Prominent men then 
 raised these regiments, and they were 
 officered by local civilians. That was 
 not such a hardship then, because our 
 boys were to face other regiments re- 
 cruited and officered in the same way. 
 
 Rut surely we will not do this now. I 
 protest. I want the best, not only for 
 my son, but for all the sons who are so 
 
 38 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 valiantly offering themselves. I can- 
 not stand back silent, with the mem- 
 ories I have of what war is, with the 
 death and misery and wanton destruc- 
 tion of Flanders before me, with the 
 scar of the iron heel of Germany on my 
 heart. I protest. 
 
 The Plattsburg idea has borne 
 abundant fruit. It has shown three 
 things : — 
 
 1st. That individual training can- 
 not be had in less than several months 
 of field service. 
 
 2d. That organization cannot be 
 had even in so short a time. 
 
 3d. That professional leadership is 
 necessary as opposed to officers ap- 
 
 39 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 pointed from civil life at the outbreak 
 of hostilities. 
 
 You who considered prayerfully the 
 best doctor for your child when he 
 was ill, are you going now to place his 
 life in unskilled hands? 
 
 This morning I stopped at one of the 
 recruiting stations and talked to the 
 clear-eyed young soldier on duty. — 
 They are a fine lot, this little regular 
 army of ours. I like to talk to them. 
 They look me in the eye. Do you re- 
 member teaching your little boys to 
 face the world, head up ? — This young 
 soldier had been seven years in the 
 army. He had one more year, and un- 
 less there was a war, he was going to 
 
 40 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 quit then. He liked it, but he had 
 done his bit. No, there were not 
 many men applying. Yes, he guessed 
 we should need all we could get. 
 
 Then he gave me this appeal to the 
 young patriots of the country, flaming 
 now with the fire of that highest emo- 
 tion of all, love of country: — 
 
 "Men wanted under thirty-five 
 years of age, for the United States 
 Army. Special inducements to Phar- 
 macists, Musicians, Bandsmen, Electri- 
 cians, Clerks, Bakers, Cooks, Barbers, 
 Teamsters, Carpenters, Blacksmiths, 
 Horseshoers, and other Mechanics." 
 
 God of our fathers! Not special in- 
 ducements to Patriots, Men who love 
 
 41 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 their country, Men who believe in 
 liberty, Men who hate cruelty, Men 
 who would avenge Belgium, Free Men, 
 Fighting Men! 
 
 And, farther down, it is not, "Come 
 and do your bit," "Your country calls 
 you," or "Save the Flag." It offers, 
 forsooth, "a chance to see the world." 
 Those are the very words ! 
 
 So to-day we are on the edge of war, 
 or at war. And we ask, not for boys of 
 fire and steel, but cooks and teamsters 
 and blacksmiths. 
 
 But the American boy has imagina- 
 tion, if our War Department has not. 
 And he is coming, in his thousands and 
 tens of thousands. 
 
 42 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 Nothing can hold him back, — not 
 danger, not inadequate preparation, 
 not anything under the blue sky where 
 once he sailed his kites and sent up his 
 Fourth-of-July rockets. Not even the 
 mother he loves. 
 
 What are we going to do, then, we 
 mothers, when the tumult and the 
 shouting have died, and the long wait 
 comes? We will pray. The churches 
 of France are full of kneeling women. 
 And we will work. 
 
 There is no spectacular work for 
 mothers in a war. They cannot drive 
 ambulances, or guide aeroplanes, al- 
 though they are capable of doing both. 
 There will be no need of the wig- 
 
 43 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 wagging that some women are so pain- 
 fully learning ! But they will work for 
 the Red Cross, and they will make up 
 such little packets as only mothers can 
 make, — toothbrushes and chocolates 
 and fresh socks and gingerbread, and 
 a Bible and playing-cards and cigar- 
 ettes. 
 
 And in between times, they will 
 wait, in that quiet that is not peace. 
 
 That is what millions of women are 
 doing just now, while you are reading 
 this. 
 
 There are two wars being waged to- 
 day. One is the war of hate, and one is 
 the war of love. And this last is the 
 bitter war, because it is being fought 
 
 44 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 in women's hearts, between their fears 
 and their patriotism. I know. 
 
 And because fear is evil, it will go 
 down to defeat. Women are brave, 
 and mothers are the bravest of all 
 women, for they have faced the Geth- 
 semane of child-bearing. They will 
 not weaken now. 
 
 Napoleon said, " Give me the mothers 
 of France, and I will make France." 
 
 So this is how I see the situation to- 
 day, as it affects me and others like 
 me. If I believe in my country, as God 
 knows I do, if I love it, and that too 
 He knows, I must do my little part, 
 my bit. 
 
 45 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 This the country must know : that 
 women are ready to do their part. 
 Else we are not free women, but slaves. 
 And this the country must know, too : 
 that the women demand that it do its 
 part. 
 
 The best of preparation, of skill, 
 of guidance, of every sort of provision, 
 is what we require and will have. 
 
 We will not fail America. Let it not 
 fail us. 
 
 But she will not. America, last 
 stand of the humanities on earth, 
 realization of a dream and fulfillment 
 of an ideal, our home, our native land, 
 we mothers stand ready. 
 
 46 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 More than fifty-two years ago an 
 American woman received this letter. 
 It was written to one mother, but it 
 belongs to all mothers, everywhere in 
 the world, who have seen their sons go 
 forth to war and leave behind them 
 those empty places in the heart that 
 are never filled: — 
 
 Executive Mansion, November 21, 1864. 
 
 Dear Madam : I have been shown in 
 the files of the War Department a state- 
 ment of the Adjutant-General of Massa- 
 chusetts that you are the mother of five 
 sons who have died gloriously on the 
 field of battle. I feel how weak and 
 fruitless must be any words of mine 
 which should attempt to beguile you 
 from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. 
 But I cannot refrain from tendering to 
 
 47 
 
THE ALTAR OF FREEDOM 
 
 you the consolation that may be found 
 in the thanks of the Republic they died 
 to save. I pray that our Heavenly 
 Father may assuage the anguish of your 
 bereavement, and leave you only the 
 cherished memory of the loved and lost, 
 and the solemn pride that must be 
 yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice 
 upon the altar of freedom. 
 Yours very sincerely and respectfully, 
 
 (Signed) Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 the END 
 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 
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 THE WORLD DECISION 
 
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 THIRTY YEARS 
 
 SIR THOMAS BARCLAY 
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 ARE WE READY? 
 
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