1 
 
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CoItunWa ©ntbmttp 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 GIVEN BY 
 
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HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 THE MIND OF THE DOUGHBOY 
 BY THE DOUGHBOY HIMSELF 
 
HOME— THEN WHAT? 
 
 THE MIND OF THE DOUGHBOY, A. E. F. 
 
 BY THE DOUGHBOY HIMSELF 
 
 COLLECTED AND ARRANGED BY 
 
 JAMES LOUIS SMALL 
 
 WITH FOREWORD BY 
 
 JOHN KENDRICK BANGS 
 
 NEW XEJr YORK 
 GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1920, 
 BY GEORGE H. DOR AN COMPANY 
 
 O. U;. ~^h^^ 
 
 JUM '^ ^* 
 
 c 
 
 
 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 One of the questions most frequently asked of 
 me on my return from France in June, 1918, was 
 "What is the American boy thinking about over 
 there?" My stock answer to this was that any man 
 who undertook to write a Baedeker of the Dough- 
 boy's Mind must in the very nature of things be a 
 human Argus, with a milUon eyes, and every eye an 
 X-ray optic at that, and a thousand hands, each 
 hand holding a pen with a thousand nibs. There 
 were two million of America's sons over there at 
 that time, and while at a distance of fifty yards they 
 all looked alike, and strode along with the same con- 
 fident step, and seemed rather to be cogs in a great 
 machine than separate entities, soldiering had not 
 made them any the less individual, and whatever 
 had been done to them by their training to reduce 
 or to elevate them to a type, physically their minds, 
 in so far as I was able to get at them, had not ceased 
 to function in the good old independent fashion. 
 There are not wanting signs that a large number of 
 observers who viewed it from coigns of vantage four 
 or five thousand miles away, and others as well who 
 studied the psychology of the doughboy through the 
 large end of a telescope, have conjured up a beauti- 
 ful vision of our lads rushing to the Front and over 
 
vi FOREWORD 
 
 the Top, their hearts ringing with a lyric version of 
 the Fourteen Points of Peace, and other highly con- 
 centrated forms of American Ideals, and I would be 
 the last person in the world to slur such a lovely 
 idea; but it is the sad fact that at the time the boys 
 were so gallantly going up and over, the Fourteen 
 Points had not been promulgated, and that their 
 main purpose and thought was to do a particularly 
 disagreeable job as expeditiously as possible, unham- 
 pered by historical afterthoughts or purely political 
 abstractions. Nor could I find any traces in their 
 minds, their hearts, or their actions, that the idea of 
 Peace Without Victory possessed any particular al- 
 lure, but on the contrary, a very decided predilec- 
 tion for the beating up of the Hun in such fashion 
 that the world would be assured against the possi- 
 bility of ever having to beat him up again. 
 
 There were, nevertheless, certain grooves of 
 thought into which their minds seemed to run. The 
 first had to do with Home, and they thought of that 
 in terms of singular beauty. Some of them^ who 
 had never before given much thought to Home 
 found it all on a sudden idealized, and they glorified 
 it as a sort of Eden from which they had been tem- 
 porarily exiled, and to which they longed to return, 
 but not until they had further glorified it by doing 
 well the thing they had left it to do. As an in- 
 stance of this, I recall an encounter I had with an 
 American doughboy early one morning in Paris. I 
 was breakfasting in one of those chain-restaurants 
 
FOREWORD vii 
 
 with which that fair city is afflicted, when this glori- 
 ous lad came into my life. Finding myself some- 
 what lonely, I hailed him and invited him to join 
 me in a poor, but reasonably honest, platter of in- 
 different ham and ancient eggs. . Some questioning 
 elicited from him the information that, however else 
 Paris might impress others, in his judgment it was 
 "a shine." He considered it "a phony burg," and 
 why anybody should rave over it, believe him, he 
 couldn't see. Whereupon I tried to tell him of some 
 of the things that had made the French capital a 
 Mecca of delight to so many thousands of his com- 
 patriots, and he listened with entire respect, but at 
 the end of my disquisition he came back upon me 
 with 
 
 "O H — 11, yes — Paris is all right; but, d — n it. It 
 Ain't Fort Wayne ! I" 
 
 It was a pleasing retort, and I was glad of it, and 
 in a very essential way, for in varying ways it was 
 the sentiment of most, it showed that while in all 
 probability the bulk of our sons overseas had al- 
 ways in the past taken their own country for granted, 
 and had thought little, if at all, on the values of 
 American Citizenship, they were coming back not 
 better Americans perhaps, but more devoted, and 
 more appreciative sons of America than they had 
 ever been before. Which is one of the benefits that, 
 like a lovely flower having its roots in mire, have 
 sprung up out of the chaos of muddy, bloody ruin 
 into which the War has plunged the world. 
 
viii FOREWORD 
 
 Again, they were thinking a lot of "Dad" and 
 "Mother," and if Dad and Mother do not al- 
 ready know it as well as I do, who saw them face 
 to face with temptations of an insidiously subtle sort, 
 let me record here that the vast majority of them 
 were as true to the ideals their fathers and mothers 
 had set up for them as though Dad and Mother 
 were right there with them day and night. I have 
 not had the privilege of studying at close range other 
 armies in the past, but I doubt if there was ever 
 gathered together anywhere in the world a body of 
 men equal in Character to those sons of ours "over 
 there." They not only seemed obsessed with an urge 
 towards the strictest kind of right conduct, but to it 
 they had allied a stern resolve to keep themselves 
 fit for the business in hand, and I have had them tell 
 me in specific terms, with a light in their eyes that 
 showed that they spoke not mere words, but their 
 very souls, that they would rather cut off their right 
 arms than by indulgence weaken their strength at a 
 time when every ounce of it was needed to carry 
 not only on but through. I was exceedingly glad to 
 find this frame of mind among them for a very spe- 
 cial reason. An official, high in authority in the 
 United States Government, had requested me in my 
 talks to the American Soldiers to warn them that 
 "they should not regard going to France as the op- 
 portunity for indulgences in Wine and Women," 
 and I had informed him that I would not insult 
 American youth by assuming that they had any such 
 
FOREWORD ix 
 
 abominable ideas in their heads, and it was a joy to 
 mc when I got to France to find that my estimate of 
 the character of Young America was as true as his 
 was false, my only regret in the premises being that 
 such as he were permitted to have anything to do 
 with the destinies of our gallant boys, since in my 
 judgment the merest association with minds of his 
 type was contaminating, and to that extent demoral- 
 ising. Fortunately, his contacts with the active 
 fighting men were as limited as his knowledge as to 
 their intrinsic character. 
 
 A third thought common to the fighting men across 
 the sea was that War as it had been scientifically 
 developed was a "rotten business," and made addi- 
 tionally rotten by the way circumstances compelled 
 them to fight. They hated the mud of it, and they 
 had a shame-faced sort of feeling that the heroism 
 as well as the heroics of it had somehow been taken 
 out of it by trench warfare. Long-distance fighting 
 with an invisible foe was not suited to the tempera- 
 ment of the American boy. He is not by nature 
 quarrelsome, but he loves a scrap. A Rough-House 
 suits him to a Tee. His naturally ardent spirits 
 made the long, drear}', underground watching and 
 waiting, with its dull, dirty monotony, a thing that 
 irked his soul. If those that I met and talked with 
 could have had their way there would have been 
 more hand-work and less machinery^ about it. They 
 wanted to get out into the open and show Hans and 
 Fritz that back in America a real fight was a face 
 
FOREWORD 
 
 to face affair, in which the Party of the First Part 
 was a Man and not a Mole, who wanted nothing so 
 much as direct individual results that he could see 
 with his own eyes, whether the Party of the Second 
 Part was a bigger man than he or not. This spirit 
 was as strong in the men in the trenches as in those 
 in the air, and while none of them wished to die un- 
 necessarily, they were all more than willing to take 
 their chances, which is why they had neither to be 
 led nor to be driven over the top, and which, alas, 
 is also why many of them in their eagerness to come 
 to close quarters with their enemy ran into their own 
 barrage fire, and died from shrapnel sped from their 
 own guns. 
 
 As to their mental attitude toward the enemy, I 
 found a remarkable sense of discrimination among 
 them between the Man- and the Thing That the 
 Man Did. There was no hatred of the German as 
 an Individual, but a deep-seated abhorrence of the 
 Hun's acts and methods. A German Prisoner, save 
 in very rare and highly aggravated cases, was sure 
 to be treated v/ith more consideration by his Ameri- 
 can Captor than he ever received at the hands of his 
 own Officers, which may account for the surprising 
 number of Kamerads that suddenly developed upon 
 the battle-fields where the Americans were active. It 
 was a far safer place for a Hun behind the Ameri- 
 can forces than in front of them, and, despite his 
 somewhat sluggish mental processes, Fritz was not 
 slow to appreciate and to take advantage of the 
 
FOREWORD XI 
 
 fact. But the American Soldier had no softness in 
 him in action, and there his attitude towards the foe 
 was perhaps best expressed by the word of an Amer- 
 ican youth I encountered in Paris during one of his 
 richly-earned rest periods. The last time I had seen 
 that particular American lad was in an American 
 School three years before at a time when he was pre- 
 paring for College. Here in Paris I found him 
 scarcely less youthful in spirit, but somewhat hard- 
 ened physically by his strenuous experience in the 
 Air Service. He wore the ribbon of the Croix de 
 Guerre upon his breast, and it bore two palms, which 
 signified that he had brought down two Huns in 
 action. Considering his years, I thought of a ques- 
 tion that had often arisen in my own mind, and I 
 put it to him bluntly. 
 
 "Son," said I, "how does a youngster like you feel 
 when he realises that he has killed a couple of men^" 
 
 "I haven't," he replied simply. 'Tve only 
 smashed a couple of rattlesnakes." 
 
 In short, when the fighting was on in full force, 
 In those dark months when the enemy appeared to 
 be Irresistible, with General Foch as yet an unde- 
 termined quantity, with the British in Sir Douglas 
 Haig's own words, "with their backs against the 
 wall," and the Americans as yet untried, the boys 
 from over here were thinking chiefly of their Immi- 
 nent job, resolved to do It as well as might be, to 
 keep themselves fit, and dreaming of the Homeland. 
 
xii FOREWORD 
 
 If they were thinking of the future at all, it was the 
 future only of the actual to-morrow, certainly not 
 beyond it. To-day the situation is different. The 
 War is over, or at least active armed hostilities have 
 ceased until the Hun with his active Propaganda 
 has succeeded in disrupting the Allies, and once more 
 aligned the Armies the Armistice permitted to es- 
 cape, and it is now less of the big job of America as a 
 whole which has been left unfinished than their own 
 special jobs in the days to come that they are concern- 
 ing themselves with. They are already home in large 
 numbers, and those of us who have our eyes open 
 realise that they are thinking about something con- 
 nected with their own individual future, but in just 
 what terms ? In a way, it is the purpose of this little 
 volume to point that out. It was my privilege in 
 my visit to France this year, in May, June and July, 
 to come into a somewhat personal relation with many 
 of them, largely through the medium of The Com- 
 rades IN Service that splendid instrument of 
 Morale Preservation, which in the difficult days fol- 
 lowin^: the Armistice rendered invaluable service in 
 upholding the Hold Together spirit of our lads not 
 now fighting but marking time. And here let me di- 
 gress for a moment to speak of the Comrades. The 
 Comrades in Service movement — for it has been a 
 movement rather than an organisation throughout 
 its brief history — furnishes a fine illustration of the 
 adaptability of the real American spirit. It owes 
 its origin to Prof. O. D. Foster, of Chicago, who. 
 
FOREWORD xiii 
 
 in his service at the front and in the S.O.S., had 
 come to feel very strongly that now was the ap- 
 pointed time to utilise and so far as possible to per- 
 petuate those great unifying influences which had 
 been bom of the war and without which Amer- 
 ica never could have played its wonderful part in 
 the liberation of the world. His contact with the 
 men of the A.E.F. had convinced him of three things : 
 first, that every American is an idealist ; second, that 
 no amount of military training would destroy his 
 disposition to do things for himself in his own way 
 instead of merely leaving it all to some one in Wash- 
 ington or at G.H.Q. ; and, third, that in spite of his 
 intense individualism, he was a friendly person, not 
 caring very much as to the creed, politics or perma- 
 nent residence of his neighbour in arms but demand- 
 ing chiefly that he be a "regular fellow," willing to 
 share his last blanket or his last cigarette with his 
 mates. 
 
 With these things in mind, Dr. Foster started his 
 first Comrades in Service Company Club at Gievres, 
 France, adopting a name given to a similar organi- 
 sation he had directed while Y.M.C.A. secretary at 
 Camp Custer, Illinois. The men responded enthu- 
 siastically to the suggestion that they organise them- 
 selves (rather than be organised) into a club officered 
 by themselves, choosing and promoting their own 
 activities and filled with the spirit which the name 
 implied. Encouraged by this success, and seeing the 
 great need and opportunity presented after the sign- 
 
xiv FOREWORD 
 
 ing of the Armistice, Dr. Foster made bold to out- 
 line his plan to Bishop Charles H. Brent, Senior 
 Chaplain, G.H.O., and to Mr. E. C. Carter, Chief 
 Secretary of the Y.M.C.A.; Mr. E. L. Hearn, Chair- 
 man Overseas Commission, Knights of Columbus; 
 Rabbi H. G. Enelow, Director Jewish Welfare 
 Board, and Col. W. S. Barker, Commander of the 
 Salvation Army. As a result of these conferences, an 
 agreement was made providing for the fullest co-op- 
 eration between the different agencies represented 
 with a view to presenting and promoting the Move- 
 ment among the officers and enlisted men of the 
 A.E.F. At a great mass meeting in the Palais de 
 Glace in Paris, January 12, 1919, attended by Presi- 
 dent Wilson and over 5,000 members of the A.E.F., 
 the project was formally launched and at once heart- 
 ily endorsed by the representative gathering. 
 
 Quarters were first secured at the Religious Work 
 Department of the Y.M.C.A., but very soon these 
 proved inadequate, and Chaplain Edwin F. Lee, 
 U. S. Army, personal representative of Bishop Brent, 
 was installed in offices in Paris furnished by the 
 Army and a personnel provided by the Army and 
 Welfare organisations began to be built up. In the 
 carrying out of the plan, the Army furnished Chap- 
 lains and other officers and enlisted men, quarters, 
 office equipment and supplies and printed an official 
 handbook. The Welfare Organisations provided 
 funds and personnel, together with use of huts and 
 other facilities. Publicity was given through the is- 
 
FOREWORD XV 
 
 suance of a bi-weekly bulletin, of which nearly a 
 million copies have been printed and distributed. 
 Several booklets, chief among which were Professor 
 Soares' book on "Old Testament Studies in Comrade- 
 ship," Malcolm Dana's "The War in Terms of Com- 
 radeship," and Professor Collier's "A New World 
 in the Making," and a large amount of miscellaneous 
 literature were also distributed in large quantities. 
 
 The activities favored and promoted by the men 
 in the Company Clubs varied all the way from a non- 
 sectarian Bible class or a personal purity propaganda 
 to a Jazz Band minstrel show or a forensic meet. 
 Various Welfare agencies had before this time done 
 more for the American Army than was ever done else- 
 where for any group of similar men. But here was 
 a chance for the men to do something for themselves 
 and for each other, and to do it in their own way. 
 The special interest of the men in the discussion of 
 public questions led to the establishment of a Forum 
 department to provide topics for discussion and 
 where practicable speakers as well. In addition, at 
 least half a million men were addressed in mass meet- 
 ings, called for the purpose of preparing the minds 
 of the soldiers for return to civilian life, the motive 
 being furnished in the motto, "We are to be mus- 
 tered out of America's Army, but we are not to be 
 mustered out of America's service." 
 
 The original plan called for the formation of a 
 veterans' association along these lines, but when the 
 American Legion was organised by the officers and 
 
rvi FOREWORD 
 
 men of the A.E.F., and after consultation with the 
 Central Council of Comrades in Service, adopted al- 
 most in its entirety the platform and principles of 
 Comrades in Service, it was thought best to co-operate 
 with the American Legion rather than to attempt to 
 organise a rival veterans' association, with the under- 
 standing that this co-operation would continue as 
 long as the American Legion should be conducted 
 upon that basis, and that the Comrades in Service as 
 a purely military organisation among the men of the 
 A.E.F. should cease to function with the return of 
 the A.E.F. to America. 
 
 From May first until military necessities com- 
 pelled a cessation of activities and the dissolution 
 of the original organisation in the A.E.F., material 
 assistance has been given the Comrades in Service 
 Movement by the action of General John J. Per- 
 shing, Commander-in-Chief, in placing at the disposal 
 of Comrades in Service the sum of over 100,000 
 francs given by the Chicago Tribune to be used in 
 whatever way General Pershing thought would be of 
 greatest benefit to the soldiers. In announcing his 
 decision. General Pershing said : "I have decided that 
 this generous gift can be expended in no better way 
 than by assisting the Comrades in Service, which af- 
 fects and reaches every individual member of the 
 A.E.F." General Pershing has since expressed the 
 desire that the Movement be established as a perma- 
 nent feature in the regular army, with such modifi- 
 cations as peace conditions may require. 
 
FOREWORD xvii 
 
 In accordance with the spirit of this suggestion, a 
 Continuation Committee has been organised in the 
 U.S.A. and has appointed a subcommittee, of which 
 Dr. Arthur W. Grose, of Rochester, New York, is 
 the Chairman, to work for the permanent incorpora- 
 tion of the principles of Comrades in Service in the 
 army and navy and their perpetuation through the 
 American Legion and Community Service, Incor- 
 porated. 
 
 With disintegrating and demoralising forces at 
 work on every side, in the days of the great recon- 
 struction not less than in the days of the Great War, 
 there is need for the unifying and genuinely con- 
 structive influence of that unselfish spirit of service 
 which has characterised those Comrades in Arms 
 who upon the battle-fields of France have laid the 
 foundations for a new and greater America in a new 
 and greater world. 
 
 In pursuance of an arrangement with this organi- 
 sation, I was permitted access to our men, and I 
 found them thinking hard and variously of several 
 things, many of them lads of true vision wondering 
 if the thing they had come over to do had really been 
 done with a decisive finality, and uneasily sensing 
 an actual loss of victory in the fact that having the 
 enemy bagged they had been compelled by the Arm- 
 istice to let him escape ; many of them openly hoping 
 that the Peace Treaty would not be accepted by Ger- 
 many so that they might advance, and History not 
 have to record a failure to carry through ; but all of 
 
xviii FOREWORD 
 
 them thinking loyally and lovingly of Home, and 
 both its relation to them and theirs to it. They were 
 for the most part like a cast of actors in a great drama 
 approaching its final curtain wondering what their 
 next role was to be. In the occupied territory of 
 Germany they were still close enough to their po- 
 tential enemies to be thinking primarily of them, and 
 their unsatisfied need for further discipline ; but else- 
 where, as I saw them in France, America was the 
 burden .of their thoughts. To concrete their ideas 
 definitively was of course impossible, and it was here 
 that Comrades in Service, in my judgment, ren- 
 dered a signal service not only to the men them- 
 selves, but to those of us at home as well who seek 
 a leading insight into the innermost recesses of the 
 soldier mind. In May, 1919, to stimulate self-ex- 
 pression among the men, at the suggestion of Capt. 
 Leon Schwarz, U. S. Army, three prizes were of- 
 fered of 500, 250, and 100 francs, respectively, for 
 the three best essays on the topic, "Home — Then 
 What?" the subject having been selected by Chap- 
 lain H. C. Fraser, U. S. Army. Although only a 
 brief time could be given for the writing of these 
 papers owing to the rapid movement of our troops 
 to America, several hundred were sent in to the 
 Judges, representatives of the Paris editions of the 
 New York Herald^ the Chicago Tribune^ and the 
 London Daily Mail. The essays here presented have 
 been selected from these, and as a whole, perhaps, 
 present the best symposium of soldier thought in ex- 
 
FOREWORD xix 
 
 istence to-day. Indeed, to me they are more than 
 that, for as I read them over and over again, I seem 
 to glimpse not only the minds of our boys, but also 
 to find in them a wonderful revelation of the Soul 
 of our New America, bom in the muck and mire of 
 War, and bred in the blood of an unselfish devotion 
 to the highest ideals of Service. 
 
 John Kendrick Bangs. 
 
 Ogunquit, Maine ^ September 30, 1919. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Prize Essays 
 
 First Prize: Marcelle H. Wallenstein . . 25 
 
 Second Prize: Joshua B. Lee 32 
 
 Third Prize : Geo. F. Hudson 40 
 
 Selected Essays 46 
 
 Selected Extracts 220 
 
HOME— THEN WHAT? 
 
L'ENVOI 
 
 The nights we spent where the Bochc flares lent 
 
 Their red to the moonlit sky 
 Are now forgot, and another spot 
 
 Is luring our footsteps nigh; 
 The hard heart thrills, for the rookie drilli 
 
 Are things of a soldier past, 
 And gleams of home from across the foam 
 
 Are calling us all at last. 
 
 When rifles rust and the dingy dust 
 
 Collects on the I. D. R., 
 Our thoughts will grope for the periscope 
 
 With visions of fields afar : 
 Of parts we played and of pals we made 
 
 That drift through a golden dream 
 That waits beyond with the halcyon 
 
 When memory reigns supreme. 
 
 J. P. C. in the last number of 
 
 The Stars and Stripes 
 
 June 13th, 1919. 
 
HOME— THEN WHAT? 
 
 FIRST PRIZE 
 
 Marcelle H. Wallenstein, 
 
 Pvt. 1 c. 104th Aerial Photo Section A.E.F., 
 Weissenthurm, Germany. 
 Home Address: 416 N. 3rd St., 
 
 Atchison, Kansas. 
 
 Come September — the promises of Congress bear- 
 ing fruit — and the A. E. F. will be a memory. The 
 first goal is home; the Yank in Europe must trade 
 his o. d. for mufti before whatever ideas and ideals 
 he has accumulated become correlated and codified. 
 Then, living under conditions that make for freer 
 self-expression, his theories and gropings should find 
 their way to the surface. Assimilation into the life 
 of his homeland will lie in the conflict between his 
 changed attitude and whatever conditions there are 
 to oppose it. Events at home already presage such 
 a conflict. 
 
 The veteran will hop into politics much as he 
 
 went for enemy machine gun nests, or followed the 
 
 25 
 
26 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 barrage of his artillery, and, it is to be hoped, with 
 as clear a head. Which does not mean that every 
 buck private who crossed the Atlantic has aspira- 
 tions for Congress, nor does it follow that he will 
 take to the chautauqua platform or the soap box 
 and proceed to howl himself into immediate dis- 
 favour. Not that. Still he is going into politics 
 with an exploring forefinger, poking any number 
 of holes into flimsy half measures, stripping away 
 camouflage; prodding certain individuals farther 
 than pre-election promises. This time and the next 
 will find him looking under the band of the cam- 
 paign cigar, and trying to do the same in regard 
 to what lies under the hats of the men who want 
 to represent him at Washington, at his state capital, 
 and even in the council chambers of his home town. 
 Certainly the man home from Europe will inject 
 the prophylaxis against the germ of any national 
 disease resembling, in its slightest symptom, Prus- 
 sianism: he must do this, else his dreams will be 
 made hideous by the fear that his buddies who lie 
 in the rest camps on the Vesle, the Mame and the 
 Meuse, died for something hollow and vain. Just 
 as surely must he refrain from throwing his influ- 
 ence into the pan weighted by that other extremist — 
 the Bolshevik — and it will not be the man who car- 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? %1 
 
 ried on in France until the day the armistice was 
 signed, who will haul up the scarlet banner over our 
 county court houses. There has been violence 
 enough for him and his for generations to come; he 
 has seen enough of his own kind fall before the 
 agents of sudden death. 
 
 Having lived in Europe; being given an oppor- 
 tunity to compare the conditions of life in his own 
 country with those of two, and in some cases, three 
 and four foreign nations, there has come to him a 
 realisation of the preciousness of American citizen- 
 ship, and he will be the last to wish it fouled by the 
 backwash of Europe's dissatisfied peoples. The cir- 
 cle about the stove under the leaky barrack roof has 
 expressed itself quite clearly on the immigration 
 problem more than once since last November. There 
 now exists the feeling that the equal rights of Amer- 
 ica must not be handed to any and all, regardless 
 of character and fitness, who after a too brief period 
 of residence, express a desire to share in American 
 benefits. So, as his rights as an American are dear 
 to him, the soldier who represented his people in 
 France, will have little toleration for or patience 
 with the destructive radical, and will oppose him; 
 just as he will oppose, with all his power, the com- 
 ing to the United States of subjects of the ex-Kaiser, 
 
J?8 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 and after a period insufficient to deprussianise them, 
 voting for a President of the nation. 
 
 For the next few years, at least, it is felt that 
 the nations of the eastern hemisphere should be al- 
 lowed to shape their own courses, and, that after the 
 conclusion of a satisfactory peace, the mingling by 
 America in European and Asiatic affairs should be 
 accomplished by the most cautious and conservative 
 methods. Coupled with this is the belief that it is 
 folly to undertake a housecleaning of the entire 
 world when there is so much to be swept from our 
 own doorstep. 
 
 Whatever their sentiments on coming to France, 
 Privates Schmidt, Steffansky, Merillo, O'Hara, 
 Pappas and Jansen must each feel, as the transport 
 bears him once again in sight of the statue in New 
 York harbour, that she is the shining image of his 
 own sweetheart, always to be guarded and protected. 
 
 The question of the soldier's job is a pressing one; 
 mostly he wants his old one back again, but if that 
 is not as good as he believes himself capable of 
 holding, then he will have a better one, and to get it 
 and keep it he is willing and eager to prove himself 
 able. For some endeavours he is better equipped 
 mentally and even technically than when he put on 
 the uniform. The superiority of his people in many 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? «9 
 
 accomplishments remains uppermost in his mind; he 
 scoms certain antiquated methods of Europe, but 
 things he has seen have left their mark. If of the 
 agricultural bent the Yank is returning home with a 
 new idea about that three-acre strip, which since his 
 birth has yielded little save a mixed crop of mullen 
 weed and cocklebur. And he knows now what berry 
 vines and certain small vegetables will do on the 
 stony hillside facing the creek, once the stones are 
 removed and the earth properly manured. For he 
 has seen what Jacques Bonhomme and his husky 
 wife can do with a patch of soil hardly sufficient 
 for a self respecting back yard in the States; and 
 he has seen the up-and-down vineyards of the 
 Rhine. If he has no farm to go to, and still wants 
 to try conclusions in that line, he intends to combine 
 Yankee ingenuity and pep with European thorough- 
 ness and kick a perfectly good living out of the 
 acres open to homesteaders. 
 
 If some branch of commercial enterprises en- 
 grosses him he fairly itches to get home, having once 
 seen what Europe needs and wants, and the idea of 
 getting there first, and all the other plans of a busi- 
 ness scrap bubble within him like wine. 
 
 Everywhere the American soldier has gone, since 
 the first of the expeditionary forces came over, Euro- 
 
30 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 peans have remarked on his attitude towards women. 
 There were times when men of the Allied armies 
 laughed — always discreetly, be it remarked — ^be- 
 cause the Yank, a man who would fight with his 
 two doubled fists, and sometimes drank more cognac 
 than was good for him, kept the other sex on a 
 pedestal and was content to elevate his eyes when 
 he addressed its members. The pedestal of Ameri- 
 can womanhood will not be removed because of 
 what the American enlisted man has seen in other 
 countries. The Yank wants neither a beast of 
 burden nor a brood mare of his woman, and existing 
 conditions at home suit him beautifully. 
 
 He has seen little towns in France with boxed 
 trees before the cafes, and always a statue of some 
 dead dignitary or other, or perhaps merely a bronze 
 cast of a purely mythological character, and he won- 
 ders if they can't do that sort of thing at home. Also 
 he has ridden over the white hard roads and marvels 
 that his progressive neighbours did not build high- 
 ways as good long ago. Perhaps there will be fewer 
 complaints about tax levies for worthwhile improve- 
 ments after the last Yank is back in civies. 
 
 Then there's the matter of food — not army chow 
 — but the meals he ate in the leave centres, or some 
 obscure town while on convoy, or travelling on one 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 31 
 
 of the endless trips an army outfit is always making; 
 or perhaps when he was a.w.o.l. It was always well 
 cooked and cleverly served, no matter how little of 
 it there was. So he will not be satisfied with the 
 blotting paper variety of pie crust and fried-to- 
 death steak which he took as a matter of course from 
 the lunch counters in the old days. And lastly, while 
 he is for getting things done and over with, his days 
 off in the leave areas have brought him to see how 
 much enjoyment the European takes from his leisure 
 hours, and this latter affair, which involves checking 
 the breakneck speed of American everyday life, 
 promises something interesting, if not effectual. 
 
 Such are impressions as expressed by those in 
 many branches of the service, in barrack and billet, 
 from Brest to Coblenz. Summarised, perhaps, they 
 might constitute something not so entirely different 
 from the oath that the Athenian youth swore upon 
 his assumption of citizenship. Ask the average 
 Yank about the Ephebic oath and he will reply he 
 knows nothing of it and cares less. Still, the gist of 
 it lies in the back of his head whether or not he 
 can give it definition. 
 
SECOND PRIZE 
 
 Joshua B. Lee, 
 
 Private Base Hospital 43, 
 A.P.O. 713A. 
 Home Address: Norman, Oklahoma. 
 
 It is as noble to live for one's country as to die 
 for it. There are those who merely live in their coun- 
 try, others who live on their country, and still others 
 who live against their country, but the patriot lives 
 or dies for his country. Thousands have died for 
 America but millions are left to live for her. Will 
 those millions live as heroically for her as those 
 thousands died for her*? 
 
 The stumps that stand in a field are useless. They 
 do not produce anything. They do not consume any- 
 thing. They just sit there and spoil the field and 
 aggravate the ploughman. They do not harm any- 
 thing, they are just there, obnoxious things. The 
 field were better if they were rooted up and thrown 
 out. What would a field of nothing but stumps be 
 worth ? There are human stumps. They take no part 
 in community activities, they take no part in the 
 Government, they never vote, they just live in their 
 
 32 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 83 
 
 country. But the ex-soldier will be a vital part of 
 his government because he has learned that his gov- 
 ernment needs him no less than he needs his govern- 
 ment. Men who offered their blood for their coun- 
 try in time of war manifested an interest that will 
 not wane with the signing of peace. 
 
 Weeds are worse than stumps for they not only 
 occupy space where grain might grow, but they are 
 harmful to the field for they sap the strength from 
 the soil. The man who never produces but always 
 consumes is a human weed, be he rich or poor, high- 
 brow or bum, if he does not work he lives on his 
 country. If there are soldiers who think because of 
 their service they should never have to do another 
 day's work they should be quickly disillusioned. 
 What we have done was our duty. The exoneration 
 of America was our reward. As a bonus we have 
 been accredited the place of hero in the hearts of 
 our countrymen; and we are grateful, and it does 
 not follow the lines of logical reasoning to suppose 
 that the discharged soldier will join the idlers and 
 become a burden to the country he fought for. 
 
 Johnson grass is worse than stumps or weeds. It 
 sends its roots deep into the field, sapping the 
 strength and choking out the grain. But worse than 
 that, like a contagious disease it spreads so rapidly 
 
84 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 I 
 
 that it requires much labour and several attempts 
 to destroy it. One rootlet can, in an incredibly short 
 time, sod the whole field. There is a class of people 
 who bear a striking similarity to this grass. Their 
 propaganda spreads rapidly and is difficult to up- 
 root. The American soldiers in France have watched 
 the Bolsheviki in Russia with indignation, and will 
 show less tolerance for the Bolsheviki in America. 
 
 When three millions of men are discharged from 
 the army and feel the freedom of civilian law as 
 compared with the stern military regulations, it 
 would naturally be supposed that so sudden a transi- 
 tion would be accompanied by the inclination to 
 overenjoy the new freedom. But we have realised 
 that America will be to a large extent what the men 
 who wore the O.D. make it. Therefore, after hav- 
 ing fought for law and order, it would be knocking 
 the bottom out of our own mess-kit to return to 
 civilian life to raise hell. Is there a soldier who 
 after seeing the army loves the mob, or after know- 
 ing order enjoys chaos? 
 
 From the vantage point of soldiers we have had 
 a bird's-eye view of the nations of the earth. We 
 have had a panoramic view of Europe from Russia 
 to Italy and the more we see of the world the 
 better we love America. Regardless of what our 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 35 
 
 p— — ■ _ — ^ 
 
 politics have been in the past our votes in the future 
 will be controlled by one policy — America first. But 
 let no one deceive himself, for every man who says, 
 "noble heroes" and waves a flag need not expect our 
 vote. We know what true patriotism is, we know 
 what love of country means. We have fought for 
 America and now do not propose to live against her* 
 
 While soldiering our blood has reddened, our 
 muscles have hardened: The tooth-brush, the daily 
 drill, the regular meals, the smooth shave, the clean 
 shirt, the daily bath, the easy footwear, have all 
 played their part. We are heavier, we are taller, we 
 are stronger, and returning, we will infuse the iron 
 of our blood into the nation and give her vigour. 
 
 We learned that filth and disease are the greatest 
 enemies to mortal men. We know the importance of 
 ventilation and drainage. We prefer the "pup tent" 
 to the stuffy tenement cell. We are returning to 
 practice what we have learned. As U. S. troops 
 entered hundreds of French villages and cleaned 
 them up just so will discharged soldiers return to 
 every corner of America and apply the laws of 
 sanitation. 
 
 Not only that but we have become acquainted 
 with ourselves. The lad from the North was the pal 
 of the lad from the South, the chap from San Fran- 
 
S6 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 Cisco buddied with the boy from New York. Our 
 world enlarged as we came to know each other. 
 Acquaintance meant friendship, and what will this 
 friendship mean to America when we return '? There 
 will be a cross-firing of friendly letters such as 
 never happened before. New bonds will draw us 
 together, new interstate commerce will arise and the 
 fabrics of the nation will be strengthened. 
 
 Furthermore we felt our world broaden as we 
 saw the hills of Ireland and Scotland, as we set foot 
 for the first time on European soil, as we gradually 
 learned their languages, their customs, their history. 
 We have learned economy from the Frenchman, we 
 have learned industry from the German, we have 
 learned mechanical, electrical and civil engineering 
 from experience. America shall have the benefit of 
 our knowledge. 
 
 Better yet we have learned where happiness is. 
 We never knew how to appreciate mother's cooking 
 until we lived on corn willie and hardtack. We did 
 not know how to appreciate our homes until we had 
 lived in French attics. We know now that the 
 American girl is the queen of the universe. 
 
 But best of all we found out how much we love 
 America. Now that we have measured our govern- 
 ment with the rest of the world we will make better 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 37 
 
 citizens for we return more than satisfied. We hard- 
 ly realised before just what our government meant 
 to us but now we know. 
 
 Ask us, then, what we will do when we get home? 
 We will live for America. At the call to arms men 
 dropped all other business, but now they return to 
 take it up; from fighting to farming, from digging 
 trenches to digging ore, from hauling munitions to 
 hauling machinery, from filling sand-bags to filling 
 flour sacks, from driving tanks to driving tractors, 
 from supply office to mercantile business, from 
 studying maps to practising law, from building bar- 
 racks to building homes. 
 
 What soldier, at some time, has not crawled into 
 his bunk and pulled the blanket up over his head 
 only to lie there wide awake and dream rosy dreams 
 of the future"? In the recreation rooms the magazine 
 pages that have pictures of cozy corners and neat 
 little bungalows are thumbed and worn to tatters. 
 Does that not hint as to the general trend of the 
 A. E. F. mind"? In the rain and chill of the winter 
 months the soldier warmed himself with thoughts 
 like these : he pictured himself sitting in a deep com- 
 fortable chair before a cheerful fireplace where the 
 blaze curled up the chimney and the shadows danced 
 on the floor, a bayonet, a mess-kit, a shell, a helmet 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 over the mantelpiece, and an inquisitive little boy 
 upon his knee begging to be told the story of the 
 Great World War. He pictured a woman singing at 
 the piano, and a kitchen with "beaucoup eats," a 
 kitchen that knew no limit, a kitchen where com 
 willie and hardtack should not enter. 
 
 Where is the soldier whose pulse does not quicken 
 at thought of a beautiful little cottage with morn- 
 ing-glories trellised over the window, and a swing- 
 ing seat on the porch, a fresh green lawn with 
 pansies along the walk and roses in the garden, a 
 car in the garage and a girlish little somebody to 
 help enjoy it all? Whether we admit it or not we 
 all alike have dreamed that same dream. It is the 
 propeller of our lives. It was that dream that made 
 us proud to come to France. It was going over that 
 dream in our minds that shortened many a lonely 
 hour on guard. It was that dream that turned our 
 faces back toward the West the day the armistice 
 was signed. 
 
 WTiat will we do when we return? We will make 
 our dreams come true. We will bring all that we 
 have learned and lay it at America's feet, and in our 
 vision for her we see waving fields and smiling val- 
 leys. We see a landscape dotted with prosperous 
 homes and beautiful cities, a landscape checkered 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 39 
 
 with the best roads that modern engineering can 
 construct. We see the arid regions irrigated and the 
 swamps drained and the hitherto untouched re- 
 sources pouring their quota into the arteries of com- 
 merce. We see America as glorious in peace as she 
 has been in war. 
 
THIRD PRIZE 
 
 Geo. F. Hudson, 
 
 Pvt. 1 cl. Co. D, 3rd Army Military Police Bn. 
 American Expeditionary Forces. 
 Home Address: c/o Merchants Bank, 
 
 Denver, Colorado. 
 
 In the calendar of a soldier in the American Ex- 
 peditionary Forces all things date from the point: 
 "When I get home." This will be the brightest of 
 red-letter days in his life, and thoughts of his home- 
 coming have always been linked with plans for the 
 future which would follow that great day. And now 
 when their task is finished and thousands upon thou- 
 sands of those crusaders, who reclaimed the fair 
 fields of France and Belgium from the befouling 
 touch of the Hun, stand upon the threshold of their 
 re-entry into civil life, this question becomes im- 
 minent and pervades the minds of all. 
 
 Every soldier overseas has had ample time since 
 the signing of the armistice for looking forward and 
 planning his course, as soon as he has a chance to get 
 into "civies" again, down to the last detail; and 
 
 40 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 41 
 
 there are as many sets of personal plans as soldiers in 
 the Army. Old jobs are waiting, but many having 
 had a taste of open air life, look back upon their 
 former work as somewhat of a grind, and so plan 
 for something different. They have lived the 
 changeful life of the army and have decided that 
 never again will office or store or bank hold them. 
 Men who enlisted from the small towns and rural 
 districts, having seen strange and wonderful sights 
 and lived in a world of big events, realise the nar- 
 rowness of their lives before the war, and there is 
 a serious problem in the query of that popular song: 
 *'How are you going to keep the boys down on the 
 farm after they've seen Paree'?" 
 
 As soon as those discharge papers are safely 
 tucked away in his pocket, every man intends to take 
 a direct route for the old home town to see Dad 
 and Mother and the rest of the family. And then 
 too, there is his best girl — he looks forward to "fra- 
 ternising" with her with no one to say "verboten." 
 Surely she has a prominent place in his home-com- 
 ing. He went to join the colours just at the time 
 when in a few months he hoped to marry and start 
 with her a new home — the kind of a home which 
 abounds in our land and which is the bulwark of 
 our nation; but the war and the draft suddenly 
 
42 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 changed all the future. He was called to the training 
 camp and later crossed to the battle line of France. 
 As he went forth in the early months of the war, 
 "Not knowing whither he went," or even if it would 
 ever be permitted to him to take the homeward path, 
 her cheering letters, full of faith and hope and love, 
 followed him to sustain and comfort his spirit. It is 
 natural that in his personal plans for the future she 
 holds the most prominent place, as he looks forward 
 to going down that "long, long trail" with her. 
 
 But how will the returning soldier conduct him- 
 self in the broader relationships which appertain to 
 civilian life*? He saw upon the battlefields of 
 France what a mighty force the young manhood of 
 America was when organised against a powerful, 
 blood-thirsty foe, — a would-be assassin of civilisa- 
 tion. Cannot and will not this co-operated manhood 
 still maintain its powers and usefulness even after 
 its constituents rejoin the army of civilians'? Every 
 thoughtful and observant man realises that in the 
 role of a civilian, he will be called to battle against 
 powerful foes of free government which exist in the 
 homeland. The young manhood of our country 
 under efficient leadership, compelled the haughty 
 Hun on a foreign soil to plead for mercy. It is 
 true that the guns of the enemy are silenced and a 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 43 
 
 France and Belgium are saved to civilisation in 
 Europe but strenuous battles of peace are impending 
 and problems are before us for solution, as import- 
 ant as any that have been incident to the great 
 conflict just passed. The soldier has tested his 
 strength when co-operating with other men and has 
 seen success, and the confidence gained thereby will 
 be a decisive factor in the coming battles of civilian 
 life. 
 
 Love of country is no longer an abstract thing 
 to the returning soldier. It has come to be a real and 
 vital part of his life. Comparison of our own coun- 
 try, its ideals and customs, with the countries of 
 Europe and their manner of life has resulted in a 
 new conception of patriotism, a new meaning to the 
 word America and a deeper appreciation for the 
 ideals and institutions which we hold dear. He will 
 realise more than before the exalted place which 
 woman holds in our American civilisation and will 
 ever be a valiant champion for her in the main- 
 tenance and enlargement of her rights. He will 
 stand for the ideals of our land with reference to 
 morality and sobriety. Any evil which threatens 
 the sanctity of the home or the highest welfare of 
 American citizenship will be met in conflict and 
 overthrown. He has toiled, suffered and endured 
 
44 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 hardship for that country and the principles which 
 it upholds and he will ever remain ready to engage 
 in combat any threatening foe. 
 
 In his personal relations with his fellow-men, 
 there will be a marked change. He has seen men 
 wounded; he has seen men die. He has seen the 
 nobility which they can show under such conditions. 
 And from all this a new view of life has evolved. On 
 the march, in the billet, his constant and intimate as- 
 sociation with other men has formed within his char- 
 acter a kindlier feeling for humanity — a feeling of 
 comradeship which is to direct his course as he again 
 enters the varied activities of civilian life. 
 
 He is going to stand for a square deal for the man 
 who is oppressed and see that he gets it. The ques- 
 tion of Cain which has come to us down through 
 the ages of turmoil and unrest : "Am I my brother's 
 keeper *?" is going to receive a definite answer in 
 terms of comradeship and brotherly love. 
 
 And thus great lessons have come to the thought- 
 ful man from his experiences in army life; lessons 
 which will be with him through all the subsequent 
 life and which will be reflected in all his opinions 
 and activities. He will be a more zealous patriot, a 
 worthier citizen, a truer friend of humanity. In all 
 his relationships with men, a spirit of comradeship 
 
X iOME — THEN WHAT ? 45 
 
 u 
 
 will pervade and guide his actions which will result 
 in a saner, stronger and purer national life in our 
 beloved America, beneath that battle-tried banner — 
 the Stars and Stripes. 
 
Anonymous. 
 
 For four long years the world has been shaken 
 by the turmoil of a war far deeper in significance and 
 results than any previous one. During this period 
 men united themselves into a system that they might 
 conquer militarism for the cause of humanity. 
 Every individual before entering the service of his 
 country debated its causes and his reasons for fight- 
 ing. "To War and then what^" was the question 
 which weighed upon the minds of the patriot, and 
 in the final analysis he resolved to sacrifice his life 
 and ambition for home and for country. Toward 
 that goal our Allies and then ourselves fought and 
 conquered a nation that had prepared intensively 
 for five decades to gain dominion of the world. 
 
 Amidst such important events in the history of 
 the world, the soldier, the modest hero of it all, 
 patiently awaits his return to civic life, having done 
 his best as an infinitesimal part of a vast army. A 
 period of transition is at hand. To go home is the 
 uppermost thought in his mind. Home means more 
 
 46 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 47 
 
 than it ever did before. Most of the A. E. F. are 
 now enjoying that which will fall heir to us as soon 
 as our work overseas is completed. We are forming 
 plans for the future. In the minds and hearts of all 
 lurks this query: "Home and then what?" To 
 answer this for all would take a lifetime but know- 
 ing the popular trend of the soldier's mind I am 
 firmly convinced the majority will finish the ques- 
 tion by asking, "What is my duty to myself, to my 
 home, and my country?" Does it suffice to say we 
 have carried out the old slogan, "done our bit" ? Are 
 we going back home to play a worse or better role 
 in the drama of life with the world as a stage? 
 Of course, the settings in our respective worlds still 
 differ, but we are all human and it is easy to discuss 
 a few common denominators the boys are thinking 
 of both on land and sea. Upon the convictions, 
 ideals and purposes of the A. E. F. will largely 
 depend the future of our Democracy. Am I ready 
 to represent such at home and have I duly fitted 
 myself to take a part in the new regime of thought 
 which is now flickering before the retina of men's 
 minds? This causes us to hold an introspection of 
 mind, body and soul. After such scrutinisation we 
 conclude that our duty to our individual selves as 
 relative units, whatever pursuit we expect to follow, 
 
48 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 whatever obligations as a citizen we have, three 
 fundamental duties demand immediate consid- 
 eration. 
 
 In the first place, our country demands health as 
 a requisite of a loyal citizen. Upon its health de- 
 pends its existence. Every soldier understands what 
 health means in an army of fit fighting men. In 
 returning to civilian life, can I afford not to be clean 
 and healthy^ Upon my physical status depends the 
 number of days I work, how efficient I am in the 
 doing of that work and the compensation I make for 
 myself, my family and the economic world. An 
 athlete carefully looks after his health. Whether 
 employee or employer, it is just as important in per- 
 forming the best services in any occupation that 
 health should receive attention first. A diseased 
 human machine cannot exist long in this age of com- 
 petition. If I use alcohol to such an extent that it 
 undermines the functions of my organs, weakens my 
 brain power and causes me to lose a number of day's 
 work annually, in production and a like deduction in 
 my wage, am I not becoming an economic parasite*? 
 If I am addicted to illicit sexual intercourse and con- 
 tract a venereal disease which renders me useless as a 
 wage earner for a period of time or inflicts me with 
 a chronic disease for life, am I treating society on 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 49 
 
 the square ? I owe my health to my family, for pos- 
 terity swings back and forth on the health of pre- 
 ceding generations. Who have had a better oppor- 
 tunity to know the value of health and clean living 
 than the A. E. F.? A bigger social health pro- 
 gramme comes from our war experience in France 
 and everywhere men feel such as one of their essen- 
 tial duties in civilian life. 
 
 In the second place, America demands trained 
 men, men who think, men who reason, men whose 
 education is never completed. I will confront new 
 problems in social, economic and political affairs 
 which require better information and study. I am 
 going to resume my former occupation. Am I 
 mentally prepared? Am I contented to follow it in 
 the same rut with only a care for existence'? Initia- 
 tive which hibernated so long under the yoke of 
 daily army routine will see its shadow again. We 
 cannot afford to let it lie dormant. We must seek 
 improvement in skill and methods of work. If I am 
 a farmer whose land returns to him a comfortable 
 livelihood am I bettering myself or society as a pro- 
 ducer by not becoming in modern phraseology, an 
 agricultural engineer? If I am a day labourer, can 
 I expect promotion or increase in my pay envelope 
 doing an exact amount of work in proportion to my 
 
50 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 wage with my interest elsewhere'? If a professional 
 man, am I to raise my scholarship, standards of work 
 and reputation without constant study? If I were 
 called away to war in the midst of my university 
 course am I permitting the matter of time to over- 
 balance my duty for efficient service? Such realisa- 
 tions of my sense of duty in becoming better trained 
 in my daily tasks will create a bigger interest for 
 public obligations. Most of us are interested in 
 politics but we are political derelicts in knowing the 
 qualifications of our candidates and the purports of 
 various measures. Have I been marking the ballot 
 for the best interests of my family, my neighbours 
 and my community? Do I vote a certain way be- 
 cause it is popular, because of my own selfish inter- 
 ests? In every locality we know such citizens. On 
 a large scale Germany's politicians were selfish, forc- 
 ing upon her people and politics such disrepute that 
 the coming generations must make right with the 
 world. Are we going home to set up a little Prussia? 
 As soldiers, we battled with selfishness in the rank 
 and file of men. In a marked degree we have 
 learned to toss it aside for the good of all. To 
 that end it is our task to urge the masses to become a 
 more intelligent voting constituency. We must keep 
 alert to equal the woman at the polls. Our political 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 51 
 
 machinery will seek reorganisation and our states- 
 men will be broader thinkers because the purest ideal 
 of our American nation — the American woman — 
 will consider her new privilege as a civic duty. 
 
 Lastly, am I morally fit to resume my relations 
 at home*? What standard of morals does public 
 opinion demand? I have been absent from my pre- 
 war environment. I hesitate to prophesy what an 
 individual would become with incessant war. Be- 
 ginning with the age of prehistoric man, people have 
 possessed a standard of morals. They have occupied 
 different planes, the Crusades, the French Revolu- 
 tion, the Civil War point out a few epochs in the 
 gradual climb towards better civilisation. And now, 
 this world war has raised it to a higher plane. 
 Morality has taken to aviation. The aims of this 
 war are essentially moral and religious. In our daily 
 army life such did not vividly show, yet it was 
 deeply rooted under the surface. We seemed to 
 become hardboiled with a determination to win at 
 any cost. In the madness of war personal morals 
 were often neglected. But, beneath it all, each God- 
 fearing soldier was forming the foundation of a 
 deeper moral conviction. Now, that it is over my 
 conscience awakens in me my duty to my Mother, my 
 country, and my God. Reputation now puts a larger 
 
52 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 valuation on my character. Past experiences either 
 net profit or loss. In no small way, our experiences 
 overseas prepare us to take up the responsibilities 
 of a new citizenship, a new home and a new democ- 
 racy. In the association of rich with poor, in the 
 co-operation of strong powers with the weak, a new 
 life and a new world is being born. As comrades in 
 service we have learned to be courageous, unselfish, 
 humble and loyal with a new vision. Our devotion 
 to the cause of humanity, our willingness to die has 
 or will render in us a great moral decision. The way 
 we apply it in these days of peace will prove how 
 thoroughly a Victory was won and how well we face 
 our new phase of duty to ourselves, our homes and 
 our nation. Our country calls us home to assume 
 the controlling forces in all walks of life. Upon 
 every member of the A. E. F. falls a responsibility 
 to do his share in shaping the destinies of our nation 
 in this new era of world wide democracy. 
 
II 
 
 Newton S. Bement, 
 604 E. Madison St. 
 
 Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.A. 
 
 NOTE: This is not an essay; it has neither unity nor 
 coherence. It is not an attempt at studied discussion of 
 some particular point of contemporary interest ; it is merely 
 a collection of remarks which might bear repetition to a de- 
 mobilized A. E. F. In case of participation in prizes, re- 
 quested that such be turned over to a French war-orphans' 
 fund.— N. S. B. 
 
 Well, why not be a hero*? The idea tickles the 
 vanity quite deliciously. And it will hardly be im- 
 possible as long as there are mothers, and sisters, 
 and younger brothers especially. Likewise there are 
 happy states of existence permeated by tables done 
 in white linen, and civilised methods of consuming 
 food, and untenanted sleeping apparatus, and even 
 porcelain bathing ware. But, after your little home- 
 coming celebration and vacation, — what next? 
 
 Your American answer is, quite naturally, 
 Work. Undoubtedly you are better fitted for suc- 
 cess than ever before; you are bringing home a 
 
 .53 
 
54 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 keener mind than you took away. Whatever injus- 
 tices were inflicted upon you in the army, upon de- 
 mobilisation you will have left them behind with 
 their causes. Remember that it was an instrument 
 designed avowedly to cure those addicted to its 
 use and rejoice that it succeeded even in its own 
 case. You held up your hand and said, "I do." And 
 you did; you learned some tricks which will never 
 have to be taught you again. But you went through 
 it, and now you are at liberty to satisfy your appe- 
 tite for a peaceful life. 
 
 But is that all ? By having been a member of the 
 A. E. F. you have acquired responsibilities of which 
 you may or may not be aware. First, to America; 
 secondly, to France. You are the instructor of the 
 people about you; they are going to look to you 
 for information as coming from first-hand contact 
 with our allies. If you hold fancied grievances 
 against them, will you make that a basis for turning 
 your neighbour against them as a nation ^ Or if you 
 have only pleasant remembrances, will you listen 
 neutrally to unjust talk from another? Americans 
 have allowed extremely minute .things to prejudice 
 them. High prices, for example. Yet these were in 
 part the American's own fault; he showed too much 
 money, spent too freely, and the mass suffered for 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 55 
 
 the acts of the individual. Again, he couldn't expect 
 to be the exception to a rule which has held through 
 all time for any army on foreign soil; the same 
 thing happened to some French soldiers in America, 
 long ago. Furthermore, I never paid higher prices in 
 Paris than I did for the same article in Augusta, 
 Georgia. The love of "sticking" a man in uniform 
 seems to be inherent in all humanity. 
 
 Another example of causes for prejudice, demon- 
 strated in a letter which I recently received: "My 
 cousin has just returned from France, and has told 
 me many interesting things about it. However, I 
 am disappointed too. I never knew of its abomin- 
 able morals — my honour to France is somewhat 
 lessened by what I now know." The American 
 mind, I believe, connects that word "morals" more 
 or less with women. Perhaps the aforementioned 
 cousin had been solicited. But the question is beside 
 the point as long as his own morals remain intact, — 
 it takes two to make a bargain. Evidently he 
 thought the women of the boulevards were the 
 women of France. Or, he may have been thinking of 
 wine, a subject on which there is nothing to say 
 except that we are simply different — and extremists. 
 The French will never understand why we can't 
 make one glass last a whole evening, or why we had 
 
56 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 the habit of hiding behind the swinging doors while 
 we took it. 
 
 To gain understanding, the fundamental necessity 
 is to realise that the French are a product of a his- 
 tory, of traditions, of a civilisation entirely different 
 from ours. Understanding them comes only through 
 living with them, by being received into their fam- 
 ilies. It is there that you get at the roots of a nation. 
 Regrettably, this chance has been open to but a few 
 of the A. E. F., the rest have had to judge from the 
 surface or the casual passer-by of the street. The 
 real French regret this as much as we regret that 
 the conduct of some of our Americans left impres- 
 sions difficult for the rest of us to change. To con- 
 tinue; we call them unpractical, and laugh at them; 
 they call us too practical, and laugh in their turn. 
 Their daily life is more naive than ours. They 
 call a spade a spade, which shocks our American 
 ears. From the rush of affairs they reserve a little 
 time for self-seeking — we are too busy for that. 
 Both find their happiness, but in different manner. 
 Each must interpret the other in the light of his 
 aims and ideals. As for which really lives the more 
 worth-while life, that question is for the individual 
 to answer when he will have arrived at its end. 
 Meantime it is the duty of the homecoming A. E. F. 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 57 
 
 to render to America that information which will 
 permit our allies to be appreciated as a people. 
 Therein grow the only true and lasting friendships 
 between nations. The true French — the ones who 
 think and act and carry something behind the eyes 
 — have done their best to understand, as the soldier 
 representatives of a great people, those Americans 
 with whom they have come into contact. It remains 
 for these same Americans, returning home, to do as 
 well in representing France to an America which 
 relies upon them for its impressions. 
 
 And now, our responsibility to America. This 
 settling down business looks from afar much like a 
 hive of tame bees trying to absorb a swarm of 
 nomads. Each must light about so many times be- 
 fore he sticks. But the period will soon pass; it is 
 a question of guiding production back into the 
 smoother pre-war channels. Possibly the industrial 
 machine needs a general overhauling. Whatever it 
 needs it will get, as fast as the real sources of creaks 
 and rattles are discovered. But each one to his post, 
 and the old mill will still turn out profits. 
 
 Last and most, there is another war to .finish. 
 This is going to be a nice pleasant war because we 
 know in advance just what it's all about. It was 
 once stated that we should have peace if we had to 
 
68 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 fight for it. That remark, one may believe, was 
 aimed directly at Europe. It seems now that all 
 charity should end at home, whether it begins there 
 or not. You served two years. Some of that time 
 you spent in the trenches, or in front of them; per- 
 haps you left your best buddie there. Or, you were 
 behind the lines working seven days of the week and 
 often nights. What for? Peace. Have you got it*? 
 
 The greatest thing that America has gained in this 
 combat is a national consciousness. We were flung 
 by circumstances into a path leading to a real na- 
 tional unity; and now, regrettably, the path seems 
 to end in an unblazed trail. Is there any group 
 better fitted than the A. E. F. to continue the blaz- 
 ing? Has any one been able to acquire a better 
 perspective of the wilderness through which we must 
 pass while the country changes from centralised 
 back to local control ? — and while it decides on some 
 questions which demand newsolutions never before 
 considered? 
 
 First, "America for Americans" — if there ever 
 again will be a time to make America a good place 
 for Americans, that time is now. What about im- 
 migration? Isn't the time for pocket-filling about 
 past? We might want to raise a family of our own, 
 some day. And aren't we about old enough to cast 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 59 
 
 aside our childhood toy, the famous "melting pot," 
 and give its contents a chance to solidify? Again, 
 what about our hyphenated Americans'? Yes, plenty 
 of them have destroyed the hyphen forever but there 
 are still enough who have simply laid it away in 
 cold storage. Will you go on tolerating them? I 
 knew a woman who flaunted her pro-Germanism in 
 the public face by refusing to allow the American 
 flag to fly above her house. She was not dangerous. 
 I cite her merely as evidence. The local administra- 
 tion was shouting lustily for home and country and 
 allies, but strangely it took no positive steps in this 
 case. In that district, the real American population 
 formed a minority. There are many similar ones, 
 where the hyphen will come out of cold storage as 
 soon as the storm is nicely blown over. Stop immi- 
 gration for a couple of generations, and the causes 
 for such conditions may die a natural death. Mean- 
 while you've got to live consciously and with your 
 eyes open and memory working, if you're going to 
 weed out the propaganda. And if you don't, you 
 have lost everytliing that you fought for in France. 
 What, then, is your part? In civilian life every 
 ex-A. E. F. man is a three-striper. After your sacri- 
 fice, the people are ready to look to your leadership 
 a little, to believe that your motives are honest. 
 
60 HOME — THEN WHAT ? 
 
 1. — — 1 
 
 You are a power; you can make your own little 
 propaganda for a peace in unity at home, and put it 
 over. Set the example ; form your company and start 
 policing up your home district. A company to each 
 ex-member of the A. E. F. means an army for unity, 
 peace and prosperity, extending from coast to coast, 
 and the beginning of a firmer, greater nation. 
 
 Home — and then what? Many will answer: 
 "The truth about the army." But no; forget it, it's 
 been overdone already. There's enough hysteria 
 now without adding more. Show that you are one 
 of the most conscious citizens in a newly conscious 
 nation. Utilise the advantages of your experience 
 and perspective to make it a nation wherein there 
 shall exist not only an economic, industrial or com- 
 mercial smoothness, but also a real rock-ribbed na- 
 tional unity as among men who know what they 
 want — and intend to have it. 
 
Ill 
 
 Roy E. B. Bower, 
 Pvt. Med. Dept., 
 A.P.O. 949, 
 A.E.F. 
 
 Home Address: 308 W. 137th St., 
 New York City. 
 
 Home — Then What*? Why then a week of get- 
 ting acquainted with neckties, garters, cuff-links, 
 Childs restaurants, twenty-page newspapers, prohi- 
 bition, baths, alarm-clocks, English-speaking women, 
 and other commonplaces unknown to us now. The 
 first time we walk out in a civilian suit we'll be as 
 self-conscious as on that day when Mother saw you 
 in khaki and said: "Couldn't you get a better fit, 
 dear?' 
 
 For a week we'll simply get used to being civil- 
 ians. We'll go around recognising old friends — pay- 
 as-you-enter cars, soda-fountains, tooth-brush adver- 
 tisements — we'll begin to feel at home again in 
 clean cities, where there are broad sidewalks, no 
 urinals on street corners, houses open to sunlight 
 and air, gardens in front for every one to enjoy, 
 
 where civic sanitation and personal health are com- 
 
 61 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 munity ideals. The end of this will quite likely be 
 comparison with the European life we know, and our 
 national pride, already puffed-up, is apt to become 
 arrogance. But oh, with what absolute sincerity, 
 born of experience, can we say : "Thank God Fm an 
 American I" 
 
 We will wander about in this mood which those 
 who didn't come across can only half-understand, 
 for several days. It will dawn upon us that we are 
 more enthusiastic citizens of the United States than 
 ever before, and our reasons will be definite. We 
 like American ways, American people — nothing 
 needs to be explained — we feel at home. But here, 
 pause a moment. What sort of fellows are we? The 
 army has done us great good and much harm ; which 
 is predominant, and how will it affect your coming 
 years *? 
 
 Every nation pets its soldiers, calls them "the 
 boys," feeds them candy as if every day were Christ- 
 mas, entertains them, gives them paper to write 
 home, and relieves them of what little thinking the 
 army lets them do for themselves. Now America 
 has taken two million grown men of twenty to 
 thirty away from civilian responsibilities, fed and 
 clothed and then transported them to Europe, sup- 
 ported dependent relatives at home, required not 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 63 
 
 one moment's initiative from them, and has, instead, 
 babied them like spoiled children. 
 
 At times most of these young men have been 
 called upon to display the utmost of manly fortitude 
 and courage. But that is all over now. We are "the 
 boys" again, being spoiled all the worse because of 
 our success in obeying orders, and our sacrifice dur- 
 ing these months of heart-breaking struggle when 
 our pluck finally won the great game. This attitude 
 of the folks at home will remain for awhile after 
 discharge. For a short while. 
 
 The real test will come when the novelty has 
 worn off. You can gauge this period by remarking 
 the day you can complain of hot-cakes or ice-cream. 
 You are free — to obey a hundred calls of responsi- 
 bility the army has taught you to neglect. You 
 either go back to your old job or you don't, in either 
 case you are inevitably drawn into the machine 
 which grinds all the harder when there are armies to 
 support. You've got tt) take up your burden, there's 
 no getting around it — unless you go back into the 
 army or write a best-seller on your experience in No 
 Man's Land. 
 
 There are some who will write best-sellers and, 
 oh miserable souls, there are some who will stay in 
 the army. Suppose we put aside these, and a certain 
 
64 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 number of those who came across the better to dis- 
 cuss the rest. A sprinkling, a few thousand maybe, 
 will go home and take up all things where they left 
 them. These are the people who have brains but 
 resent being made to use them. Quite likely there 
 are some of the opposite type who suppose that life 
 will be utterly different now that they have killed 
 (supposedly) a few Germans. This kind will form 
 clubs to discuss After the War — What? and The 
 Seven Stomached Beast of Revelations. But the 
 common run of us, however we differ as individuals, 
 share our state of mind as a result of having been 
 part of the A. E. F. 
 
 What do we think of it? Nothing consciously, 
 that's just the point. People do write articles about 
 us, explaining to us that we will come back changed, 
 some say more gentle, some say more savage; other 
 people preach sermons either warning us of our new 
 duty now that our eyes are opened, or warning our 
 stay-at-home relatives of their duty to ''those lads 
 who have fought and bled for the noblest and so 
 on I" But no amount of words can define a thing 
 that only deeds can prove exists. 
 
 As for us, our question "Home, then what?" 
 merely means "What job?" We don't stop to figure 
 out our future as a citizen, or write down our duties 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 65 
 
 3 
 
 or ideals of community life. Who consciously com- 
 pares the life he might have led with the one he is 
 planning now? Except for the prosaic matter of 
 what sort of work he does, no one thinks about it. 
 This exception of what job he takes is important, but 
 not of the greatest importance. For after all, if you 
 leave your old occupation and try something new — 
 the war has at least given us all a good chance to 
 change if we want to — you will be the same sort of 
 person with the same strength and weakness of char- 
 acter in either job. 
 
 The effect of your experiences in the trenches or 
 hospitals, or wherever you were and felt and saw the 
 fine emotions which the crisis of war brings to the 
 surface, will not show in your choice of a job, but 
 how you handle it. It won't matter if you settle in 
 the country or come to the city, what matters is how 
 you bring up your sons. 
 
 Then since you are only slightly conscious of 
 the new springs of action which impel your life 
 along new channels, what are the motives "in the 
 back of your head" that have changed your charac- 
 ter while you were busy eating Salvation Army 
 doughnuts '^ 
 
 One concrete example first. You spend an eve- 
 ning with Nenette's parents, the idea being to get 
 
66 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 on the good side of Pere Guichard. Nenette remains 
 demurely in the corner and adores you, remarking 
 to herself that you speak much better French alone 
 with her than when you try to tell her father about 
 America. Anyway, you explain that in our villages 
 the cows are stabled in barns, not in the next room. 
 That people bathe once a week and oftener and 
 don't die from it. That brushing the teeth is a 
 national habit, even among the less fastidious male 
 sex. That we sleep with the windows open all night. 
 That we discourage smoking in boys, and are dis- 
 gusted with it in women. That the country thought 
 so poorly of alcohol that we are about to do away 
 with it entirely. Pere Guichard, who has had no 
 teeth since he was forty, dreads a draft, learned to 
 drink alcohol when he was three, and doesn't care if 
 his street is dirty as long as his kitchen is clean, 
 thinks you and America are an insufferable prig. 
 But do you? Why instead you are bragging. You 
 will go back home with firmer ideas than ever on 
 civic sanitation, personal cleanliness, and public 
 morals. 
 
 Let us sum up in outline from the effect the A. E. 
 F. experience has had on you. True, most French- 
 men are happier, more satisfied, than Americans, but 
 is not discontent the secret of progress? First then 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 67 
 
 I 
 
 you will compare life in Europe with life at home. 
 Two main thoughts occur to you. Civic responsi- 
 bility and personal cleanliness. Under the first you 
 will realise that things which at home are axioms, 
 here are novelties. This will carry you to the 
 election booth on matters of civic pride. Under the 
 second you will realise with pride the virtue of 
 cleanliness, ultra-fastidiousness is no crime. Again 
 you will vote wisely on tobacco, liquor, venereal 
 disease laws. 
 
 The second large effect of the A. E. F. on you 
 is the one the article writers at home dwell on (for 
 that reason I only mention it). Why go into detail? 
 We all know the effect of our self-sacrifice for in- 
 tangible ideals, the quickening of the spirit for the 
 other fellow, the virtue of patience under suffering. 
 We have been made men by it. 
 
 Yet — who has not read George Bernard Shaw's 
 preface to "John Bull's Other Island'"? Do so, and 
 you will find to-day's soldier described. So there 
 are those for whom the question ''Home — Then 
 What?" means simply failure. Because I do not 
 think these are many I will not hesitate here — it is 
 a warning, no more. 
 
 We are a country of Faith. So then the con- 
 clusion. We have broken from old ways, paying for 
 
68 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 — — — ^^^^— — ^^™— — — "^"™^^^^T 
 
 the privilege by turning over to the army our respon- 
 sibilities. Again we face life's burdens. We shall 
 conquer such habits as are not good, we shall be 
 armed with braver spirits, more determined civic 
 pride, deeper love of our nation, we shall win out. 
 The war has done this for us. Home? Why then, 
 home with all the fine things the word means to us, 
 with the power now to keep them fine. The war has 
 made us citizens of the world, as such we will be 
 the prouder citizens of our nation. Home then, and 
 America I 
 
IV 
 
 Lawrence L. Cassidy, 
 Ordnance Sergeant, 
 
 Audit & Property section, O.C.O.O., 
 
 Mehun-sur-Yvre via A. P. O. 741, 
 A. E. F. 
 Home Address: 161 East 49th Street, 
 New York City, New York, 
 U.S.A. 
 
 The very mention of the word "Home" brings to 
 the mind of the soldier in the A. E. F., patiently 
 awaiting his return to the land of his choice, 
 thoughts, memories and pictures which can never be 
 effaced and which seem to grow more vivid as his 
 separation continues. Wherever one travels, be it 
 among those engaged in the new Watch on the 
 Rhine, those awaiting the word which is to bring 
 them to their ship, those occupied with the manifold 
 duties of the S. O. S. or those enjoying for a few 
 days a much appreciated leave in France, England 
 or Italy, he finds one thought predominating in the 
 minds of the soldiers he meets and when he questions 
 them relative to conditions, they reply with their 
 invariable question "When are we going Home?" 
 
 69 
 
70 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 No matter what their duties or their obligations 
 every activity is aimed toward the one goal, their 
 return to America, the land of their birth, the home 
 of their pride and the zone of their ideals. Flash 
 on a screen a picture of the Statue of Liberty; sing 
 a tune such as "Homeward Bound," "My Little 
 Gray Home in the West," "Take Me Back to New 
 York Town," "Indiana," or "Back Home in Ten- 
 nessee" ; or picture some scene recognisable as a sight 
 familiar to American life and note the expressions 
 on the faces of your soldier audience. Watch them 
 as they receive mail from home telling of relatives, 
 friends and associates who have returned and once 
 more are resuming the life interrupted when the 
 fiendish Hun dared place his selfish ambitions before 
 every principle of right, justice and liberty. Study 
 him as he writes to Mother, Wife or Sweetheart. 
 Do one or any of these things and you learn what 
 Home means to these boys who willingly gave up all 
 when the call came but who did so only because their 
 honour, their sense of justice and their duties to their 
 country demanded it. They have concluded that 
 work and now want to return Home — Home to 
 loved ones, friends, associates and business, ever to 
 remain until they have completed their work and 
 are called to the everlasting life beyond the grave. 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 71 
 
 •>_> ■ 
 
 To the man really appreciative of his Home, 
 every ambition of life is centred in that direction. 
 His plans, hopes and dreams are all centralised in 
 the ideal that the consummation of his activities 
 might make life easier, happier and more worth 
 vt^hile for those he loves. Unless he be a selfish egcn 
 tistical miser, and history records but few of such, 
 he hopes for success and works for progress always 
 with the aim that his efforts might, even though in 
 a small measure, reciprocate for the encouragement, 
 patience, forbearance and love ever shown in his 
 Home. Thus it is that you find him reflecting 
 seriously on the duties he is to perform, the obli- 
 gations he is to assume and the results he is to 
 accomplish when he again crosses the threshold. His 
 separation has given him many opportunities for 
 introspection and now he knows himself better and 
 is more ready to assume his proper sphere. Let us 
 follow him to-day as he builds his ''Chateaux en 
 Espagne." 
 
 The first stage of his thoughts takes the natural 
 form of a period of retrospection in which he reviews 
 his previous Home life and compares it with what it 
 should have been had he properly fulfilled the obli- 
 gations he now knows were his due. Probably one 
 of the most important lessons taught him during his 
 
72 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 period of service has been that from which he has 
 learned to know himself. Prior to this period when 
 he was literally thrown on his own resources, he 
 had never appreciated what a dependent being he 
 really was. Before this, while surrounded by the 
 encouraging assistance and guiding influence of his 
 Home, he assumed an independent station of life 
 and pursued his activities with the conviction that 
 whatever success accompanied his efforts resulted 
 solely from his individual ability. Separated from 
 his Home and the encouraging forbearance ever 
 shown him there, he realises how much he needs 
 those who love him and how much he owes them. 
 As a result, he will return to them more determined 
 to be worthy of their confidence and their esteem. 
 He will strive to make his Home happier for those 
 whom he now has learned to appreciate more and 
 will diligently work to overcome the failings he 
 formerly manifested and which brought so much 
 unhappiness to his family. 
 
 The effect of the new life he manifests in his 
 Home will be further reflected in his country. No 
 nation is stronger than its backbone, and the back- 
 bone of the nation of to-day consists of an infinite 
 number of vertebrse, the families from which that 
 nation has grown. The consciousness which he 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 73 
 
 developed of the obligations due his Home will be 
 continued in the consideration of the obligations due 
 his country. He is returning Home as a man ready- 
 to fulfill his every obligation and assume his every 
 responsibility. His period in the military service 
 has made him an integral factor in the activities of 
 his country and an ardent enthusiast of its principles 
 and ideals. He has been brought directly into con- 
 tact with one of his greatest projects and this has 
 resulted in a keener insight of matters referring to 
 the national growth and development. He has been 
 keenly awakened to the questions of the day and is 
 carrying back with him opinions, suggestions, ambi- 
 tions and ideals which are to be developed as he 
 assumes the same interest in civilian life that he 
 did during military life. And his word must and 
 will be considered seriously. He is typical of the 
 type of American citizen into whose hands will be 
 delivered the future of our country. The experience 
 he has gained through his communion with men 
 from all sections of the land, his observance or study 
 of life as it progresses in European countries and the 
 general knowledge he has gained make him admir- 
 ably fit to bear his share in the great problems of 
 the future. 
 
 His return to the land for which he made his 
 
74 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 sacrifice will be accompanied by a zeal, an enthusi- 
 asm and a spirit of devotion which will be reflected 
 in a higher grade of patriotism than America has 
 ever known before. "Absence makes the heart grow 
 fonder," says the adage and well do we see this 
 exemplified in the American Expeditionary Forces. 
 As you meet the American soldier in France, Italy, 
 or Germany, ask him of his opinion of that country. 
 He will admit that he has found some things of 
 interest and that the particular country deserves 
 some credit for certain achievements but invariably 
 he will then commence to glowingly dilate on His 
 country — ''God's Country.'" And what does that 
 mean? Perhaps you will say his enthusiasm is 
 simply the natural result of the relationship of his 
 country to his Home. Even were this so, he is bound 
 to bear a more devoted allegiance to his country if 
 only for the reason that his Home prospers accord- 
 ing as his country develops. But his patriotism is 
 more deep-rooted than that. The history of the past 
 two years in which America has stood foremost 
 among the nations of the world has made the 
 American citizen appreciate the present respon- 
 sibility of his country and the future obligations she 
 will be called upon to meet. He is proud of that 
 position and ambitious of doing everything in his 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 75 
 
 power to advance her cause. He knows how Amer- 
 ica is looked up to by the people of the other coun- 
 tries with whom he has come in contact and he feels 
 that if it is to continue to be so, he must do his 
 share in the work necessary to this end. 
 
 The interest of the returning soldier citizen will 
 not only be a general national interest but will also 
 be particularised in the affairs pertaining to the 
 further progress of his own village, town, city or 
 state. He has met men from all sections of our 
 broad land ; from them, he has learned of successful 
 experiments and of policies which have resulted in 
 failure and disaster and he has been brought into 
 contact with the methods of hitherto unknown coun- 
 tries. As he has studied these things, his thoughts of 
 Home have caused him to reflect and consider 
 their possible effect on his country. When he re- 
 turns, therefore, his mind will be filled with these 
 things and his renewed interest in the future progress 
 and development of his country will cause him to 
 give expression to the opinion he has gathered. The 
 coming age is to be a period of reconstruction, a 
 stage of initiative and an era of progress and the 
 new interest of the soldier citizen will be an im- 
 portant factor in the progress of the future. 
 
 The third duty which will follow from the sol- 
 
76 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 dier's home-coming and the one which stands in a 
 logical sequence to the duties he owes to his home 
 and his country, is the duty to himself. His period 
 in the service has been a period of maturity and he 
 is now anxious to take his part in the activities of 
 his station of life. If he has had sufficient fore- 
 sight, he has taken advantage of the many oppor- 
 tunities to better himself and is to-day better equip- 
 ped than ever before. His absence from the scene of 
 his earlier labours has whetted his ambition and he 
 will return to his work with increased enthusiasm. 
 He realises that because of the broadening expe- 
 rience he has gained much is expected of him 
 and he wants to and will maintain the required 
 standard. 
 
 Morally his sense of right and justice has been 
 developed, his principles have been strengthened and 
 his belief in tolerance and respect of the rights of 
 others extended. As a result of the trying times he 
 spent during the bloody days of battle, he has given 
 much thought to the day when he will have con- 
 cluded his work in this world and pass to a land 
 eternal. He has learned to appreciate also that life 
 in the World of the future is to be gauged by his 
 actions in this life and that to be worthy of the 
 reward of a future life of happiness, he must now 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 77 
 
 conduct himself in conformity with the highest prin- 
 ciple of truth, honesty, morality, justice and virtue. 
 He appreciates, therefore, that he must establish a 
 standard in his daily activities which will conform 
 to these principles and make him worthy of the 
 reward. If you talk to him in this connection, you 
 will first find him repentant for the errors he has 
 made in the past and resolved that not only 
 shall these be blotted out in the future but his 
 further actions act as an antidote for those of the 
 past. 
 
 Thus will the terrible catastrophe which has 
 brought so much pain and anguish, misery and deso- 
 lation, sorrow and unhappiness to the world at the 
 same time bring a new era of peace, happiness and 
 progress. From the Pagan lands of the ancient Sultan 
 to the land of the ever struggling but constantly 
 faithful Francois, from the land of the setting sun to 
 the home of the defeated Hun, from one end of the 
 globe to the other, the people have been awakened to 
 a keener insight of their duties, their possibilities and 
 their obligations. Before the world lies an age of 
 reconstruction, a period of initiative and a time of 
 interest. Idle will be the citizen who does not 
 measure up to the required standard and negligent 
 will be the people who heed not the voice of those 
 
78 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 who successfully emerged from the period of trial 
 with a greater knowledge and a broader experience. 
 In no place more than our own America will this be 
 more typically exemplified. Of all the nations, we 
 to-day stand pre-eminent carrying with that position 
 a host of new responsibilities which can not and 
 must not be gainsaid. 
 
 The responsibilities incumbent on our country 
 during the period of the great crisis have been re- 
 flected in the diversified interest of the people, new 
 industries have sprung up over night, older develop- 
 ments have been entirely reorganised and everywhere 
 a new enthusiasm and a more general occupation 
 have resulted. This will continue and the man who 
 is to occupy a topmost part in this new life is he who 
 has learned from the experience gained during his 
 service in the A. E. F. To-day he may not be cogni- 
 sant of his future but to-morrow he will come forth 
 and take his stand. Let us recognise his worth and 
 hasten to extend the hand of encouragement which 
 will result in success and happiness not only to him 
 but to us; his family, his friends and his compatriots. 
 But if we listen not to his voice or heed not his exam- 
 ple, it will go to peoples worthier than we, for as the 
 sun after sinking beneath the horizon leaves nothing 
 but gloom, so the light of encouraging initiative, on 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 79 
 
 departing, will be followed by the darkness and 
 chaos of anarchy and Socialism, harbingers of chains 
 of slavery and of barbarism. 
 
Wm. J. Chipman, 
 
 Serg. Hdq. Det., 1st Replacement Depot, 
 A.P.O. 727, A.E.F. 
 
 Home Address: 239 W. 103rd St., 
 New York. 
 
 We are all going home — sometime. Perhaps we 
 have had too much time since the eleventh of last 
 November in which to let our minds dwell upon that 
 subject; perhaps we have built too many fairy 
 castles that are too perfect ever to come true; per- 
 haps we have formed entirely too many plans for 
 our future. But, at all events, we are going home; 
 and it is my fear that the cynical observation about 
 the realisation not being half as pleasant as the ex- 
 pectation will be all too true. 
 
 It most certainly is not my intention to try to cast 
 a wet blanket over our home-going enthusiasm; but 
 I am afraid^ that many of us, like myself, have 
 painted our futures in too brilliant colours; and that 
 we ought to wake up and analyse what is ahead 
 of us. 
 
 Again — we are going home. Be it Boston or 
 Birmingham or New York or New Orleans, we are 
 
 80 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 81 
 
 going there. Even though it be only Owensboro or 
 Kankakee, we are going. 
 
 And there will be the expected welcome (America 
 has not forgotten the war entirely). The smaller 
 our home town, the more general will the welcome 
 be. But with the initial flush of home-coming over, 
 our minds v/ill revert to more serious thought — ; 
 thoughts that may never have presented themselves 
 while we were in France. 
 
 The most of us will begin to hunt for a job (or a 
 position, if you prefer to designate it as such). For 
 what kind of a situation are we going to seek? 
 
 All of us are going to have a hght against letting 
 our ambition carry us away. I am afraid that all of 
 us are going to try to locate positions that are ab- 
 normally better than those which we left. What are 
 we going to find*? 
 
 We ought to thank all things holy that we live 
 in the United States where labour and economical 
 difficulties are at the irreducible minimum; but we 
 must realise that that irreducible minimum is pres- 
 ent, and that it is liable to cause some unrest. 
 
 We have only to refer to history to realise that 
 there has been attendant upon every demobilisation, 
 from Biblical times down to the present, a demoral- 
 ised economic condition. Inflated finances, going 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 back to their normal level, create fictitious values 
 throughout our entire business and industrial fabric. 
 Consequently, even in a country as strong financially 
 as ours, there must be a certain amount of unrest. 
 
 There is no reason why we should not be able to 
 secure our old jobs again, if we want them; and we 
 have every opportunity to secure better ones. But 
 we must not be unreasonable in our demands. 
 
 Naturally, all of us want to place ourselves in 
 positions that are better than those we left, if pos- 
 sible. That is a quite commendable instinct. It is a 
 human instinct, and, even more, it is an American 
 instinct. But, even so, we must throttle our ambi- 
 tion into the proper channel, and settle down and 
 choose an objective intelligently. 
 
 That lack of any objective is apt to prove most 
 disastrous to many of us. The free and easy life of 
 the army (even including all of its hardships) has 
 fostered a shiftless, hand-to-mouth spirit, and there 
 is too much probability that we shall be willing to 
 take things as they come when we get home. 
 
 If you were a banker before the war, try first to 
 go back to a bank. If you were a hod-carrier, start 
 at it again, and try to carry one better and more 
 efficiently than the next man. But set an objective 
 for yourself and strive to achieve it. 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 85 
 
 The war has shot Northern France up rather effi- 
 ciently: but it has not changed the habits of the 
 world in general. Despite the fifty thousand Amer- 
 icans that lie cold in the valley of the Meuse, we 
 shall find, when we get back home, that the war has 
 made no material difference in the business methods 
 of our country. 
 
 It will be hard, after the glamour of the army, to 
 resign ourselves to settling down anywhere — let 
 alone in some small town. But that is just exactly 
 what we must do, if we hope to go through the 
 period of reorganisation with the minimum of fric- 
 tion. 
 
 After travelling from San Francisco to Coblenz, 
 it may be hard to settle down in Oakland and pursue 
 some undramatic and uninteresting course of busi- 
 ness ; but that is what we must do. We must not let 
 the wander-lust grip us, or we will all be riding side- 
 door Pullmans before the end of two years. 
 
 You are going home — let us suppose that it is 
 Charleston, West Virginia. Let us suppose further 
 that you drove a butcher's waggon in Charleston, 
 and that, by some freak of fate, you were a regi- 
 mental adjutant during the war. 
 
 When you get back there, you will be welcomed 
 by Bill Smith, who owns the butcher shop, and by 
 
84 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 I : 
 
 your family and friends, and by other more or less 
 well-known local dignitaries; but there won't be 
 any fresh paint on the butcher's waggon, and the 
 old mare may still be limping. Nevertheless the 
 butcher may have been kind enough to save your 
 job for you, and if he has, take it. 
 
 We have had too much time in which to dream; 
 but there is no reason why we should not get along 
 as well as we did before the war, or better if we 
 are only able to think instead of dream. We are 
 going home — and we ought to be glad. 
 
VI 
 
 Richard V. Fealy, 
 
 Sgt. 1 c. 170th Aero Squadron, 
 Camp Pontanezen, A. P.O. 7 16. 
 Home Address: St. Helena, 
 
 California. 
 
 The "tin-horns" have told the folks at home the 
 story from their point of view. Boys, they want 
 political jobs or notoriety. We will not take issue 
 with them on the point that America's force did 
 bring about the ''finish" on November 11th; we 
 know too much about the A. E. F. to deny America 
 that credit. But if our efficiency in governmental 
 departments be gauged according to the standard of 
 American business institutions instead of by com- 
 parison with the corresponding departments of other 
 governments — what is the ratio of cost and accom- 
 plishment? 
 
 Have we, as soldiers, had experiences in the States 
 and "Over here" that will enable us to be better 
 citizens when we return to civilian life*? Are we, 
 those of us who, by our age, have enjoyed the priv- 
 ilege of voting, going back to the ruts that we came 
 out of when we wanted to "do our bit" for the 
 
 85 
 
86 HOME — THEN WHAT ? 
 
 i ■ '■— ? 
 
 country; the governmental departments of which wc 
 knew so little because we, like a flock of sheep, fol- 
 lowed a leader to the polls'? Or will we assume thi„ 
 responsibility that is ours and contribute (by partic- 
 ipation) to the ''Government of the people^ by the 
 people^ for the people'' ^ 
 
 Are you, the lads who have attained your majority 
 since you entered the service, going to make the same 
 mistakes that we "old timers" must confess? Or 
 shall we all forget our army slogan, *'Pass the 
 Buck," come out of our "shells" to enlighten those 
 who do not know, just what actual conditions have 
 been? Are we going to tell them how the "hand-sha- 
 kers," beginning with those who used "politics" at 
 the officers' training camps and Ordnance Depart- 
 ment down to the dog- robbers (officers' servants) 
 "worked the old army game" to the detriment of the 
 service and hardships of the enlisted personnel? 
 About the grafters at the Kelly Field canteens who 
 charged us more for fruit, candy, and cigarettes than 
 the San Antonio merchants, simply because we were 
 rookies and did not know how to get a pass to town? 
 
 How the "Top-kick" who was appointed by the 
 "Prep school for Freshy" officer (the product of the 
 above mentioned O. T. C.) "climbed 3^our frame" 
 because the washing you did the night before wa« 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 8T 
 
 hanging in the barracks to dry at inspection time 
 instead of hanging on a line out in the rain*? How 
 the "SM" (another appointee of said efficient offi- 
 cer) nearly snapped your head off when you tried to 
 tell him that your folks were not receiving your 
 allotment *? Of the nights we laid awake in our Eng- 
 lish and French "downy couches" listening to the 
 drunken brawls that the senior non-com would not 
 put down because he lacked the courage *? 
 
 Qf the Mess Sergeant (another no less important 
 appointee) who would explain that he couldn't 
 spare any "seconds-on-slum" because the cooks had 
 cut too many steaks for themselves and their ''pets"? 
 Of the times you came to breakfast from all-night 
 guard, wearing size 19 overshoes (that had to be 
 handed over to the new guard after guard-mount), 
 with the thermometer at 40 below, to get an apple, 
 two tablespoonsful of cornflakes, a slice of bread 
 and a cup of lukewarm water (in which the coffee 
 bag had been washed) and had the Mess Sergeant 
 tell you that the kitchen crew consisted of black- 
 smiths instead of cooks'? 
 
 How one of the outfit was re-classified after an op- 
 eration and sent home because the Medical Officer 
 (so called) kept feeding him "OD" pills instead of 
 sending him to some real doctors before it was nearly 
 
88 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 I 
 
 too late to operate *? Of the evening you spent ex- 
 plaining away an insult to an English girl by at- 
 tributing it to "ignorance of a foreigner" and as- 
 suring her that he was the exception, to come upon 
 some American officers, "hilariously lit," entertaining 
 some of the public women of the city*? 
 
 Hbw, after the armistice was signed, we began 
 "dismantling" planes with sledge hammers and "re- 
 moving" the tires from the wheels of the under- 
 carriages with picks ^ One of the Hispano-Suiza 
 motors taken out of said planes would cost an indi- 
 vidual a small fortune, but of course the government 
 did not pay retail prices; however, it could have 
 sold them as used-motors for a better price than sal- 
 vaged metal would bring; but that did not seem to 
 be a consideration, we proceeded with the destruc- 
 tion of high-priced equipment but had to steal out 
 to the thicket to chop down a shrub for firewood 
 because we "had overdrawn our allotment of fuel 
 for the period." 
 
 Are we going to "be sports" and "hush-up" these 
 and the thousand-and-one other humiliations, incon- 
 veniences and wastes that we could write pages about 
 when the rest of the world is making its estimates 
 of America and its methods by such acts^ Are we, 
 when given the opportunity, going to support the 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 89 
 
 party or individual who does not propose reform of 
 such policies? Are we going to make him prove, 
 by his past performances, that he is sincere and ca- 
 pable of "clean fighting" to see an issue through? 
 
 Let us also wake up fully to the realisation that 
 "serving for duration" is a decided contrast to the 
 "old job under the old boss." The "Non-Com I C" 
 could only "queer" us for a "stripe" or a pass when 
 our "Uncle" boarded us just the same; but the "ole 
 boss-man" not only says, "I won't give you promo- 
 tion," he also says, "If you don't 'hit the ball' you 
 can't live on me." But let us not be actuated by 
 such motives (doing things because we are com- 
 pelled to) ; America could have avoided participa- 
 tion in the war, but did we want her to? Did we 
 not, as Americans — standing for what we do, owe 
 it to humanity to do what we could for the cause of 
 Rights 
 
 We, you and I, Buddy, the Smith kid, and the oth- 
 ers were delegated to execute the task undertaken in" 
 our behalf by our President and Congress; we "put 
 the job over"; now and when we reach home again, 
 let's live up to our reputations. 
 
VII 
 
 Lewis D. Henderson, 
 Private Co. I, 130th Inf., 
 
 University Student Detachment, 
 Edinburgh, Scotland. 
 Home Address: West Liberty, Iowa. 
 
 Being a doughboy it has been my object for many 
 months to observe my own species in the various 
 periods of training, actual fighting, and armistice. 
 I have watched the Yanks develop through an im- 
 portant series of changes which attach a great in- 
 terest to their re-entrance into civilian life. These 
 men, drawn originally from all departments and 
 walks of society, donned the common uniform, took 
 on a new levelled-off relationship and became pres- 
 to-change, a distinct class. They had to learn the 
 technique of living in masses and many adaptations 
 were required. The camp, the hike, the billet, the 
 trench and dugout, the conflict and all the associa- 
 tions of war have wrought lasting effects into their 
 characters, some for better, often for worse. Con- 
 tact with foreign and kindred people under the stress 
 of a common cause has broadened their outlook and 
 given them a bigger notion of the world. The man 
 
 90 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 91 
 
 who comes home is not the same lad who left a 
 short time ago. 
 
 Nor do we suppose they are returning to the same 
 homes that sent them, to a people unchanged by the 
 disturbance of the world. The development there 
 has been the complement of the development in the 
 army. The responsibility for maintaining the army 
 in the field, which was discharged with notable loy- 
 alty and sacrifice, produced a corresponding growth. 
 The people, having before them even more than the \ 
 soldiers did, the ideals we were upholding, have j 
 greatly broadened their sympathies and interests in 
 the world. Their desire for more natural and hu- 
 man conditions in all activities of life has taken on 
 a new meaning. It is quite obvious then that the 
 reunion of these citizens of the world with the mem- 
 bers of the disbanding army has in it elements of 
 great possibility for the future. 
 
 Different courses will naturally be presented to 
 different men when they find themselves free again. 
 Some will find it hard to settle into routine life for 
 a while ; some will find it impossible to begin where 
 they left off and will want to take up something 
 entirely new ; others find their connections so broken 
 they don't know where they stand and will drift into 
 the line of least resistance. But the great majority 
 
92 HOME — THEN WHAT ? 
 
 have pretty well defined plans as to what they will 
 do and are anxious to plunge into civil life again. 
 Apart from their individual schemes we know that 
 in the course of time, they will go home, get into a 
 suit of clothes, go to work, establish homes, and in 
 general be loyal citizens of the United States. But 
 this process will go on in a different spirit and with 
 a wider outlook than would have been possible with- 
 out the war experience, and the difference will be 
 particularly marked in the attitude of most citizens 
 toward, and their handling of public questions, both 
 national and international. 
 
 America emerges from the crisis to find that the 
 old order has passed away and that many new prob- 
 lems meet her on the threshold of the new era. She 
 has acquired a degree of national unity unknown be- 
 fore. Whereas the Spanish-American War united 
 different regions with a bond of common interest, the 
 past war has welded our various nationalities into 
 greater solidarity. Where is the hyphen now? 
 American citizenship has acquired a more vital 
 meaning and is appreciated by more people than 
 ever before. Our national ideals which have been 
 slowly emerging have come to the front and we find 
 ourselves entering on a more conscious and deter- 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 9S 
 
 mined campaign to amalgamate the heterogeneous 
 elements of our state. 
 
 But Americanism is only a step in the realisation 
 of the international spirit which has developed. 
 The isolation of the past has faded away, the world 
 just naturally evolving past that stage of develop- 
 ment. It was the idea of isolation that allowed 
 England to countenance Germany's programme of 
 plundering her neighbours for many years and duped 
 the Kaiser's government into believing she would 
 permit the murder of France. The same policy kept 
 America out of the war for four years but it finally 
 had to give way and the greatest lesson we have 
 learned is the utter futility of trying to live unto 
 ourselves alone any longer. We must put a large 
 measure of faith in the League of Nations. 
 
 The doughboys are strong for it. Every one left 
 asleep in Europe is a spokesman in its behalf. They 
 don't understand all the technicalities of the League 
 or of the peace settlement — neither do the folks at 
 home. The multiplicity of problems rising out of 
 the very completeness of our victory make it a mat- 
 ter for experts to deal with. But they are satisfied 
 that the enemy was defeated and is being fairly and 
 firmly held to account. They feel confident that a 
 repetition of his crimes cannot be again attempted 
 
Q4> HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 with impunity by any nation and they are thankful 
 for a few statesmen who could put the last part of 
 the programme across while the army lay comfort- 
 ably by the Rhine. They recognise in the series of 
 compromises, material for future controversy. They 
 do not think the plan is perfect, but knowing that it 
 has a rough road to travel they intend to see that it 
 gets a square deal at home. 
 
 These men have been learning tangible lessons of 
 world citizenship abroad. Travel usually broadens 
 a person and a peep into Europe even under war 
 conditions has no mean significance to so large a 
 force. They have fought side by side and associ- 
 ated with the British Tommy, the French "Poilu" 
 and Colonials from various quarters of the globe. 
 While learning to admire and respect the English 
 they have been unlearning some pernicious ideas 
 imbibed from their Elementary School Histories. 
 Life in Germany has served to raise their estima- 
 tion of the French and the more they think about it 
 the more they wonder how France could take so 
 much punishment from the foe in his prime and yet 
 come back with a vital punch in the last days of 
 fighting. They realise that success for a long time 
 must depend on Anglo-French unity, friendship, and 
 co-operation and they do not figure on slighting their 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 95 
 
 end of the responsibilities. They have decided that 
 the League shall be a success and this decision will 
 colour their votes and other activities of citizenship 
 to a great extent. 
 
 So the fellows who came over here in defense of 
 an ideal, backed by a loyal people united in their 
 support of that ideal, are returning with a new ideal. 
 Adjustments have occurred in their ideas and atti- 
 tudes and they expect to find similar adjustments 
 among those whom they have not seen for some time. 
 They want to be received quietly by their friends 
 and loved ones, to be turned loose in society again, 
 and above all, to get to work. 
 
 They will get busy carving out their own futures, 
 meanwhile watching jealously the safety of democ- 
 racy in America as well as the World. They will 
 prepare for peace as never before. Remembering 
 the part they took in destroying militarism they will 
 prevent America from establishing a system of uni- 
 versal or compulsory military training. Military 
 organisation is essentially undemocratic and they 
 will not allow it to menace our institutions. Some 
 problems have fortunately been settled in their ab- 
 sence. They will do what they can to help out with 
 those remaining and the new ones. It is therefore 
 with good reason that we look to the years imme- 
 
96 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 diately ahead to be most fruitful in progress and 
 the growth of a world-wide unity. In boosting de- 
 velopment at home and abroad we shall not depart 
 from the true spirit of our traditions. Entangling 
 alliances is not part of the programme but a real 
 world-wide co-operation to maintain freedom and 
 justice. 
 
VIII 
 
 Anton Jensen, 
 Sorbonne Det., 
 
 A.P.O. 702, A.E.F. 
 Home Address: Blair, Nebraska. 
 
 Home — then what? No, that spirit is not of 
 their temper born. Heaven forbid I To waver tim- 
 idly in the face of to-morrow is not their part. Home 
 — then what I That is their spirit, the spirit of the 
 soldiers homeward bound, the spirit that cries, "For- 
 ward and onward I" It is the only one the boys 
 knew whether in the home camps, in the ceaseless, 
 straining toil behind the lines, or on the field of bat- 
 tle itself. It is the same spirit with which America 
 threw herself into the war. It is the spirit of the 
 pioneer and of the pilgrim; it is the spirit bred in 
 America's veins long ago. With that self-same 
 spirit America's own return. 
 
 Home — then what I Home to make the most of 
 what they were before their term in the service. 
 Home to make the most of their experiences and les- 
 sons gained in the service. Which will be the de- 
 cisive factor in their future; their previous training 
 
 or their recent experiences? For the majority, their 
 
 l97 
 
98 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 previous training. So fundamental in its effects, so 
 modern in its application, so comprehensive in its 
 scope, so inspiring in its vision has been that pre- 
 vious training that whatever worth while they have 
 learned in the service or seen abroad will become 
 more or less supplementary to their previous train- 
 ing; whatever unfortunate results, surprising few as 
 they are, that this period has produced, will soon 
 be lost in the return to civilian life. The American 
 army has not been and is not solely an army; it has 
 been and is a civilian army with strong emphasis 
 on the word "civilian." 
 
 What then are the results of this period the boys 
 spent in the service*? Mainly two; certain definite 
 and specific results that may be looked forward to, 
 and a broader concept of life. The definite and spe- 
 cific results flow from two sources: army training 
 itself and what they saw "over there." 
 
 In the training camps they gained a better ap- 
 preciation of health and education. In so far as the 
 training itself was concerned the new health and vi- 
 tality of the men was the most significant fact. It 
 was not so much the result of an eternal "squads 
 right" and "squads left," "shoulder arms" and "or- 
 der arms," endless inspections and more endless 
 hikes as much as it was the result of the regularity 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 99 
 
 of life and the introduction of athletics as a vital 
 part of the military training. They learned through 
 experience of the value of the observance of every 
 principle of hygiene and sanitation. As for educa- 
 tional training they saw that even successful war- 
 fare was a varied scientific and business proposition 
 as much as anything else. Those who had enjoyed 
 a fair share of education saw the necessity for main- 
 taining that advantage; those who were illiterate, 
 and, frankly, they were numbered by the tens of 
 thousands, were assisted along the right road and if 
 nothing else they at least acquired a longing for edu- 
 cational essentials. So then, as a specific result of 
 that military training, there has been shown the ne- 
 cessity for greater stress, nationally, on matters of 
 health and education. 
 
 "Over there" whatever they saw they saw with a 
 critical eye. Whatever could better America they 
 quickly acclaimed; whatever could not meet their 
 approval they as ruthlessly condemned. They saw a 
 system of excellent highways with also an absence 
 of grade crossings. They saw a greater regard for 
 safety in railway travel. America, they will insist, 
 must pay a similar respect for the safety of the 
 public. They saw beautiful monuments and build- 
 ings of art. They saw, in the larger cities, an abun- 
 
100 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 dance of beautiful public gardens, parks, and boule- 
 vards. It appealed to their sense of civic beauty. 
 There will be some other material results each in 
 its own peculiar field. In the matter of industry 
 and business enterprise there will be a singular va- 
 cancy of ideas. Here America need fear no revolu- 
 tion at the hands of the home-coming soldiers. These 
 then are the more or less specific results that may be 
 looked forward to. 
 
 Out of the war has arisen a new comradeship. It 
 is one element in a broader concept of life. The 
 plainsmen have found real pals in the sons of New 
 York. Boys from the land of the Golden Gate have 
 sat for hours to listen as in a soft-accented drawl 
 southern lads told of life and home in Georgia or 
 Alabama. In the boys of the twenty-ninth, who 
 wore the emblem of the Blue and the Grey, was seen 
 a striking example of the unity of comradeship. At 
 their side fought men from other lands. There were 
 the Australians, whom they came to know as men 
 after their own hearts. There were the Canadians, 
 and the English and the Scots. There was the 
 French poilu, an example of steadfastness and en- 
 durance. So, within their own ranks the boys have 
 felt the unity of a national comradeship; in those 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 101 
 
 who fought at their side they have seen the possi- 
 bility of a greater future comradeship. 
 
 A greater love for democracy is another heritage 
 of their recent experience. Class distinction they 
 came to hate more than ever. In the orphan^, and 
 in the children the American soldier found the truest 
 democracy for these were class unconscious. These 
 found a place in the soldiers' hearts. The humble 
 peasant might compete for a place in the American 
 soldier's heart, but none could displace the chil- 
 dren's spot in that heart. Military class only made 
 the soldiers love democracy more. 
 
 There is another message they bring back — a mes- 
 sage written large in letters of red: sacrifice. Sac- 
 rifice ! They came here to sacrifice ! There are the 
 graves of those who made the supreme sacrifice. 
 There are those upon whose right sleeve a chevron 
 of gold tells of another sacrifice. There are those 
 who fought with them, spared the foeman's steel but 
 as ready for sacrifice as those who fell. There arc 
 those who knew the sacrifice of a ceaseless strain 
 that ran clear back to the port where incoming ves- 
 sels dropped anchor. Sacrifices. They saw it in 
 others. They saw it in those who came here on a 
 mission of comfort. They saw it in those who came 
 
lOS HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 here at mercy's call. They know full well the mean- 
 ing of sacrifice. 
 
 They return with hope for they saw how the 
 peasants return to their homes. Come with them a 
 moment in their refugee trains. Here pass homes 
 crumbled to heaps of stone, villages wrecked by the 
 hurricane of war, fields scarred by the conflict of 
 battle. But the peasants go back to build anew, to 
 strive on. There are the orchards never to bear 
 again. Not a tree stands upright, trees that, spared 
 the saw, might have eased with their fruits the life of 
 the returning peasant. There they are like so many 
 stalks when the reaper's blade has passed. Why 
 talk of hope of to-morrow when all around is ruin 
 and despair. See ! Half-erect, half-seated the refu- 
 gees are looking at — at what? What can they see 
 in that hopeless field? What can they see in that 
 
 treeless plain? "Mais ils flourissent " and then 
 
 in a cry half-joyous, half-defiant, "quand memel" 
 Count those trees, if you have the heart. One out 
 of twelve, one out of ten, at the most, is in blossom. 
 Through a little strip of wood and bark, where the 
 Hunnish saw failed to completely sever the trunk, 
 flows a tiny stream of sap. Thus amidst a world 
 of ruin and despair the peasant rises to cry, "But 
 they bloom — for all that !" Oh, you who are stran- 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? lOS 
 
 gers to hope, come seat yourself at the feet of the re- 
 turning soldiers as they tell of that hope bred of 
 despair. They have seen it. They have lived with 
 it. Many a time hope was their one and all. 
 
 If they bring back anything greater than this hope 
 it is something akin to that hope; a new faith in 
 America. It is not an Americanism that defies the 
 world with a rattle of sabres and a clanging of 
 spurs. They saw that in the foe and came to hate 
 it more than ever before. Theirs is an Americanism 
 tempered amid bitter trial. It is an Americanism 
 that stands for real progress, but not disorder. It is 
 an Americanism that stands for hope. They came 
 to love America more, not so much for what she is, 
 but because they saw the despair of Europe. Their 
 faith in America's future is as unlimited as their 
 faith in her present was unshaken by the world cri- 
 sis. To that faith in America's future, to that faith 
 in her ability to progress, as she has progressed in 
 the past, benefiting the while by whatever worth 
 while Europe may have added — to that faith the re- 
 turning soldiers have dedicated themselves. 
 
 And so when the Statue of Liberty rises on a 
 western horizon, up goes a shout. That shout is for 
 America and home I Then they turn to fling back a 
 thought. That is for their pals who never will re- 
 
104 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 turn. That is for democratic Europe to whom they 
 say "In the fight for justice and democracy we tri- 
 umphed together by the 'Will to conquer;' lose not 
 that forward vision and gladly will we go with you 
 to triumph in peace by the 'will to agree/ " 
 
IX 
 
 John Langdon Jones, 
 "Langhurst," 
 Roxborough, 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 Discharged from U.S. Army May 12, 1919. 
 
 It was Fontenelle, I believe, who said that he 
 hated war because it spoiled conversation. The ex- 
 periences of the recent world-struggle, a visit to the 
 desolate and spectral battlefields, or even a glance at 
 the photographs of the pitiable ruins, indicate that 
 this long conflict has spoiled something beside con- 
 versation. The distorted and abnormal conditions 
 are little by little coming back to their normal ante- 
 bellum days, and each soldier must find himself in 
 one position or another; it may be the same that he 
 once had, or it may not ; but in any case there is some 
 position for him to fill, some place to occupy. And 
 when he arrives at home he will be a different per- 
 son. The thing that counts most at that moment is 
 to know what he is to himself, to his family and to 
 his country. 
 
 First, to himself. He is older by many months 
 105 
 
106 HOME — THEN WHAT ? 
 
 probably than when he left home, and unquestion- 
 ably has grown wiser with the countless experiences 
 that have crowded into his life. I have heard it 
 said with contempt that many would return to 
 America with big ideas, as a result of having lived 
 in France; but I believe that to be an exceedingly 
 hopeful sign, provided that the "big ideas" of each 
 man are backed by noble purposes, and provided that 
 he is true to himself. He who has not gained con- 
 victions from the war has lost one of its few good 
 fruits ; for certainly the carnage of the past four and 
 a half years has left little that may be called good. 
 There is something in the doctrine of agony, by 
 which a man who has gone through indescribable 
 scenes, through harrowing hours and momentous 
 days, comes out of it all with a deeper sense of the 
 realities of life. And even the man with vision who 
 never reaches his trench may see beyond into the 
 eternal verities. The man who arrives at home re- 
 gretting that his comfortable and perhaps well-pay- 
 ing job in the army is finished is not true to himself, 
 unless he joined to make money, in which case he is 
 absolutely true to a purpose utterly false, but if he 
 be true to himself and his inner convictions, it fol- 
 lows as the night the day he cannot be false to any 
 man. 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 107 
 
 Secondly, to his family. WTien the soldier left 
 his home he went away with a feeling of grave un- 
 certainty in his heart and also in the hearts of his 
 family, and probably they who remained felt more 
 of the pain of parting. It was not the mere travel 
 abroad that caused the anxiety, but the thought of 
 calamity that might happen to each individual man. 
 We shall never know what sleepless hours and tear- 
 baptized prayers our wives and mothers have experi- 
 enced on our account. And on our return the one 
 great gift we can offer is to assure them that we 
 have not broken the confidence they placed in us. 
 So great is the love that our families bear toward 
 us, that to be less than they believe us to be makes of 
 us traitors of the cheapest sort. The heroic patience 
 of our women demands the most gallant knighthood 
 we own. 
 
 There will be hundreds of families who will make 
 holiday for their sons and brothers, and there will 
 be honours and felicitations of well done. And at 
 the same time there will be other families who can- 
 not have celebrations because their loved ones were 
 more fittingly honoured at their coronation time. For 
 the sake of those dead we must, where possible, re- 
 member the broken families and bring them cheer 
 and comfort, poor though they may be. 
 
108 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 Thirdly, to America. This is the largest of the 
 three points under consideration, and because of its 
 vastness the "soldier-civilian" will find this question 
 difficult to answer. To us, America stands for some- 
 thing positive and real. If it is the wonderful coun- 
 try we believe it to be it does not need our approval 
 and commendation. I mentioned above the eternal 
 verities; one of them is justice; another, honour; and 
 so on. As we come out of this war with a few 
 months' fighting compared with the incessant con- 
 flict of our Allies for years, we cannot in justice say 
 that we won the war. We threw into the balance a 
 weight that determined the issue, but that is a dif- 
 ferent thing, a totally different thing from saying 
 with bragging assurance, "We won the war." I am 
 reminded of the American who acknowledged half- 
 heartedly that the Venus de Milo was a great work 
 of art, but added, "You ought to see our soldiers' 
 
 monument in D ." And with a consciousness 
 
 that truth, honour and justice are not playthings 
 we come back to make the world better, not to re- 
 form it by smug and paternalistic evangelism. Em- 
 erson reminds us in one of his essays that a certain 
 religious person who was visited for the purpose of 
 effecting a cure did not succeed because he was not 
 humble, and Emerson says through the mouth of 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 109 
 
 some one else that where there is no humility there 
 can be no miracle. 
 
 The underlying motive that drove most of us to 
 enlist was that we believed we had an important 
 task to do, a purpose to serve. That principle, how- 
 ever, belongs as much to peace as to war. 
 The only defensible criterion for choosing this 
 or that is that a man may be of the great- 
 est use there. There are of course certain con- 
 ditions which force us to do things; but I 
 speak of the free choice of the individual. As we 
 go back, will it be with the idea that our America 
 must be the richest, the greatest, the most power- 
 ful nation in the world, or that we shall make it the 
 best and the most mutually understanding nation *? 
 I remember that after having read Donald Hankey's 
 classic, "A Student in Arms," I felt exalted, gripped, 
 subdued. One of its charms lies in its reality, its 
 spiritual force. I believe that it is difficult to leave 
 the book with the thought that such a man sought 
 fame and popular recognition. The whole story is 
 full of the idea of giving one's best for a great cause 
 that we yield to its power. Our high duty to Amer- 
 ica is that we shall give our efforts toward the tri- 
 umph of justice, that the proverbial square deal shall 
 
110 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 be a reality, and that sham and insincerity shall not 
 be recognised. 
 
 Our purposes will be interpreted largely by that 
 permanent monument to history, the doughboy. He 
 has seen, if anybody has, those things that we have 
 been fighting; selfish pride, greed, enthroned injus- 
 tice, brutality, vicious oppression and so along down 
 the scale of a criminal Germany and I believe that 
 we as conquerors — and conquerors because there is a 
 law in life that makes right triumph inevitably — 
 must give of that best which is the result of our 
 deepest experiences. Whatever we may have seen of 
 life abroad, it must not turn us from what we believe 
 to be inviolable. If we are to make a new era of 
 ideals, we can have nothing but virulent contempt 
 for a certain Baltimore merchant, of whom I read 
 several years ago, one who said that he would not 
 employ a strictly moral girl in his store I The 
 thought of one of our sisters working there fills 
 us with greater horror. We must grow away from 
 the idea that we are in this or that state or position 
 entirely by a whimsical, fickle fortune. We must 
 learn, rather, that we have the power to create and 
 mould circumstances. We must go on in the high 
 purposes that I believe must prevail toward the es- 
 tablishment of a greater brotherhood and a nobler 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? Ill 
 
 way of living; and I believe that those who have 
 lived the highest will feel the deepest. As the blood 
 shed on the fields of northern France has seemed to 
 turn to exquisite poppy blooms, so the tragedy of the 
 past few years may be a prologue toward a new 
 fellowship, a sacred fraternity. And in spite of our- 
 selves, the war, with its grim and hideous realities, 
 will give us a deeper knowledge of our fellow-men 
 and a higher communion with God : 
 
 "Needs must there be one way, our chief 
 Best way of worship: let me strive 
 To find it, and when found, contrive 
 My fellows also take their share. 
 This constitutes my earthly care; 
 God's is above it and distinct I 
 For I a man, with men am linked, 
 And not a brute with brutes; no gain 
 That I experience, must remain 
 Unshared." 
 
Robert Anwyl Jones, 
 
 Cpl. Ordnance Department, A.E.F. 
 Home Address: 412 19th St., 
 Moline, Illinois. 
 
 "She saved others, herself she cannot save!" 
 
 Will such an indictment ever be levelled at the 
 United States of America? 
 
 Unthinkable*? 
 
 Perhaps — and yet in the turmoil of a shaken 
 world that already manifests its unmistakable symp- 
 toms in America, not impossible. 
 
 Such a criticism, however, can never be hurled 
 except the hard-learned lessons, the splendid philoso- 
 phy and the unconquerable spirit of the men of 
 America's Expeditionary Forces be wholly forgotten; 
 Never, if the American soldier carries back to the 
 New World and into his civic activities the same in- 
 domitable courage he demonstrated in France, the 
 ability to translate the victories of war into the ac- 
 complishments of peace, and the determination to 
 win for Right, regardless of all obstacles. Never, 
 
 if the spirit of self-sacrifice be carried into the bat- 
 
 112 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 113 
 
 ties of peace as it was manifested on battlefields of 
 the Western Front. 
 
 In returning to the New World, the youth of 
 America must fully realise that it is in reality a 
 New World which he will enter. Lloyd George 
 has crystallised this sentiment when he adjures 
 young manhood to "Get a really new world. Try 
 out new ways, new methods of dealing with old 
 problems. Get a new world." 
 
 Indeed, one of the chief, if not most important 
 obligations imposed upon the homeward-bound sol- 
 dier is that his must be the influence that will turn 
 many with a less wide vision from a course that in- 
 evitably will lead to a retrogressive, pre-war philoso- 
 phy. We must not let a war-weary world lapse into 
 its old habits, to resurrect its sordid aims, to en- 
 throne the spirit of selfishness and greed. 
 
 It is the men of the A. E. F. who must assume 
 the initiative in convincing these wilfully blind that 
 no longer can America live to herself alone; no long- 
 er is the "splendid isolation" she once boasted possi- 
 ble in a day when her influence has extended into 
 every corner of the known world, when every op- 
 pressed and struggling nation looks to her for exam- 
 ple and help. 
 
 Because they have witnessed the awful conse- 
 
114 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 ' . ) 
 
 quences of Frightfulness it is the men of the Ameri- 
 can Expeditionary Forces who must take the leader- 
 ship in preventing either autocratic force or insen- 
 sate radicalism from inflicting the curse of Rule of 
 Might, Tyranny of Money or Ruthlessness of Mob 
 Rule on a free people. 
 
 To say that every man in the A. E. F. appreciates 
 Home as a priceless jewel whose value he never 
 dreamt of before crossing the Atlantic, is to state a 
 platitude. 
 
 Home to every true-blooded American is even 
 more than the symbol for loved ones — a mother 
 whose eyes have never ceased to turn longingly, 
 anxiously toward France; a father just a little more 
 erect in the pride of having a son who is every inch 
 a real man; or a sweetheart whose love now em- 
 braces all humanity through giving her man to the 
 cause of Right. 
 
 Home is all this, but in addition, it is the shibbo- 
 leth of those who seek Equal Opportunity. And 
 home is America — no longer New York, Kalamazoo 
 or Seattle, merely, but all the United States. 
 
 And it is just this new vision, this broader con- 
 ception of man and his fellows that we of the A. E. 
 F. must keep always uppermost, in our industrial, 
 social or political life. Ours is the obligation to 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 115 
 
 demonstrate that America cannot only purge a ter- 
 rorised and bleeding Europe of the monster of Fright 
 and vaunted imperial domination, but that it can, 
 and will keep its own heart clean — to maintain a 
 true democracy, to prove to a skeptical world that 
 we cannot tolerate an industrialism that fails to be- 
 lieve the labourer worthy of his hire or condone a 
 political serfdom that is based on racial prejudice, 
 that we will not countenance a so-called democracy 
 that is "half aristocratic and half menial." 
 
 Henry Churchill King, in writing to the men of 
 the American Expeditionary Forces, says: "You 
 put your life in pledge for a truer democracy in 
 your own nation" — and a world turns to the Amer- 
 ican soldier for the fulfillment of that pledge. 
 
 And that pledge, soberly entered into, will not be 
 forgotten. 
 
 The men of the American Expeditionary Forces 
 are going back — perhaps back to the old job, but 
 even the old job will become .a bigger one under the 
 wider vision and the truer perspective of its incum- 
 bent — but certainly going back firmly determined 
 to guarantee a democracy which will mean not mere- 
 ly nominal equality, but the emancipation of all, and 
 to assure equality in education, in industry, in the 
 field of politics and in the pursuit of happiness. 
 
XI 
 
 Frank J. Kane, 
 Stretcher Bearer, 
 
 Ambulance Co. No. I, 
 2nd Division. 
 
 We are proud of our Uncle Sam because he didn't 
 show us up before Europe. And American soldiers 
 have taught Europe a few things. I wonder if 
 they'll profit from our system of sanitation? I won- 
 der if they'll learn how to shave a man properly"? 
 An American is the only barber who shaves down 
 on the upper lip. Every time I got shaved in France 
 or Germany I thought the end of my nose was going 
 off. Manners we ain't supposed to have, but we 
 showed cultured Europe a few of the fundamentals 
 of a gentleman. Did you ever notice Private Buck, 
 how quick Private Buck gave his seat to the Euro- 
 pean ladies "? And did you notice how the European 
 men stared at him'? And the woman graciously 
 thanked him. Here in the home of Kultur the Herrn 
 shove the women around by the scruff of the neck. 
 This little act of chivalry — Americans giving their 
 seats to Frauen and Fraulein — is the talk of all the 
 
 Rhineland. "Americans are rough and loud and all 
 
 116 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 117 
 
 that, especially in their cups," said a Frenchman 
 to me; "at first we thought them as wild as Mangin's 
 Algerians, but they're gentlemen under the skin." 
 Europe will remember us for things other than the 
 heaucoup francs and viel geld. And for these, 
 Europe is ever ready with the itching palm. 
 
 It's America first when we get back home. We 
 know what we are now. We were deferential be- 
 fore. We used to feel in the presence of old polished 
 Europe like a country heck suddenly lifted by his 
 boot straps and thrust on Fifth Avenue. "When a 
 man comes to himself," says Woodrow Wilson. The 
 returning soldiers have come to themselves all right. 
 Like the ancient Greek we are ready to call all bar- 
 barians born outside the big old land — we've had the 
 pentecost of Americanism, the fiery apostles are re- 
 turning. Get ready the incense, ye politicians and 
 editors. You can't fool us any more. 
 
 With the revival of Americanism due to the melt- 
 ing pot all fighting together, the next generation 
 will discuss what their daddies did in the war — there 
 will come a solid democracy. And this penetrates 
 through our whole national life. We should arrive 
 at a great period of literature and art. The great 
 American novel may appear. We shall exult in the 
 new wine. We shall witness the last struggle of 
 
118 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 Puritanism and pharisaism — those twin devils who 
 reappear like some original sin, like the ghost of 
 Banquo to interrupt the feast of reason and the flow 
 of soul. Impatient with the kill joys the returning 
 A. E. F. will have none of them. On with the dance. 
 Already the Puritans are intrenching. We hear 
 that many fear the return of the combat divisions. 
 They say that we have been contaminated with oo- 
 la-la stuff. Well, the battle of Paris was certainly 
 some battle, but I suppose there's a battle of New 
 York or Chicago or any other American city — and 
 this will have to be fought too. Nature, who is 
 prodigal with some favours, gave the women of 
 France beautiful forms and they are the incarnation 
 of grace and charm. Who would decry mademoi- 
 selle for her exquisite taste in the art of dress*? The 
 soul of France is art. And the voices of French 
 women! The seolian harp sounds like a jazz band 
 by contrast. Old Bill of Avon, the Isle of Albion's 
 voice for all time, must himself have trod the prim- 
 rose path of Paree, for he refers to "Our sweet Ene- 
 my France," and surely he had Mile. Yvonne's voice 
 in mind when he set down the line, "Her voice was 
 soft, low and gentle; an excellent thing in women." 
 "Is there anything we can do for you*?" a returned 
 soldier was asked at a New York hospital. "Yes," 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 119 
 
 he said, "don't send me a nurse with a high, shrill 
 voice." 
 
 I have very little respect for that virtuous fellow 
 who never said or did anything that his mother 
 wouldn't approve — till he went down with the first 
 wave in the Paris attack. I doubt his sincerity. The 
 A. E. F. will return to you less pharisaical if a bit 
 more Rabelaisian. France laughs at this nonsense of 
 virtuous men getting worldly by reason of contact 
 with her. 
 
 We want to be free when we get back. Puritan- 
 ism still frowns on the joy of life. They have 
 heaved Dionysius and his goat-footed revellers from 
 the Pantheon. But we don't mind that. Still we 
 were fighting for democracy in Europe when they put 
 it over. But we don't mind that either. But we 
 have a fullness of pleasure like they have in Europe. 
 They seem to eat more and eat often, and drink 
 much pinard. We drank a great deal of the old 
 frogs' pinard ourselves during the War. Of course 
 we have the distracting pleasures of a comer soda 
 fountain where people drink with straws. And 
 there's the decorous ice-cream parlour. But the 
 point is we demand some public house, call it cafe, 
 where we can sit down and talk, etc., and have some 
 refreshments of some kind. Coca-cola won't do. 
 
120 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 Something about a first cousin to Bacchus if you 
 can't make it a brother. We want a kindred spirit. 
 Do you suppose a Y. M. C. A. will fill the bill? We 
 want to have a place to go where a tract is not poked 
 into our hand every now and then. In Philadelphia 
 Puritans still close the sweet movie on Sundays. It's 
 only a short time back since the joy killers exorcised 
 the devil out of it and sanctioned it all. And there 
 be those, God help us, who would close it to-morrow, 
 if they could. 
 
 We'll not be straitjacketed when we get back. 
 We're more vocal now than we used to be. We 
 lived with the oui's oui's and the jo's ja's. We can 
 tell it to you in three languages. 
 
 We think our country should achieve the sum- 
 mum bonum. Poets, philosophers, theologians, have 
 groped for the highest good — a land of the heart's 
 desire. America fulfills much and promises in abund; 
 ance. All other countries are rank with the corrod- 
 ing poison of the past. America, as Will Irwin 
 says, has a single track mind. England has her em- 
 pire to look after. Germany has no literature or 
 art except the sculptured deification of the Hohen- 
 zollerns omnipresent in Deutschland. Her litera- 
 ture died when she went in for might and power. 
 Germany is rankly materialistic. France gives the 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 121 
 
 '- ■ — ■ ■ « 
 
 world its intellectual worth, and in art we bow to 
 her. Our country combines everything worth hav- 
 ing. And great things are inchoate in her. Out of 
 this war an ultimate freedom in everything should 
 follow. License will not follow. It's fatuous to 
 fear that — if you know the American people. Lit- 
 erature will mount to excelsior. Will the great 
 American novel arrive? Puritanism will put up the 
 fight of its life. It's their last chance. Away with 
 it. Allez toot sweet. 
 
XII 
 
 William C. Knox, 
 
 Pvt. Hdq. Co., 58th Inf., 4th Division. 
 Home Address: Oneida, New York. 
 
 Some may even expect the fulfillment of the pes- 
 simist's prophecy that we shall become nothing but 
 "old soldiers." It will be decidedly up to us to an- 
 swer the question as a soldier should. Having 
 fought a good fight we must still press forward to- 
 ward the distant goal, a life well spent in trying. 
 For I take it, that every man-Jack-of-us, from Gen- 
 eral Pershing down, has tried in his own small way 
 to be a soldier. We have learned what it means to 
 have unity of action and singleness of purpose. We 
 have had to toe the mark, to keep in line, to wait 
 wearily in the rain and snow; we have taken orders 
 from men who, back home, we thought were our 
 inferiors, all because we were trying to be good sol- 
 diers. Surely we were not trying to be good sol- 
 diers so that some day we would be called "old sol- 
 diers." No, just as America showed the world how 
 quickly she could become a living factor in the 
 
 World War, so must the members of the A. E. F. 
 
 122 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 123 
 
 show as individuals how quickly and completely 
 each can become again a productive citizen. 
 
 Back in those dark days of 1917 when we were 
 making up our minds, we had visions of this day 
 which now promises to be so near. We decided to 
 come because, some day, we thought some one would 
 ask us — what was our part in the World War? We 
 came, and do not need to give the answer which 
 history will always tell. Back there, we thought that 
 this was going to be the one big thing in our young 
 lives; before the war, during the war, and after the 
 war. We have had wonderful experiences, we have 
 suffered untold hardships, we have seen the inside of 
 life and the vastness of death, but "the end is not yet." 
 
 We know now that all this was for us only a 
 schooling and that we are soon to graduate. We shall 
 soon be handed our diploma in the form of a dis- 
 charge and then — what? We must see to it that the 
 period during the war does not surpass in purpose or 
 achievement the reconstruction — ^^fter the war. 
 
 For many the old job will be waiting; for many 
 more there will be a new job, but in either case it 
 will be up to the soldier to make good. His dis- 
 charge may serve as a passport or entrance require- 
 ment to the job but after that his own doings must 
 prove that the job is not too big for him. If he has 
 
IM HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 really grown, it will not be difficult to make the job 
 big enough to fit. Many a man will be paid for his 
 work at first, more than he is worth, for the people 
 back there have contracted the habit of giving to 
 the soldier. He must remember then that he is no 
 longer a soldier, who gets almost everything free, 
 but a civilian, and civilians must pay. His days of 
 buying cigarettes, chocolate and other needed arti- 
 cles, at cost, from a geneuous government or welfare 
 organisation will be over. Then, will come the real 
 test of the soldier's growth. 
 
 I remember the first talk that the Chaplain gave 
 us on that Sunday afternoon when we had been re- 
 lieved in the Argonne ; how he brought to our minds 
 the question: why we had been spared when there 
 were so many other men, better than we were, who 
 had stood the final test and whom we had left, back 
 there, on the hills and in the woods ^ 'It is for us, 
 the living," to fill the places left vacant by them as 
 willingly and as well as they would have done. 
 They made the sacrifice freely; we must, as freely, 
 fill their places and our own to give back to the 
 world the final reward. 
 
 It was then that we learned, because of the lack 
 of them, what it means to feel the touch of loving 
 hands, to hear the sound of the gentle voice, and to 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 125 
 
 see the clear eyes of a good woman. You have seen, 
 countless times, the affection displayed by the Amer- 
 ican soldier, rough as he is, toward the little children 
 by the way. You have seen him touch gently the 
 curly locks on little heads, walk hand-in-hand with 
 some little urchin of the street, and give away half 
 his meal when there was seldom too much. It is 
 more than half true that little children and dogs are 
 the best judges of character. Tell me, then, what / 
 child in France or Germany does not love the Ameri- 
 can soldier more than any other. Then tell me, how 
 these same soldiers can go home to the land where 
 they can love and be loved and show any other spirit 
 than that which has been their most predominant trait 
 during the war. Do you think it will be possible for 
 them to lose their spirit of generosity and brotherly 
 kindness as soon as they put on civilian clothes'? 
 
 We have seen enough of things military to know 
 that the American can tolerate military rule only 
 in an emergency. We have seen enough of Bolshev- 
 ism to know that it was never made for us. We are 
 not going home as a body to any one party or class, 
 for all political parties as well as Labour and Capital 
 will have a generous representation from the for- 
 mer members of the A. E. F. But the future vet- 
 erans of this war may be depended upon to fight 
 
126 HOME ~ THEN WHAT ? 
 
 again as individuals or collectively whenever the 
 rights of mankind are threatened or the sacredness 
 of women's honour is at stake. 
 
 We have not learned to love the British, but now 
 we understand them better. We do not idolise the 
 French, although we revere their spirit of sacrifice. 
 For all our allies we have an undying respect since 
 we know what they endured through four years and 
 more, and still held on. We have not even learned 
 to hate the Germans, although we despise the thing 
 for which they fought. A League of Nations'? Yes, 
 by that or any other name, a living thing in the heart 
 of man, born in the mind of all free thinking people 
 realising that the rule of the world by one tongue, 
 one creed, or one nation was never meant to be. 
 
 We are returning home more truly American than 
 we ever were before. We know now what love 
 of country means. We know the priceless worth of 
 a friend in need. We see the size of the place we 
 have to fill. Humanity to us is no longer an expres- 
 sion but a child of the soul of man. It is because 
 we are changed in mind, in heart, and in spirit ; it is 
 because we see the relation between the future of 
 the world and our part in the past war that I say — 
 we are returning home to become citizens of a bigger 
 America and, therefore, a better World. 
 
vrv 
 
 Proctor P. Lincoln, 
 
 Pvt. 1 c. Army Athletics, G'^y 
 11 Ave., Montaigne, Paris. 
 
 James Sinclair wasn't a soldier. In fact, if he 
 was a little younger he would be classed in the 
 mamma's boy category. But he had grown beyond 
 that age and now carried a cane, upon certain mo- 
 mentous occasions, for James was in love, and like 
 all lovers he wanted to outshine all competitors in 
 the manner of attire. 
 
 Time went on and the newspapers carried big 
 black headlines one noon stating in a heart-palpitat- 
 ing way that the "War was on." James bought a 
 newspaper that evening at a subway station as he 
 was on his way home. Every one had newspapers. 
 
 The news did sort of tingle the blood in James' 
 veins but it was only a passing touch of excitement 
 — for James contemplated his wasted form beneath 
 the fair clothes he wore, had dubitated before that 
 in case of war he was miles away from it, at least 
 from a physical standpoint. And then he was in 
 love ! 
 
 127 
 
128 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 The war was in Europe for him. 
 
 Uncle Sam began to camouflage his overseas ves- 
 sels, steady streams of pack-burdened doughboys 
 boarded the vessels and they sailed away from the 
 Statue of Liberty. It really caused no noticeable 
 vacuum in the social life of the town; it was only 
 an occasional lad who vanished from the whirling 
 life about him. 
 
 So James sat tight, went on as usual in that "busi- 
 ness as usual" attitude, which characterised the 
 States at that time — and made love according to 
 Hoyle. 
 
 Even June 5 Registration Day didn't make a per- 
 ceptible ripple upon the nerves of James, for why 
 should any army need young men of his physical in- 
 capabilities and who never saw a gun and never even 
 glanced at the army and navy news in any Sunday 
 newspaper? He felt he couldn't pass an examina- 
 tion for an old ladies' home, although he was only 
 nearing the twenty-eighth milestone. 
 
 He saw many perfect specimens of manhood 
 about him and he knew that they were ready for the 
 call. But he was beyond redemption, around the 
 comer, he felt. 
 
 But one day, with the snow just disappearing off 
 the ground and a spirit of spring in the air, a sort 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 129 
 
 -) 
 
 of patriotic fever coursed through him. He didn't 
 sense its coming and it caught him unawares. He 
 had hardly ever listened to the five-minute orators 
 in the theatres, for they had bored him and a recruit- 
 ing crowd was always a spot of humanity to posi- 
 tively avoid. 
 
 That was early in March, 1918. 
 
 But the warmer air kept gripping him, along with 
 the army fever, and he felt that he might as well 
 "try out the doctors." So he said nothing to his 
 family or friends, even that girl was forgotten, and 
 he went before the medical doctors examining re- 
 cruits. It was now late in March. 
 
 There was a marked difference to James in his 
 clothes and without them. There were twenty-five 
 pounds of difference to the casual beholder. From a 
 beau brummel dresser he became, like magic, a poor 
 specimen of manhood. 
 
 But the physicians found no organic trouble with 
 James and despite his bodily emaciation he was for- 
 warded to camp — Camp Devens — and went through 
 that mill which produced O. D. soldiers from civil- 
 ian dressed young men. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 There was a two-golden striped James Sinclair in 
 France the other day. He's probably home now 
 
ISO HOME — THEN WHAT ? 
 
 «— — — — ■^■■■^■^■^■^— — ^— ^^^^^— ■ 11^^—11^^— ^ 1 
 
 with the big outflux of overseas soldiers who pro- 
 ceeded over that memorial gangplank on their way- 
 home. - He has the same name as the James Sinclair 
 of early March, 1918, but his physical appearance 
 is changed, his mental attitude has been revolution- 
 ised, and home, to him, looks like a million dollars. 
 
 And that girl is still waiting for him. 
 
 And what has happened to James in this country 
 despoiled by war and what has made him more of a 
 man for the future is shown in a letter which is typ- 
 ical of the thousands of other Americans who were 
 in the same "boots" as Sinclair. Excerpts from the 
 letter, which was received by his aunt, follow: 
 
 Dear Aunt: — 
 
 To-day is warm and they say the drive is on at the 
 front. We sense it, too, for the speed of our work is 
 doubled and longer hours is the rule. 
 
 This is the time to make one think. You remem- 
 ber that I have always felt the call of some other 
 city and home didn't have that halo about it. But 
 now — after the strain and tear of war, sleeping in 
 mud and eating in quick time, — that home looks 
 better than a gilded palace in Heaven. 
 
 And some day I'm coming back to it, I hope. It 
 will surely be a haven, a shelter. Personally I don't 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 131 
 
 see how I'll ever be ''at home" with table cloths on 
 the table, or clean knives and forks around. I'm 
 afraid it'll be like a dream. 
 
 You will know that I am different. The scales 
 show my weight as 143, a gain of twenty-one pounds, 
 which is some betterment for me who never seemed 
 to change in build for several years. 
 
 And I've begun to think that after all the dance- 
 hall-like career out in the evening's bright lights is 
 not the real, genuine life but just a tinselled brand, 
 — false as a shadow. 
 
 You'll find that I'll devote more of my time to 
 politics — which previously to the war was shame- 
 fully neglected. A good many young fellows had 
 that "let George do it" attitude. But they are 
 changed, too. There is little doubt but that for the 
 next forty-odd years the A. E. F. will dictate public 
 opinion, for the pick of America came across the At- 
 lantic. 
 
 According to the drift of language you'll probably 
 notice that a good percentage of the young men who 
 come back will settle down and marry- the girls they 
 left behind. They all talk that way and say they 
 have seen enough of the world and are willing to 
 *'be at home" for the remainder of their careers. 
 
 "Home — what then?" WTiy, better citizenship! 
 
XIV 
 
 James MacDonald, 
 
 Cpl. Class Camp Infirmary, 
 
 St. Aignan-Noyers France. 
 Home Address: James MacDonald, 
 26 West 32nd St., 
 
 New York City, N. Y. 
 
 He held the line at Chateau-Thierry; he pushed 
 on from St. Mihiel to the Argonne; he sweated and 
 toiled with almost superhuman strength. He did 
 his duty — gloriously. 
 
 But now he had completed the last lap of his 
 journey in France; from the army on the Rhine, or 
 from the S. O. S., he has arrived at his port. Even 
 now he can hear the siren of the good ship "Trans- 
 port" and to-morrow he ascends the gangplank to 
 sail for the land where the Goddess holds aloft the 
 beckoning light. He will soon be free, able to do 
 as he chooses, the master of his own destiny and so — 
 (but let me present my subject) — Gentlemen! he is 
 a first class product of the United States. He is, 
 gentlemen, the American Doughboy. 
 
 For obvious reasons we can not discuss the 
 thoughts and opinions of each individual member of 
 
 132 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 133 
 
 the Army Overseas, but from the knowledge gained 
 by long association with the rank and file we can 
 have a fairly definite idea of the philosophy of the 
 Soldier. 
 
 The celebration of the good news of his homego- 
 ing has passed and the time has come, now that 
 he is on the threshold of the old life, to consider seri- 
 ously the problems and questions related to his fu- 
 ture. Up until the time of reaching port only one 
 thing mattered — he was going home! But alone 
 with himself the question looms larger than ever be- 
 fore, the question of " and then what?" 
 
 He instinctively feels that he cannot pursue the 
 old life exactly as he left it. Changes have arisen 
 and try as he may to dismiss the thought it presents 
 itself that he also must be different, not only to meet 
 changed conditions but in justice to himself. 
 
 His reasoning begets a fixed idea. He must in 
 duty to himself, be clean and wholesome and carry 
 on in civil life the finest traditions of the soldier. 
 With a quickening of the senses he knows that he is 
 superior to the man he left behind on the day he 
 reached his training camp. At the time he was just 
 an ordinary civilian, often careless and even slovenly 
 in dress, not given to thinking of ideals and higher 
 things; but having been through the maelstrom of 
 
134 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 War he knows the reasons why he shouldered a gun. 
 And so he realises that he went through Hell for an 
 Ideal. 
 
 He knows a real man when he sees one and while 
 he is unfamiliar with the meaning of the word "Psy- 
 chology" he has become an expert on the study of 
 human nature. He knows the fate of the coward; 
 he has seen the strong man of the company go to 
 pieces under gruelling shell fire, has watched the 
 weakling win the D. S. C. 
 
 He has acquired the habit of thinking. His re- 
 ligion is Service and his motto the Golden Rule. 
 His body is clean, his mind is clear and he finds his 
 thoughts travelling on the upward path. A civilian, 
 he was content with his lot and glad to live from 
 day to day dependent wholly on others; a soldier, 
 he feels his responsibility, he knows he is a better 
 man than he was before and he has suddenly become 
 ambitious. He is determined to play the game 
 straight and he is out to win. 
 
 There comes a thought of one who has been with 
 him through it all. His memories of her are the 
 sweetest and purest. Her hair is silvered and the 
 lines of care have deepened since he, her boy, sailed 
 away. But to him she is all that is beautiful and 
 good and true. No other mother is just as good 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 135 
 
 '^ * 
 
 as she. How often has her picture, which he carries 
 between the leaves of his Testament, been the sub- 
 ject of his adoring eyes'? To him it seemed that 
 each day merely served to intensify his love for her. 
 But now he was going back with the pent-up love 
 of many months clamouring for expression. He feels 
 a trifle ashamed that he was not all that he should 
 have been to her in the old days, but that is over 
 now. He appreciates all that she has ever done for 
 him and he remembers vividly that awful time of 
 anxiety, months ago, when he had had news of her 
 sickness. It was then that he, who seldom entered 
 a church, prayed that she might be restored to health 
 and now, on the eve of seeing her again he had a new 
 faith and belief in his God and a new sense of de- 
 pendence and gratitude to Him. 
 
 He recalled the names of his pals who died in the 
 field. No! they had not merely returned to dust. 
 Their bodies'? yes I but the laughing, cheerful Bill 
 and Joe or their more serious comrades still lived. 
 Of that he was certain. He could not believe that 
 they had gone forever; his simple reasoning would 
 not permit the thought. Their spirits lived — he was 
 not quite sure where, he was no theologian — he was 
 satisfied in his belief. That was enough. 
 
 With a feeling of elation he thought of Dad. The 
 
166 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 old man sure would be proud to welcome his son 
 home and he was going to show him that his son 
 was worthy of the name. Together they would 
 tackle the problems of home life and together they 
 would show the world that they could make a real 
 home. And then his kid brother. He knew just 
 how proud he was of his big brother in France. The 
 kid was young and it was plainly his duty to look 
 after him and, by his example, have him grow to be 
 a real man, clean and strong. 
 
 He thought of the girl. She had been so true to 
 him and her letters had always been a source of joy 
 and encouragement. As soon as he got settled he 
 would pull off that little job which was already 
 contracted for — and his face extended into a grin as 
 he saw in his mind's eye that ring on her finger. 
 
 Yes, he was going home — home to his own be- 
 loved land. The time was very near now. He 
 could almost hear the chug of the engines as the 
 big ship started on her way. Home ! and all that it 
 meant to him. He hastily wiped away a tear and 
 then immediately looked to see if any one had ob- 
 served him at such a weak outburst. If there was 
 anything he hated it was cheap and tearful senti- 
 ment. 
 
 His eye caught the waving flag high over the 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 13T 
 
 barracks square. He had fought for it — aye I bled 
 for it (and he thoughtfully brushed a thread from 
 his wound stripe), but it was worth it all. The flag 
 was whipped as if into life by a sudden breeze from 
 the harbour and at that moment the future became 
 clear as a crystal to the homeward bound doughboy. 
 He had fought for his flag and what it stood for, 
 with gun and steel and nerve and sinew, but the 
 greater fight was ahead of him now. The old order 
 must go. No more could crooked and corrupt poli- 
 tics exist. The cleanliness of a man's character 
 would be his recommendation. Higher and higher 
 would climb the standard of his new America. She 
 must lead the world in righteousness and justice. To 
 her had been given authority to set the standards 
 of truth, honesty and clean living. America, his 
 America I would undertake the leadership of the na- 
 tions and as the conviction bore itself to the soldier 
 he suddenly realised that he was a part of the great 
 new order of things. He had youth, health, and a 
 soaring ambition. He understood now that he and 
 his comrades in service had a tremendous opportunity 
 such as rarely comes to a man, and in his brain there 
 was formed a determination to perform his new task 
 well and faithfully. He would give of his best and 
 be true to his vision of a better America, for what it 
 
138 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 meant to him, for the sake of his dear ones at home 
 and for the honour of his beloved homeland. 
 
 And so, as the last rays of the setting sun pro- 
 claimed the close of another day, and the transport 
 busied herself for his coming on the morrow there 
 was born a new citizen of the Better America. 
 
XV 
 
 William H. Martin, 
 
 Sgt. Administration Co. 12, M.T.C., 
 APO No. 717, Tours, France. 
 Home Address: 24 So. Jackson Ave., 
 Chelsea, Atlantic City, N. J. 
 U.S.A. 
 
 American Business has been tapped on the shoul- 
 der by an insistent young man who has a valuable 
 proposition to sell — a proposition the value of which 
 is beyond challenge for the simple reason that the 
 world has been reading the "ads" and has seen this 
 particular brand of goods put to the full test of 
 ability. Your young man is endeavouring to sell, 
 and will sell — Himself. 
 
 Take, if you will, the young American who 
 
 donned his khaki uniform and Cookstoured to the 
 
 A. E. F. for the sole and simple reason of removing 
 
 some of the "h, e, double 1" from Wilhelm. It did 
 
 not take him long to sell his particular brand of 
 
 ability to the C. in C. or to the enemy. He has been 
 
 well advertised, it is true, but at the same time he 
 
 was shipped with a money-back guarantee that was 
 
 backed by gilt-edged securities. Young America 
 
 139 
 
140 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 learned his first lesson then and there, he learned 
 to serve. 
 
 The pathway to all success is through Service. 
 When a man has realised this truth he has but to 
 place his "Regals" in the path that has been traced 
 by the men who went before him, and kept moving, 
 and sooner or later he will limn the lines of the clas- 
 sic structure that hoards the precious germ of con- 
 tentment. That is what we are all working to at- 
 tain. 
 
 We go back to America some day. Some of us 
 will go back to our old jobs with the feeling that we 
 will take off our coats and lick them to a standstill. 
 Others of us have grown beyond our jobs both in 
 ideals and in effort. When a man has learned to 
 bear a burden that is a wee bit heavier than the one 
 he once carried without noticing the difference in 
 their respective weights, he loses caste with himself 
 if he reverts to the lighter task. What was it that 
 Hubbard used to say about responsibilities'? 
 
 Your young American will not be satisfied with a 
 pay envelope; he wants a pay check. He has been 
 thrown into the melting pot with men who have 
 painted great pictures before his eyes — with men 
 who have been content with even less than his por- 
 tion. The resolution to grow worthy of a greater 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 141 
 
 commercial niche has been born within him. He 
 sees himself in the bigger job. The one statement 
 that American employers will hear in the future is 
 this: "I am looking for something better than my 
 old job." And the reason is plain. When a man 
 has suffered for the ideals of other men, it is not 
 long before he takes those very ideals to his own 
 heart. Then he is fighting not for those other men 
 alone, but for himself first of all. His vision broad- 
 ens as his sufferings and privations grow. In his 
 very miseries there is the irrepressible that exalts him 
 and lifts him up and onward to his victor}\ 
 
 We think of our old jobs now — we see the old 
 desk, and remember with a smile the pile of papers 
 under the bronze figure that used to hold them down. 
 Day after day we went there, and each day saw the 
 little pile increase and diminish with duties added or 
 decreased. It was a good old job — the work was 
 pleasant, and we thought we could see the dawn of 
 our success creeping up slowly. We pocketed our 
 pay — remember how we used to call it ''salary" in 
 those days, and say "pretty soft" to the boys? 
 
 But now with the bearing of the greater cross and 
 the heavier burden we have found that our feet are 
 still as steady on the road we travel. We have 
 found how easily solved are the problems that once 
 
142 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 vexed us, how easily surmountable are the obstacles 
 that once loomed ominously ahead of us. It will be 
 child's play to face them now. When the khaki has 
 been tenderly laid aside for the new Stein-Bloch, the 
 hands will reach out to break treaty with the past 
 and to grip with the future. And I know that the 
 future is all that some of the boys are going to have. 
 
 There will be new fields of endeavour opened and 
 new channels through which the quickened blood of 
 our men shall run will soon be found. There will 
 be more sincerity in the day's work, for these boys 
 will realise that in the past their very lives depended 
 on work well done. Truly, had business realised 
 this years ago would there be as many changes 
 necessary in Bradstreet, or in Dun? And, as a busi- 
 ness man, would you not feel secure if you knew that 
 your newest employee had been one of the boys 
 "over there"? 
 
 This much I know — that if America grows she 
 must grow in the sinews of her young sons; if they 
 are strong then she is doubly strong — if they are 
 weak, some day the stones will slip from her foun- 
 dation. But you know and I know that the new 
 shoulders that have been put to the wheel are not 
 the type' that yield ground. They may not have 
 been so strong before the war, but now — see how 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 143 
 
 the muscles spring to the taut, and vision if you can 
 the immensity of their future. 
 
 Home, and then what? There is only one an- 
 swer, and we can put it in very few words — to shake 
 hands with Success. And to do that we mean to 
 keep on serving — to keep on doing the very best we 
 know, even though it may be the smallest task we 
 have — to intrench ourselves firmly before the citadel 
 we intend to capture, and to dig in both mentally 
 and physically until we win. 
 
 It may be no easy task — but oh, the joy of the 
 winning! To feel the joy of doing something that 
 brings results — that, in itself will be the greater 
 recompense. For your lad in khaki is capable of 
 great things, and he will not wish or care to try his 
 hand at petty ones. The old mould is cracked — 
 the new one is being filled with its molten mass, 
 and your new design shall be beautiful, and strong. 
 
 And here is a little word of caution and of truth — 
 you need not try to subdue the young America — a 
 new and greater impulse has been bom — and in the 
 hearts of the boys who are coming back to you the 
 rubber stamp idea has lost its place. They want 
 their names and their ideals to stand for something. 
 They sold themselves on the fields of France, and 
 
144 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 ?i 
 
 they are coming back to sell their services again — to 
 American business. 
 
 That was what I meant in the beginning. Some 
 of them are flinging wide the portals already — some 
 are still tapping for interviews. Home, and then 
 what? I think that the young men of America are 
 looking to America for the answer to that question, 
 and when it is given they will give theirs. 
 
 As for me, I've got two hands—? 
 
XVI 
 
 Robert Spencer McClure, Jr., 
 
 Sgt. Ambulance Co. in, A.E.F. 
 Home Address: Quarrvville, Lancaster Co., Pennsylrania, 
 
 U.S.A. 
 
 "Home and then what^" would be a silly ques- 
 tion if the men of the A. E. F. were going back to 
 that home with mind and soul unchanged by their 
 experience abroad. 
 
 The question itself imports a change. If one can 
 locate that change, analyse and tag it so that its 
 exact nature is known, then some fairly accurate 
 forecast can be made about what these men will 
 probably do in the future. 
 
 When Izzie and Percival and Pat sailed from 
 their native shore they had more or less hazy ideas 
 about this thing called Democracy. They were will- 
 ing to fight for it but they didn't fully realise just 
 what it was. They had lived w^ith it and had its 
 protection for so long that it had become a matter of 
 course with them. 
 
 They were more or less careless citizens with an 
 idea that so long as they didn't start any riots or sell 
 
 145 
 
146 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 their vote but cast it for the best man, they were 
 doing their duty to the country. Furthermore, they 
 didn't want to be bothered too much in finding out 
 who was the best man. The baseball score and the 
 dance to be held in Murphy's Dancing Parlours next 
 Tuesday were a lot more interesting. 
 
 After landing in France the Izzies and Percivals 
 and Pats were put to a thousand and one different 
 jobs. 
 
 As they marched weary hours, each carrying a 
 galling pack, or lay in shell holes with lights over 
 head and machine guns spluttering at them; as they 
 worked until aching muscles fairly shrieked for rest 
 while they put up two warehouses in the time that 
 only one went up before ; while they were doing three 
 thousand and one jobs that called for hardship and 
 sacrifice and endurance such as they had never 
 dreamed of before, a change was taking place. 
 
 When a m^an suffers the agony of days and nights 
 of continuous work, when he goes without food for 
 long periods of time, as he inevitably must during 
 severe fighting, when he goes and goes until he can 
 sleep between a pig and a goat and enjoy his slum- 
 ber, he takes more than a passive interest in what 
 it is all about. 
 
 When he hears the groan of mortal agony and sees 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 147 
 
 the death pallor creep over the face of his pal, he 
 starts to ask himself if it is all worth while. 
 
 The men of the A. E. F. have answered that 
 question in their hearts to their own satisfaction. 
 The answer they gave on the battlefields should sat- 
 isfy the world. 
 
 These men have come to realise what they 
 only thought before. They realise that the spirit of 
 democracy is the grandest, the most sublime senti- 
 ment in the human breast. They now know that it 
 isn't an elusive thing to be spoken of but that it is a 
 concrete ideal to be followed. They have seen 
 what Autocracy would do to the world and they 
 are willing to fight again and die if need be that their 
 fellow men may not be slaves but free to work out 
 their spiritual and worldly salvation in their own 
 way. 
 
 This is the change that has taken place. What re- 
 sults may we logically expect from it after Izzie, 
 Percival and Pat have returned home? Any indif- 
 ference that these men had about the government has 
 gone. They have no idea of trying to make radical 
 changes. Why should they, when the very founda- 
 tion of the government is that ideal for which they 
 have suffered'? But if that ideal was worth all 
 the pain and suffering of France, then it is worth 
 
148 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 all of their energies in practising it at home. That 
 ideal is a thousand times more sacred now and will 
 be guarded that many times more jealously. 
 
 I do not mean that they are going back to be pro- 
 fessional politicians. There will be less ppliticians 
 from the crowd than if they had stayed at home but 
 as they follow the plough or sell ribbons or work in 
 a mill, they will have before them their country's 
 problems and they will attack them with a new-bom 
 interest and a knowledge and intelligence broadened 
 by travel and experience. 
 
 The birth of the realisation of duty to country 
 came first because that was the duty ever-present be- 
 fore them in France. That the realisation of duty 
 to family and self should follow is natural. 
 
 These men are blessed or burdened (whichever 
 way you choose to look at it) with a sense of duty 
 that their service in France has forced upon them 
 whether they wanted it or not. They cannot escape 
 it. They will be more conscientious workers because 
 of it. 
 
 Home, and then what'? This is what each of 
 those men desires : a clean life of honest work. He 
 knows that if his country really stands for democ- 
 racy he will always have an opportunity for that 
 clean life of honest work, and so he resolves to keep 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 149 
 
 an ever-watchful eye that that ideal for which he 
 has suffered be not tampered with, but remain the 
 shining beacon light toward which the ship-of-State 
 should unfalteringly pursue her course. 
 
XVII 
 
 **MiKE," 5th Marines. 
 
 "We're going home I These are magic words to 
 every member of the A. E. F. They fulfill our fond- 
 est desires, they represent our greatest ambitions. 
 Since the signing of the Armistice, the thoughts of 
 this moment have been the beginning and the end- 
 ing of all our plans and actions. To most of us, it 
 means not merely the triumphant return of the vic- 
 tors, but rather, our long looked-for release from 
 military routine; a welcomed return to the old civil 
 life with a broadened vision, an enlightened attitude 
 and a renewed energ}', a blissful reunion with fa- 
 thers and mothers, brothers and sisters, wives and 
 sweethearts: the happy revival of old interests and 
 habits and friendships; the gradual obliteration of 
 the strange nightmare of the past year, when we 
 lived like hunted beasts in the mud and filth of the 
 front and prowled like thieves in the dark, when 
 we travelled like cattle in a car or plodded weary 
 miles upon miles through the night; when we were 
 
 cold and soaked to the skin for days at a time, and 
 
 150 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 151 
 
 a heap of dirty straw in a cowstable was a Heaven- 
 sent bed; when for days we never slept and seldom 
 ate and one little canteen of water was more pre- 
 cious than the wealth of the world; when a man's 
 life was a matter of moments, a plaything of fate, 
 whose value was naught, yet most precious of all. 
 And he lost it or gave it or saved it, as fate willed 
 or the occasion demanded. 
 
 No, nightmarish as they seem now, we can never 
 forget these days. And that's another reason why 
 we want to return. Oh, to get these grunting smirk- 
 ing Boches out of our sight, to leave the pitiful, 
 haunting ruins of devastated France behind, to hear 
 again our native tongue spoken on all sides, to look 
 once more upon the old home town, to greet our 
 friends, to meet our loved ones and gaze upon the 
 fairest land on earth. Our work is done, the Hun 
 is vanquished. Do you wonder that we crave a 
 quick return*? 
 
 Even I, who have no home, am most as bad as the 
 rest. No monster fete, no state's acclaim, no city's 
 royal welcome awaits our regiment's return; no wife 
 nor mother anxiously counts the days until I come, 
 no urgent duty calls me from over there ; no business 
 clamours for my services; no single immediate sum- 
 mons comes to me across the sea. And yet my soul 
 
152 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 hungers to return, if but for a day. To gaze upon 
 the old familiar scenes, to walk again the paths of 
 my childhood and to rub elbows again with a good 
 old American crowd. 
 
 What matters, if my home be broken up, my fam- 
 ily scattered from Michigan to Texas'? Except for 
 five strenuous weeks at Quantico, it's four years since 
 I've been in the good old U. S. A. and over ten years 
 since I've been home. And I'll make the most of it. 
 As soon as we land, I want at least thirty days all to 
 myself. First, I'll beard the Pater in his den, where 
 he sits every day, absorbed in loyal devotion to his 
 work; a proud, stern, lonely old man. And I shall 
 stand at attention and say: "Dad, your eldest son 
 has returned and asks forgiveness for his sins. The 
 years have been long and the way has been hard and 
 my folly has been as great. But at last I return 
 with clean hands and pride in my heart. In the 
 shock of the past year I have been born again and I 
 crave that the past be forgotten and that we may 
 resume again the relations of ten years ago." And I 
 know that he'll forgive. For he, too, has done his 
 bit and been imbued with the great spirit of the war. 
 And then we shall talk, way into the night, of many 
 things; of my future and his, and of my brothers 
 and sisters, and of mother and the days that are gone. 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 153 
 
 And he'll probably suggest again (but not«insist this 
 time) that L go into business with him. For it is 
 not for me. And we both know it, now. 
 
 And then I shall go to my eldest sister in another 
 state and she'll get a week's vacation from the office. 
 And we'll take a canoe and a camping kit and we'll 
 spend the whole glorious week on the old river and 
 in the woods. We'll paddle and fish and swim and 
 dive and bask in the sun. And she will fix for me 
 wonderful things to eat, and sing the songs that 
 mother sang to us. And I'll tell her of my wander- 
 ings and of the war and of the grave of one whom 
 she knows will never return. And we'll bury our sor- 
 rows and regrets, both of us, then and there, and 
 return to our duties, strengthened and fit for the 
 years to come. 
 
 Next comes my brother, who's married, though 
 younger than I; blessed with a cozy little home, a 
 dear little wife and two rowdy youngsters who are 
 strangers to me. From his letters, I know that his 
 cup is overflowing with happiness, though he foolish- 
 ly laments at times the fact that he is tied down and 
 can not roam the world at will. I shall visit him 
 and romp with his boys and revel in the joy of his 
 home. And he shall be proud of his big brother and 
 his decorations and possibly a bit envious, for he too 
 
154 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 was once smitten with the wanderlust. But I shall 
 enlighten him and show him the emptiness of it all. 
 Nor shall I try to conceal my envy of his wife and 
 boys and home, that he may realise the value of what 
 is his. For it is we homeless ones who really know 
 the priceless value of a happy home. 
 
 From there I shall go to my younger sister, who 
 is a Junior at the University and very much in love 
 with life. And we shall go to the theatre and dances 
 and picnics — she and I — and I shall be on dress 
 parade and meet her friends and form my poor 
 opinion of her school and her friends. And perhaps, 
 lecture her in vain upon the seriousness of life, for 
 she is young and talented and has the family failing 
 of having a head of her own. And probably she'll 
 know what is best at that, for I'm not much versed 
 in the ways of women. 
 
 My next call takes me to Texas, where my 
 younger brother, not yet 21, lingers voluntarily, as a 
 Sergeant in the Army. To him I shall say: "Brud, 
 the war is over and your work here is done. For a 
 youth of your age and ability, the Army holds no 
 future. Get out and get out at once. Choose your 
 vocation in civil life and start now, building for the 
 future. Every moment which you lose now is 
 precious. In your youth and inexperience, this care- 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 155 
 
 free life appeals to you. You crave action and 
 variety, want to be footloose and free to see more of 
 the world before you settle down. You imagine that 
 there will be time enough for that later. But you're 
 wrong, radically wrong. Out of my experience, I 
 tell you you are mistaken. Truly, only a fool or a 
 child thinks that twenty years and twenty dollars 
 are never spent. Believe me, when I tell you that 
 this life which you're choosing, is empty and vain, 
 and palls on me, just after it's too late to profitably 
 change. So profit by my loss and follow our 
 brother's footsteps and not mine." 
 
 And last I shall go, all alone, to the grave of 
 my mother, in that sleepy little old Illinois town. 
 I'll tell her my troubles and confess her my sins, as 
 of old. I'll commune with her spirit and seek her 
 advice. I'll ask for her blessing and receive guidance 
 and inspiration to keep the resolutions I have made. 
 
 Having squared the old scores and wiped the slate 
 clean, I'll report back for duty with Uncle Sam, in 
 the service which has been my salvation, and en- 
 deavour to maintain the record, and be worthy the 
 title, of United States Marine. 
 
XVIII 
 
 p. A. Montgomery, 
 
 Pvt. 5th Co., 14th Grand Division, 
 APO No. 701, Montoir, France. 
 
 We had been married nearly three years, and had 
 a baby boy nearly two years old. We could not get 
 along. She never had loved me, nor had I really 
 ever loved her. We had talked of a divorce quite 
 frequently of late, but there was always the question 
 of who should have the baby. I wanted him, so did 
 she. We talked of it calmly and without any regret. 
 
 So home meant nothing to me. It was something 
 to keep away from. Something to shun as much as 
 possible, which I did. I knew she was a good girl 
 and a good wife, but could see no reason why I 
 should spend my whole life in misery. She felt the 
 same toward me. 
 
 Then I joined the army. I had gotten a leave 
 
 of absence from the company I was working for. I 
 
 had left bills amounting to about $175.00 but I had 
 
 enough wages due me that she would get to pay it 
 
 all, and have a little left. She had intended renting 
 
 part of the house furnished to help out until she 
 
 156 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 157 
 
 would get her allotment from the Government. I 
 was glad to get away. 
 
 I had been at Ft. Leavenworth over a month, and 
 she wanted to come up and stay awhile before I left. 
 I told her to come. I had written her as regularly 
 as she had me. I had begun to miss her, though I 
 was not homesick. I knew I was doing the only 
 thing I could do under the circumstances by joining 
 the army. 
 
 After she came I spent all of my spare time with 
 her. Neither of us had a great deal to say to each 
 other; we would take the baby out walking and go 
 for an hour at a time without speaking to each other. 
 
 One evening, a few days before I was to leave 
 for France, I went in to visit for a couple, of hours. 
 We were sitting talking low, as the baby was lying 
 asleep on the bed. For the first time I noticed her 
 skirt, neat but a little worn, and her shoes were a 
 little run over at the heels. A lump came in my 
 throat and I couldn't help it. Glancing upward I 
 could see her eyes were full of tears. All I could do 
 was to look for several minutes. I could not speak. 
 Finally I managed to ask her what was the trouble. 
 She was beside me in an instant, and between sobs 
 told me she didn't want me to go, and asked why in 
 
158 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 the world I wanted to leave her and the baby, that 
 they needed me. 
 
 I braced up and told her that we had never been 
 able to live together with any harmony and that if 
 anything happened I made all my insurance to her, 
 and she could live on the allotment and the house 
 rent she would get, while I was in the Army and if 
 nothing happened to me I would provide for her and 
 the baby after I was discharged. I had said all I 
 could; she was sobbing hysterically and could only 
 say, "Don't, don't do it." The baby had climbed 
 down from the bed and stood in front of us before 
 I noticed him. He tugged at his mother's skirt and 
 said, Mamma!" My wife could not answer him; 
 then he came to me and said the only other word he 
 knew and really understood, ''Daddy," and looked 
 up at me with wondering and questioning eyes. 
 Then he climbed up into my lap and put his arms 
 around both our necks and cried with us. 
 
 The next few days were full of happiness for us. 
 We hated to part. I knew she was game, and would 
 make out all right, and she had confidence in me. 
 That was all I needed, it was all I wanted. I went 
 to the train to see them off. All I could say was 
 *'Well, good-bye" and turned and walked away as 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 159 
 
 fast as I could — after the train started. I was glad 
 it was dark. 
 
 We have been in France a year now, and we are 
 going home, perhaps next month. Home! a word 
 that had almost lost its meaning to me. 
 
 Then what'? There never was an expression that 
 would put an A. E. F. man to thinking any quicker, 
 but who knows *? Each man has an idea. Perhaps 
 he will say he is going to spend the rest of his life 
 in bed. Perhaps he has a girl over there or he is 
 going to "rest up on somebody" for about six 
 months, then go to work. There is no problem of 
 any importance to the individual. All he wants is 
 to get home. Then he will let nature take its 
 course. He knows he will come out all right. It is 
 a cinch that after last July and August he will 
 remember that forty to seventy hours' work on 
 corned willie sandwiches is not pleasant. A great 
 deal depends on what branch of service men are in. 
 I know of one detachment that has organised a small 
 association. They expect to get busy as soon as they 
 get back. Their purpose seems to be to get ac- 
 quainted with their Congressman and keep in touch 
 with what goes on in Congress, and also to have a 
 convention occasionally to compare notes on what 
 
160 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 has been done, and to plan a programme for the fol- 
 lowing year. 
 
 I, for one, am not going to teach my boy to step 
 out with his left foot first. I am going to teach him 
 that when he is in trouble not to despair, but to look 
 around for a solution or for several solutions and 
 then choose the best for every one concerned. I do 
 not want him to ever be a soldier, but if he ever is, 
 I want him to know he is on the right side. I will 
 teach him all about birds and flowers and animals, 
 and to love nature. As he gets older I'll teach him 
 to vote for the man who is an advocate of the prin- 
 ciple that is most beneficial to people who need help 
 the most, and to be interested enough to see if he 
 does it or not. That is only a few of the things I 
 could name that I want him to understand. 
 
 In the meantime I will be doing my bit as a 
 citizen. I would like to see our natural utilities put 
 to use for the benefit of all and our natural resources 
 preserved as far as practical, such as forests and coal 
 deposits. I am going to do something I've never 
 done before, and that is to save some money. I have 
 sure learned that it is inconvenient to be *'sans 
 francs"; beside that, you can never have any pres- 
 tige, and without prestige you can't make much. My 
 salary will be a little over $300 each month when 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 161 
 
 I get back and I have enough spare time to make 
 extra money at something else, without interfering 
 with my regular position. We are going to visit our 
 parents every year and see that they have all they 
 need in their declining years. 
 
 If I ever have any one working for me, I will pay 
 them enough so their daughters and wives will not 
 be tempted to throw their self-respect to the winds 
 in order to have enough to eat or decent clothes, or 
 I will not hire them. My wife can check on my 
 account for I have that much confidence in her judg- 
 ment. I know hers is much better than mine. 
 
 I feel more like a man than I ever did before. 
 Without the trip to France, I don't believe the 
 change could ever take place, and I am not going 
 to let my spirit lag, for I've learned that disappoint- 
 ments are trifling affairs and soon pass. I am going 
 to forget all the "bawling outs" I have gotten from 
 unthoughtful officers, not that they went in one ear 
 and out the other, for most of them showed utter 
 lack of sense and of justice, but I have had enough 
 unpleasantness. I will even forgive the bird who 
 stole my russet shoes, by the time I get home. It is 
 a cinch we will leave the vin sisters here and from 
 all indications old John Barleycorn won't be strong 
 enough to meet us at the dock. I am not sorry, but 
 
16^ HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 I did have a little hankering for Blanc and Rouge, 
 but when I think of the bareheaded and half naked 
 French "gamin" I saw last winter standing in the 
 snow eating from our swill barrels around our 
 camps, I can leave without even bidding them 
 good-bye. 
 
 I think of my own "petit gars"; I can only see 
 him as a toddler, like he was when I left, but he is 
 almost a man now I guess, for he talks a blue streak 
 at everybody that asks him about his father. He 
 says "Daddy soldier France ship, train home" and 
 has to show them my photo and his service pin. 
 
 My wife in her last letter says she went to visit 
 an old school-girl friend. In her words she said: 
 "Mrs. So and So has a new baby girl. I wish we 
 had a little girl for P. A. Jr.; she would be such 
 good company for him and he is getting so big." 
 
XIX 
 
 Arthur Prill, 
 
 Chief Engineers Section, 
 
 Headquarters, Third Army, A.E.F. 
 Home Address: 544 West 145th St., 
 New York, N. Y. 
 
 Home — What a magic word. It means to me, not 
 a mere house with street or garden, but my folks, 
 whose circle widens as I think of them till the vision 
 embraces my town and My Country. After getting 
 there, "At Ease," "At Rest" and 'Tall Out" are 
 going to be my principal drill formations for two or 
 three weeks; then will come a desire for action. 
 
 This, for most of us will mean finding a job. My 
 mother is a wide-awake woman and I can take her 
 advice in such matters feeling sure that I'm march- 
 ing under competent orders. She has already written 
 me that when we soldiers return we must be careful 
 about our attitude because : 
 
 Nobody owes us anything. 
 
 What we had the privilege of doing abroad we 
 
 did for ourselves and already receive recompense in 
 
 the continuation of our country's freedom, to say 
 
 nothing of our own individual development. It may 
 
 163 
 
164 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 be days, even weeks before some of us find the work 
 we want; in such case it may be well to analyse one's 
 object: 
 
 Is it suited to our ability^ 
 
 Is it the opening to seek at this time? 
 
 The men to whom we apply for work are good 
 judges of who is likely to be a profitable employee 
 in their business; if we are not sure we can deliver 
 the goods on this requisition we had better attack 
 on a new front suited to our man-power. The answer 
 to the second question depends on commercial con- 
 ditions. If business is slack in one's old line, one 
 may be able to get almost, or quite as good a pay- 
 check from some other kind of a house. Go where 
 the action is hottest if you want to gain ground 
 worth having. A turn-down here and there does not 
 matter; did you never have to go around a machine 
 gun nest before you could bomb the Boche out of 
 it? If you were in the Engineers and found one 
 section of the road so full of shell holes that it 
 would have taken a week to fill them up, didn't you 
 build a new road around and between those holes in 
 half a night? 
 
 On making a reconnaissance of our field of action 
 — these vast, wonderful United States, such of us 
 as are not held by family ties will find that the road 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 165 
 
 sign "Back to the Land" does not point to a region 
 of mere wheat, potatoes and hogs. Out in the real 
 West are mines and smelters, logging camps, horses, 
 cattle, railway and water power construction. Be- 
 tween the Columbia and the Colorado Rivers are 
 chances enough for adventure to make every day a 
 red-blooded event for an old soldier. 
 
 On a city job, the courage which counts is that of 
 self-control. You may work in Wall Street ten years 
 and never see a chance to steal a subway ticket, but 
 not many of the boys hold themselves down and 
 leave their savings in the bank when coppers or 
 motors begin to jump in a boiling market. Yet it 
 will only be when you learn to make your money 
 work for you that you will take the advance line of 
 your objective — financial independence, and a man 
 is no more likely to pick up sound investment prin- 
 ciples by glancing at the stock quotation column 
 than he can learn to do "Squads Right" by looking 
 through a manual of military training while sitting in 
 a Morris chair. 
 
 This eighteen months in the Army has sure put a 
 crimp in my own bank account, francs nearly fee- 
 neesh, so for a year or two after I get back to work 
 ril save, or maybe accumulate Liberty Bonds. Then 
 if I am not in direct touch with financial affairs, Fm 
 
166 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 going to get one of the officers of my bank to help 
 select the first investments among public utility or 
 railway bonds and preferred stocks. Meanwhile I'll 
 be studying some of the good books now available 
 on financial methods for beginners. An uncle of 
 mine who's been through the Civil war said to me 
 when I enlisted "Remember that colonels are not 
 bom with the silver eagles on their shoulders," and 
 few fathers are now raising crown princes. 
 
 Only for our character's development is it a satis- 
 factory thing to set our aim among the stars. Do 
 you remember the time when you had been marching 
 all night, even your can of corn willie was gone, you 
 had no slicker in the rain and your legs were numb 
 yet full of needles^ "Five more kilometres" was the 
 word passed down the line, but you whistled and 
 tried to crack a joke with that lanky connection file 
 ahead whose ankles were nearly all in. Well, in civil 
 life too you can do your damdest no matter how you 
 feel, yourself, to make things look a little brighter 
 for the other fellow. Perhaps the greatest humani- 
 tarian problem before us lies among the 17,500,000 
 aliens now in the United States. That they will give 
 their lives for the flag we saw in the Argonne beside 
 us. If you have the weight you should in your com- 
 munity throw it to the political candidate who stands 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 16T 
 
 for the most liberal education of these foreigners as 
 well as of your own children. The world's miseries 
 are mostly due to ignorance which like mustard gas, 
 makes a casualty of a man without his knowing it 
 till too late. The restlessness that manifests itself in 
 anarchistic activities will have to be met by just such 
 iron justice as old soldiers can hand out. In your 
 own trade or profession join those movements which 
 make for unity and construction, yet, respect the 
 rights of others. Just around the corner the sick 
 and the poor can always be found; the latter are 
 best helped, not by direct gifts but by showing them 
 how to adjust their own battle-sights, and by the 
 way, don't let the good deed be contingent on 
 thanks. 
 
 I guess a lot of us have also decided that as soon 
 as we've found a satisfactory location we'll let some 
 pretty girl do us the biggest favour of our lives. 
 Boys, hasn't the American girl got 'em all beat, 
 though? She will be really worth leading up the 
 aisle. 
 
 So our future at home resolves itself into a con- 
 tinuation of service in a vast United States Army 
 that works and fights without uniforms. When our 
 hair turns white and the final peace is near, we will 
 want an eternal furlough to visit those comrades 
 
168 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 whose last good-bye was murmured to us on the 
 Marne. We must be ready for inspection by that 
 Great General who wears the stars of the universe; 
 then when the zero hour comes for each member of 
 the A. E. F. he'll go over the top with a smile of 
 victory. 
 
XX 
 
 Pvt. i/c, . 
 
 Camp Hospital No. 33, 
 
 APO No. 716, Brest, France. 
 Home Address: Richfield, California. 
 
 I SAW a magazine article entitled, "As You 
 Were." I wondered if we were going back home to 
 be as we were. Most of us are going back home, 
 but "As You Were*?" No, that is asking too much. 
 The question is even being asked, "How you gonna' 
 keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen 
 Parcel" The author of this ditty is right; seeing 
 "Paree" makes a difference. But he's wrong; all men 
 do not respond by leaving the farm to go jazzin' 
 aroun', paintin' the town. That will be the choice 
 of some. Others will paint their thoughts, or land- 
 scape their gardens, discourage vulgar entertain- 
 ments, organise to fight prostitution, oppose dirty 
 literature, prevent dangerous dance halls — ^he has 
 seen what all these lead to. 
 
 Many of the A. E. F. have never seen Paris. And 
 to those who have, the impressions are less forceful 
 than the impressions of other experiences we have 
 
 169 
 
170 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 had over here. To live with Death for days at a 
 time, to meet him, to just miss him, to have him 
 take your buddie — how can you tell them "As You 
 Were" after they've lived with death? To trudge 
 under mule-packs for miles and miles, kilometre 
 upon kilometre, foot after foot, perhaps with two 
 packs for the last long mile — ^how you gonna' — can 
 a man use all his pep behind a ribbon counter after 
 that? To live in mud, to sleep with rats, to endure 
 with cooties, can the collegian pursue learning for 
 learning's sake as before? Paris, H. E. shells, 
 mademoiselles, Sam Brownes, dead men, maimed 
 children, submarines, England, Pershing, sausages, 
 dead men, gas, lice, blood, submarines, maimed 
 children, the armistice in France, Christmas in Ger- 
 many, Fourth of July in New York or Homeburg — 
 experiencing any or all of these makes the old life — 
 as we were — impossible. 
 
 We are broadened or we are narrowed; depends 
 on how much we think. Most of us are broadened. 
 We are hardened or we are softened, depends on 
 how we react to what we think. Most of us are 
 hardened to endure, softened to respond. It is well 
 we are not the reverse, softened, ready to quit ; hard- 
 ened, to the calls of sacrifice. 
 
 The war has ceased. But there is no peace. The 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 171 
 
 ' ■ 13 
 
 world is nervous. Problems confront us, the world, 
 at every hand, the old problems of disease, the new 
 — no the old but mounting problem of Bolshevism, 
 the hopeful problems of education and government, 
 the growing problem of population, the challenging 
 social problem general. 
 
 Fortunately the Yank is used to facing problems. 
 More than that, he is used to overcoming them. I 
 have left the problems of religion out of the list, 
 for I look at that not as a problem, but as the solu- 
 tion. Religion was the only force accused of failing 
 to prevent the world catastrophe. Religion is the 
 only solution offered with claims of being compre- 
 hensive. Socialism is offered as a panacea by a few 
 heated fanatics. Religion is offered as a panacea by 
 thousands of cool, sane Americans — Yanks. 
 
 Most of us will go back home with the spirit of 
 adventure stronger. It is a healthy spirit. If we 
 venture to apply Christianity (Christianity is the 
 best religion — and the most adventurous), if we "bet 
 our lives that there is a God," if we take Christ 
 seriously — how He lived, what He said — then the 
 American Expeditionary Forces at home will be 
 forces for wholesome uplift of humanity. 
 
 How will it work out*? Jack will be kept down 
 on the farm "digging in" in order to send little Bud- 
 
172 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 die to college. He will be building "huts" where 
 wholesome play, reading, entertainment, and in- 
 struction will build up the morale of his children, his 
 neighbour's children, and his European neighbour's 
 children. He will be leading in co-operation in sani- 
 tation, in buying and selling, in good roads, in good 
 government. He will bring the city clinic to the 
 country. He will have his hands full combating 
 world problems with a vital religious faith down on 
 the farm after he's seen Paree. 
 
 It may be harder after army life to keep the city 
 Yank in his pent-up office or monotonous factory. 
 They, too, will be kept from "paintin' the town" by 
 a vital religious faith. With them social and politi- 
 cal problems will be intensified. Let them wear out 
 their pep in downing selfishness and freeing human- 
 ity. The pep will not then be fruitless. Let them 
 spend their millions in foreign missions, and thus 
 most surely prevent future wars. Let them co-oper- 
 ate with their buddies down on the farm in the 
 splendid task of making America perfect. 
 
 Home, then what'? Never, "As you were." Old 
 things have been blasted out of our minds. New 
 zest has been blasted into our minds. Something will 
 take the place of the old things. In some manner 
 the new zest will be spent. "When an unclean spirit 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 173 
 
 leaves a man, it roams through dry places in search 
 of refreshment. As it finds none, then it says, 1 will 
 go back to the house I left', and when it comes it 
 finds the house clean and in order. Then it goes off 
 to fetch seven other spirits worse than itself; they 
 go in and dwell there, and the last state of that man 
 is worse than the first." Let none of us who have 
 had evil spirits blasted out by war experiences be 
 found ''clean and in order." Rather, let there be 
 found a vital religious faith pervading, which will 
 take sword against that spirit and all his kind. 
 
XXI 
 
 Charles A. Rayman, 
 
 Cpl. 129 Bn., 258 Co., M.P.C. 
 
 Home Address: 1002 N. Clark St., 
 Chicago, Illinois. 
 
 Humph I Here it's four months since the Armis- 
 tice has been signed and not a single bit of encourage- 
 ment of going home, laying on the floor of this old 
 hay loft looking at the cobwebs and half freezing to 
 death while nearby every other guy in the neighbour- 
 hood is back in God's country grabbing off the 
 cream. 
 
 Casual companies, holding companies, replace- 
 ment companies, training cadres and a million other 
 darn knock abouts. I'm sick and tired of this eating 
 off wheelbarrows, bridges, streets and the like. I 
 wonder why in the deuce they couldn't have left me 
 with my old company instead of busting us all up. 
 
 By Gosh! I guess I never will get home by the 
 looks of things. I wonder where in the deuce the 
 rest of the bunch is to-night? Trying to police some 
 wood or a crap game somewhere, I suppose. 
 
 What the dickens is that noise out there? "Lo 
 
 174 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 175 
 
 Bill," Where's the gang*? For the love of Mike shut 
 that darn door, what ya been doing, going over the 
 top with Vin Blanc again ^ Gimme that paper you 
 got in your pocket, and if you go out again be careful 
 and don't fall down that ladder and bust your fool 
 neck. I suppose the M. P.'s will have to carry you 
 all home before you finish up this party, say! and 
 try to police up a hunk of candle some place so we 
 can find our shoes in the morning. 
 
 Don't see what made me hit the hay so early to- 
 night. What's this? I wonder where he ever got 
 hold of this paper. The official organ of the A. E. F. 
 "Wholly Gee I" this is rich. Home going schedule, 
 eh*? Now that's interesting, loading 34 men per 
 minute, all of the A. E. F. will be home by August, 
 now who'd a thunk it? Well ! Well ! 
 
 Casuals and wounded carried into transports, gee 
 whiz, I guess I'm lucky I ain't got any old scrap 
 iron unloaded in my carcass at that, guess some of 
 those poor guys will have a pretty tough time of it 
 for a long while. 
 
 Well, this is some paper I'll say. Guess before 
 long they will be getting us all out of here for home 
 "Toot Sweet." "Home." Wow, pretty hard to 
 take — N2t, 
 
 "Home," then what? Yes, then what? I never 
 
176 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 gave that a thought. Well, what the dickens should 
 I do after I get there *? Let's see now, how do I 
 stand *? This army stuff ought to help some, disci- 
 pline, reveille, retreats, formations, etc., everything 
 on the minute is punctuality that's a pretty good 
 thing in business and appointments, I have heard, and 
 a good asset. Setting-up exercises, calisthenics and 
 care of the body — that ought to help some. Personal 
 hygiene, kitchen police work, washing pots and pans, 
 etc., ought to qualify me as a first-class dish washer 
 in a restaurant or hotel some day. Bivouacing, 
 trench digging, etc., qualifies me for a sewer digger 
 or coal miner, that training cadre job furnished some 
 opportunity to study men and human nature and 
 may make a good railroad or street foreman out of 
 me; then again, that Military Police training may 
 help me get a job with some civilian police force and 
 driving that truck might make me O. K. for a 
 chauffeur position. 
 
 Then I have learned a lot about farming and the 
 like by watching these Frenchmen and one good 
 point learnt is that of conservation — the one great 
 reason the foreigners are so successful in business 
 back in old U. S. A. 
 
 All this training has got to come in handy when 
 I get back, and if I go into business, I sure have 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 177 
 
 'I 
 
 had plenty of opportunity to study the ways of men, 
 having slept with them, drilled with them, eaten 
 with them, etc. ; that's a good item in itself and will 
 come in handy most any time. 
 
 I'll be one of the last ones to get home but if I 
 buckle down and get my shoulder behind the wheel, 
 I guess I can push through, for in the army, compe- 
 tition and promotion were not as easy as I thought 
 and when I made up my mind to get there I was 
 pretty successful, and guess I ought to be able to do 
 the same in civilian life also. 
 
 The old following don't look so good to me now 
 and if I can locate a new line or a better opportunity, 
 I guess everything will re-adjust itself O. K. all 
 right; at any rate personal cleanliness, hygiene, etc., 
 puts me all to the good and nothing lost even if some 
 of the knocks have been tough ones, our forefathers 
 fought for America and I guess I can do the same 
 without kicking. 
 
 Glad they got all those wounded guys home first, 
 and when I get back I won't be ashamed to shake 
 them by the hand and say: "Well, buddy! Glad to 
 see you and that everything is going well." 
 
 The financial situation will have to be studied out 
 according to conditions but oh boy! I'm sure going 
 to hit that old bath tub strong as soon as I get that 
 
178 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 discharge and put on an ice-cream drive that will 
 make my stomach forget every one of the weary 
 days in France, then lock myself in a room, throw 
 the key out the window, hang a sign on the door 
 "Closed for ten days," crawl in the white sheets and 
 forget there ever was buglers, soldiers, armies, can- 
 ons, guns or anything else. 
 
 Yeh I here comes the gang up the ladder. I better 
 pull my head under the covers and go to sleep. If 
 I say anything about home to those guys, there will 
 be a hob-nail barrage 'Toot Sweet." 
 
XXII 
 
 Raymond Brothers, 
 
 Prvt. i/c American School Detachment, 
 Clermont-Ferrand, APO No. 723, A.E.F. 
 Home Address: Claysville, Ohio. 
 
 Had we been asked this question the day of the 
 
 Armistice, the majority of us would have instantly 
 replied that our greatest desire would have been to 
 get out of knee-deep mud, to locate a decent place 
 in which to sleep, to have had the pleasure of 
 rummaging through the home-pantry for an apple 
 pie, a bit of custard and to have sprawled down 
 before a fine fire in order to absorb all the warmth 
 possible for a couple of weeks; childish? Rather. 
 
 There are others whose energy will be expended in 
 finding the old gang, in experimenting for a suitable 
 substitute for beer or how to make a non-alcoholic 
 cocktail with a kick. Still another class of individ- 
 uals, more radical than the rest, will be concerned 
 with emigration laws to countries where water is 
 used for laundry purposes only. 
 
 But all these childish and impatient ideas of re- 
 turning soon give way to something more rational; 
 
 179 
 
180 HOME ^ THEN WHAT ? 
 
 out of an almost chaotic confusion of impressions, 
 certain ones began to clarify. 
 
 The importance of this home going and its at- 
 tendant considerations assume frightful propor- 
 tions, and we find ourselves face to face with a 
 number of questions of prime importance. They 
 must be solved. Am I returning to the same old 
 job^ If so, sluggishly contented as before? Have I 
 learned to know my fellowmen better after having 
 bunked, eaten and fought side by side for so many 
 months? 
 
 But that merely brings us down to where we 
 begin finding questions all must settle. We find we 
 were very selfish on questions of education, on all 
 manner of community and social problems. Now we 
 wonder how we ever managed to live satisfied with 
 such narrow, dogmatic views. 
 
 Then, he who has the interests of the community 
 at heart, he who wants to see a more wholesome and 
 efficient system of education, a working religion, and 
 whose aim is ever toward an eternal peace, must 
 surely intend to examine and carefully weigh some 
 of the following topics. 
 
 There is no better way to judge a nation than by 
 examining its schools, colleges and educational sys- 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 181 
 
 tern. The principles underlying this will be the prin- 
 ciples which govern the nation. 
 
 We sent to Europe during the past war, an army 
 which speaks eloquently for American education. 
 An education which permits of initiative, which 
 brings out the best qualities of the men is the edu- 
 cation toward which we are going to strive. 
 
 So, no finer task, no worthier work or no better 
 profession lies before us than to take a leading hand 
 in the education of young America. There is an un- 
 limited field here for us men of the A. E. F. We 
 who have had an unprecedented opportunity to 
 travel and to compare methods with those abroad, 
 we are going about this task with a broader under- 
 standing of our particular needs. 
 
 If America is to hold a leading place among the 
 nations of the world, and this she has already 
 proven, she must be the best educated. We are now 
 paying more money for the education of our young 
 citizens than any other nation in the world. It must 
 be our duty to direct this expenditure and to make 
 every dollar of that sum count one hundred percent. 
 
 The energy of young America is gigantic, and if 
 directed into proper channels will be able to accom^ 
 plish untold results. Yes, we must aid in making an 
 educated America. 
 
182 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 But good resolutions and ability to see clearly 
 what must be done will amount to but little if we do 
 not put some dynamics behind it. Work, and more 
 work will be the keynote to success. Plans uncom- 
 pleted are useless. Plans with proper materials, car- 
 ried through according to those plans, bring com- 
 pletion. Then above all we are going to work. By 
 that we do not mean endlessly or unintelligently, but 
 good clean honest effort. This work may be at the 
 desk, in the shop, at the plough handles or in the 
 mine. All honest work is equally rewarded. 
 
 If we are a working nation we need have no fears 
 but that in time we will have all other desirable 
 things. They will come of their own accord. As a 
 nation of workers, shall we not lead? 
 
 You have seen your comrades mowed down up 
 there on the front by the enemy. They met death 
 bravely. You have seen them suffer in first-aid 
 stations and hospitals. You have seen those long 
 lines of dead awaiting a trench, a grave, or more 
 often a shell hole for burial. All the time you have 
 been wondering and puzzling over how those men 
 met death. It was wonderful, wasn't it? Perhaps a 
 few of them were Sunday school lads. But those 
 men had a working religion. They didn't boast 
 about it, they often hid it from the ordinary ob- 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 183 
 
 server, but when it came to deliver the goods they 
 were ready — willing. 
 
 Whatever else be our aim, there is one thing above 
 all toward which we as a nation must strive — peace. 
 To have any other end in view would be a direct 
 refutation of our good intentions and endeavours so 
 far numerated. No nation with any other end in 
 view can long endure. 
 
 This war has furnished us a notable example. 
 Germany, with a thrifty people, a colossal home 
 industry and an immense foreign commerce had to 
 lose because her foundations were built on a mere 
 superstructure of Christianity. She attempted to 
 build strongly by physical science alone, leaving out 
 the essential features of a national conscience, of 
 a true purpose and of a lasting peace. The weak 
 superstructure crumbled and left her ruined. 
 
 We must avoid such development. If we want 
 peace, let us seek it ; rather, let us make it our goal. 
 Let us be firmly resolved and assured that each suc- 
 ceeding generation will not have to pass through 
 another conflict like that which closed on November 
 11, 1918. Yes, our programme will be a peace 
 programme. 
 
 After all, we may attain these aims but still be 
 lacking. We need still another asset if we are to be 
 
184 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 real, energetic and intelligent citizens. We must 
 join that great Brotherhood of Man. 
 
 That silent easy-going neighbour of yours whom 
 you seldom saw and never really knew; remember 
 that night when you went over the top? You were 
 wounded and couldn't get back. 'Twas he who 
 brought you aid, got you to the first-aid station and 
 made you comfortable. No, you cannot forget it; 
 nor will he forget that grip you gave him as he left. 
 You knew him from that moment on. Have you 
 more neighbours'? Do you know them? 
 
 We simply cannot go back to pre-war levels. We 
 must get a little above the dead level of humanity 
 and reach out to these our fellow men with whom we 
 are associated. We cannot go back to what we were 
 before the war; we cannot permit any one with 
 whom we come in contact to be what he was before. 
 We must meet the situation as it now confronts us. 
 
 Then, each man of us is going back to a home or 
 to form a home. 'Tis a man's greatest privilege to 
 have a home, a wife, children. 'Tis our sacred duty 
 toward our fellowman, the nation and toward our 
 God. 
 
 Here in the home is where we are going to begin 
 the new era. Here is the place to inculcate into the 
 mind of the child the principles and teachings we 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 185 
 
 i 
 
 know to be true. If freedom, equality, and fraternity 
 
 are to be the goals toward which we are going to 
 
 direct the nation's efforts, surely no place is better 
 
 adapted or more favourably suited for this beginning 
 
 than here — in the little Republic of the Home. 
 
XXIII 
 
 Eugene A. Thompson, 
 
 Sgt. 93rd Co., A.S.C., A.E.F., 
 
 Forwarding Camp, APO No. 762, Le Mans. 
 
 Hundreds of thousands of men are returning to 
 civilian life from the Armies of the modem world 
 to feel, and in turn to make you feel, "the Pathos of 
 Distance" which separates battlefields in France from 
 Beacon Street, Boston, or the main street of Coffey- 
 ville, Kansas. The readjustment and reconciliation 
 of the two points of view in a single experience, not 
 to say anything of the history of a nation, is a 
 spiritual problem which few men have seriously an- 
 ticipated on either side of the gulf. 
 
 The prospect that the present schism between the 
 soldier and civilian mind can be overcome by any 
 "ingenious works" which emanate from the delibera- 
 tions of well meaning but unimaginative commit- 
 tees of welcome is poor. Your instinct for organisa- 
 tion, your fertile genius for saving works, may easily 
 lead you astray here. The problem goes deeper than 
 that, and finally resolves itself at last into the sterner 
 
 task of a lonely self-discipline of the inner life. So 
 
 186 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 187 
 
 it has always been, so it will always be as the waiting 
 civilian prepares himself to receive the home-coming 
 soldier. When the two stand face to face again, no 
 perfunctory mechanics of greeting can get across the 
 rift — only a penetrating insight which is born of im- 
 agination and sympathy. 
 
 In the moment of initial reunion it is more than 
 probable that the presence of this subtle gulf will 
 not be felt. The gladness of the returning on the 
 one side and the genuineness of the welcome and 
 homage on the other will, pro tem, obliterate the rift 
 which the War has set between the two. The first 
 initial greetings will seem to be a reaffirmation of the 
 old unity of the common life. But sooner or later, 
 because the relations of human nature to experience 
 are reasonably reliable, a difference in the point of 
 view must make its appearance. 
 
 The first American draft took away from a small 
 village in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia 
 seventeen of her sons. Before they went away, 
 thirteen of them had never slept a night away from 
 home in all their lives. It is not within the bounds 
 of possibility that those boys will come back the 
 same way as they went away. The intervening 
 months must bring some change. Life in the moun- 
 tain village must forever afterward be looked upon 
 
188 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 from an entirely different angle. It must be tested 
 upon the touchstone of Chateau-Thierry and the 
 Argonne Forest, which is of sterner stuff than the 
 innocuous domesticities of the life in the mountain 
 village. 
 
 Which is the better world, which is the real world 
 may be an open question ; but for these home coming 
 men and for those who welcome them, there must 
 be in the years immediately to follow, the conscious- 
 ness and the collision of two very different worlds in 
 the place of the former platitude of one world. 
 
 Every troop train, therefore, lumbering back to 
 the channel ports with its freight of khaki; every 
 westbound transport on the Atlantic in mid-winter, 
 is a symbol of this "Pathos of Distance," a great 
 question mark set against all the conventions of 
 home. 
 
 The men are returning to the Allied homelands as 
 the incarnation of a victorious democracy. But, of 
 themselves, they are also the substance of a new 
 spiritual democracy. The bluest blood in the veins 
 of the civilian Brahmin is not half so blue as the 
 blood in the veins of the humblest "Wop," "Dago" 
 or "Nigger" in the A. E. F. who has seen hard serv- 
 ice at the Front. Moral aristocracies are an inevit- 
 able by-product of every time of intense living. And 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 189 
 
 not even the fresh vindication of the democratic prin- 
 ciple can blind our eyes to the new bom aristocracy 
 of men who are coming back to civilian life with the 
 chilling certainty with which they are thoroughly 
 imbued and coloured, that by virtue of their suffering 
 they know more than the wisest of you can ever 
 know, because they have been familiar with, and at 
 home in many distant dreadful worlds of which you 
 know absolutely nothing. Something more than the 
 cracker barrel philosophy of the Blue Ridge village 
 grocery store; something more than the platitudes 
 which pass across mahogany desks in First National 
 Banks, or overflow orthodox churches, will be needed 
 to overcome the "Pathos of Distance," between the 
 two worlds. The problem of the readjustment of the 
 spiritual aristocrat to the "many-too-many" who 
 make up his easy going democratic environment is 
 always hard. But never was the task of reconcilia- 
 tion harder than now. In the welter of problems 
 that are rolling on the shores of peace-times, like a 
 ground swell after storm, none bulks bigger and 
 more imperious than this. 
 
 In his absence civilians have told one another that 
 the soldier would not come back the same he went. 
 He will be changed, they have said. But how he 
 will be changed they really do not know. Every 
 
190 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 effort to forecast the change is tinged by their own 
 point of view. They read into the expected change 
 their particular codes and creeds which are still dear 
 to them. And then they read them out again with 
 the sanctions of the soldier to give them new valid- 
 ity. Are they Tories'? Then the soldier will come 
 back from the war cured of all the seductions to 
 radicalism and pledged to a life of conservatism. 
 Are they rebels'? Then the soldier will have been 
 infected by the virtues of revolt and will return a 
 sworn *'Red." Are they sectarians'? Then the sol- 
 dier's experience will have taught him the truth of 
 their dogmas and he will come to take his place in 
 their choirs and chant their creeds. . . . 
 
 Something of this sort, then, constitutes the prin- 
 cipal task for those who, on the civilian side of our 
 "Pathos of Distance," are seriously concerned to 
 bridge the gulf: some perception that we have here 
 the old but always new collision of the two great 
 types of mind. 
 
 On the one hand, we have had at home a mind 
 which, under the stress of war and the collision of 
 ideals, has been freshly obsessed with the need for 
 more and better systems, business, and politics. The 
 enemy has proven to us that power of a systematic 
 theology once a people are indoctrinated with it. 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 191 
 
 And so, preoccupied with your new systems, you go 
 to the pier to meet the soldier, and greet him, in the 
 hope that for the sake of civilisation, he will counter- 
 sign your intellectual efforts with the sanctions of 
 your experience. 
 
 Yet what greets you is not a mind like your own 
 but a mind unlike your own — a mind which has been 
 trained to suspect reflection as debilitating if not 
 dangerous. 
 
 What is needed, then, on the part of the civilian, 
 who looks with eager expectancy to the men of the 
 home-coming armies, is not any system of thought, 
 but a frame of mind, a mental and moral method 
 which meets the soldier's own. By some solitary 
 inner discipline, one by one, you must be reborn into 
 the process of the soldier's inner life if the gulf is 
 to be bridged. 
 
 In American homes there still linger the memory 
 and tradition of staid young men whom the Civil 
 War turned into wandering "Soldiers of Fortune." 
 They are remembered or mentioned with a gesture 
 of deprecation and regret. Outside the pale of hum- 
 drum life these detached uncles and second cousins 
 went their w^ay like rolling stones. But it may be 
 questioned whether or not the fault was all theirs. 
 Perhaps they could not find in the insipid concerns of 
 
192 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 the "Reconstruction Period" after the Civil War 
 challenge and opportunity for their capacity for risk. 
 
 So again men returning from France to a world 
 which is still primarily concerned to "play the game 
 safe" in reHgion, business and politics, may well 
 question the validity of the ideal which you offer 
 them and turn "Soldiers of Fortune" as did their 
 ancestors. 
 
 Now then, as a conclusion to the whole title, it 
 is to be noted that the habit of taking risks has 
 generated in the soldier the further habit of selfless- 
 ness. If you live a life of risk, you must give up 
 primarily of thinking of self. 
 
 It is here that the soldier's life has touched most 
 intimately the austerer types of moral idealism. To 
 think of self in action and to put self -salvation above 
 risk for the cause, is to dally with the sin of treason 
 for which military law knows no forgiveness. That 
 way lies the firing squad. That so few men have 
 yielded to the self-preserving instincts in the face of 
 superhuman temptation is in itself one of the moral 
 triumphs of the War. 
 
 "The Gulf," then, will never be bridged by any 
 works of any obvious mechanical social structure. 
 In so far as it is really bridged, it must be bridged 
 by that sympathy and imagination in the civilian 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 193 
 
 soul which seeks to understand and reproduce in its 
 own life the inner substance and method of the sol- 
 dier-discipline. The soldier character has been ap- 
 proved and approved. The real testing of the de- 
 velopment of civilian character in war time is yet 
 to come. It comes with the returning soldier who 
 brings to you no final system on which to try your 
 patiently refurbished creeds, but rather a point of 
 view, an intellectual method. 
 
XXIV 
 
 Louis L. Torres, 
 
 1849-1854 Jerome Ave., 
 New York City, N. Y. 
 
 Never mind the *'And Then," gentlemen, but 
 think of the real meaning of the word home for a 
 man in O. D. uniform ; think of that magic word and 
 of what would a man do to be there; but since you 
 don't give a hoot about its meaning to us, and the 
 words you are interested to hear something about are 
 ''and then, whaf I will do my best to make an ex- 
 tract of all the projects I have in mind as soon as I 
 hit Hoboken. 
 
 I will go and see the demobilisation Camp Com- 
 mander and ask him if he can turn me loose, with or 
 without discharge, as that is immaterial to me. In 
 case I succeed in this attempt to be free, I will take 
 the fastest express that there is in the State of New 
 York that will take me up to Manhattan. Upon 
 arrival I will make the old lady "turn out the guard" 
 and all military honours to be rendered to me; a gen- 
 eral inspection will follow, everybody standing in 
 
 "attention" until the command "rest" is given. After 
 
 194 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 195 
 
 all these ceremonies and compliments, which of 
 course are made upon my own request, I will dismiss 
 every one in the house, take off my uniform, put on 
 my ''civies," which by this time may be too big for 
 me as I have lost about twenty pounds since enlist- 
 ment, fact which is in contradiction to reports from 
 the War Department which states that every man in 
 the A. E. F. has gained twenty-five pounds while in 
 the Army. . . . 
 
 I am a civilian now. I have the right to vote when 
 I want and for the candidate that I want to vote 
 for. I will have the great satisfaction of taking part 
 or voice in the country going "dry" or ''wet." I will 
 see that my vote never goes to a man of Military 
 genius or military tendencies. Furthermore, I will 
 see that my vote is never given to a man who had 
 anything to do with an army on the rear line. 
 
 Under no circumstances will I give a penny to 
 representatives of religious or other organisations 
 who claim to be working for the welfare of the 
 boys at the front during the next war. If I was 
 sure they would (the boys) get the benefit of such 
 contributions, I would not hesitate to send them 
 what they ask for, through the above named institu- 
 tions, but honest to God, as I never got anything 
 from them while I really needed, notwithstanding 
 
196 HOME — THEN WHAT ? 
 
 the fact that my mother gave a lot of "dough" to 
 those societies, I doubt if they (the boys) will really 
 get what I give in the next war. I am of the opinion 
 that the best thing to do in the next war is to claim 
 exemption on the "grounds of being religious" and 
 start working for one of those Welfare Institutions. 
 I will never take a walk or even smile with girls 
 who worked for the A. E. F. in Europe. Not be- 
 cause they are no good ; no, they are O. K. They are 
 too good for me, or at least, they were while they 
 were in France. They could not promenade with an 
 enlisted man in Europe. They could not walk 
 around and smile to the soldiers of a free nation who 
 are reputed to kave won the war and made the world 
 safe for Democracy; so, you see, pals, them girls 
 were too good for us. But when I put on my civies, 
 conditions are entirely different ; then I will think to 
 be a real hero. Then you will pick your own friends 
 and do things according to your own will and in 
 compliance with your own free G. O.'s. Oh, that I 
 will be independent I Home and then Independence. 
 The nation is going "dry." There is no question 
 about the measure being a good one as far as I am 
 concerned, but for heaven's sake, keep it wet until 
 I return, until I am demobilised. I want to get 
 ^'stewed" that day. I want to get drunk in order to 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 19T 
 
 drown the joy of having on once more the good old 
 reliable civies. If I don't kill the joy with alcohol, 
 the joy will kill me, and nobody under the sun wants 
 to get killed after the war is over, or at least I have 
 never heard of one. . . . 
 
 Will say something else in regard to my future 
 plans, that is to say, when I will be free. My chil- 
 dren will have a refined education so that when the 
 new war breaks out, they will not have to enlist 
 right away as their father did, but will make appli- 
 cation for a commission if possible in the M. P. 
 Service. There they will be fed accordingly and will 
 prevent anybody from stealing their jam. My 
 daughters will never go to work for the Army, as 
 it is forbidden for them to walk around with sol- 
 diers, and that is one thing I would like them to do, 
 to entertain and please the poor boys who fight 
 while their mothers stay at home suffering the tor- 
 tures of Hell. 
 
 The next war will be fought in France, that's a 
 cinch, as everybody who starts an argument in any 
 corner of the world comes to settle it here. Well, 
 gents, if our Armies have to come here every time 
 something starts, I believe the best thing for me to 
 do is to begin making experiments of how to pre- 
 serve ham and eggs to send to my boys overseas^ 
 
198 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 They will, I am sure, appreciate it. The love for 
 my mother and sweetheart has grown to such an 
 extent for the last two years that when I return I 
 will tire them with all the attentions of the man 
 who has been deprived of a family for a long time. 
 Only God knows what it is to be away from home 
 under orders. . . . 
 
 To get a job I will depend on my own knowledge 
 of the business, and not on the reputation of being 
 a war veteran, as many already think. My motto 
 will be ''no war talk." What is the use, anyway? 
 There will be many heroes up home. You will find 
 them usually in the bar rooms annoying bar-tenders, 
 that is if the country has not gone dry. You will 
 find fellows who got wounded in every bone of 
 their bodies and who, notwithstanding that, were 
 present at all the great battles of Freedom of this 
 great War. Their Service Records at the War De- 
 partment will not show most of the exploits they 
 talk about, but, what is the use*? They claim they 
 are heroes, and they must be when they admit it. 
 
 The heroes will be so numerous that I think it will 
 be a good tactic to avoid being taken as one. The 
 best thing to do, to my opinion, is to keep quiet 
 and try to forget the guys who got away with mur- 
 der as they say in the Army, while their comrades 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT ? 199 
 
 or countrymen were giving their young sweet lives 
 so that others might live. By this I mean the Bol- 
 sheviks, I. W. W., Pacifists, Anarchists, Slackers, 
 etc., and many others whom the "doughboy" knows 
 but can say nothing for the time being. 
 
XXV ' 
 
 Ralph Underwood, 
 
 Pvt. i/c Co. D, 55th Engineers, 
 
 A.E.F., France, APO No. 713. 
 
 Home Address: 1628 4th St., S.E., 
 
 Minneapolis, Minn. 
 
 A CHANGED man faces a changed country when- 
 ever a soldier of the American Expeditionary Force 
 steps from the gangplank to the land which he left 
 ages ago, as history runs. The two- fold nature of 
 the change constitutes the given condition; to fore- 
 cast the result is the problem. Obviously, any solu- 
 tion which does not take into account the mutual 
 character of the reaction will fail in this respect of 
 completeness and truth. The men of the A. E. F. 
 know of the change in themselves from experience, 
 and in America from hearsay only; so that their 
 ideas as to their future actions must necessarily be 
 suggestive rather than authoritative. 
 
 This much they know : their first duty when they 
 get back is to themselves. In the main, the biggest 
 tangible sacrifice that they have made is the eco- 
 nomic one ; and until they can get partial restitution 
 
 for this in the form of employment which will 
 
 200 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 201 
 
 relieve the most temporary needs of their families, 
 where such exist, it is useless to look to them for 
 constructive and disinterested aid to the govern- 
 ment in the new and critical era of world politics. 
 This fact emphasises the need for the supplying of 
 returned soldiers with jobs of some kind, even if 
 only such artificial ones as might be furnished by 
 temporary construction projects undertaken by the 
 government. Of course, such measures would not 
 solve the problem of re-employment ; but they would 
 put the demobilised soldier upon a more equal foot- 
 ing with the worker who has stayed at home and 
 who, by very reason of the high wages which have 
 raised the prices that the soldier must pay, has ac- 
 cumulated a reserve enabling him to tide over a 
 period of industrial slackness and to choose his per- 
 manent work with some freedom from the goad of 
 immediate necessity. Few soldiers have saved such a 
 reserve from their allotment-riddled pay, and war- 
 time prices have often more than swallowed up their 
 allotments. This was to be expected, and they do 
 not whine about it ; all they want is a fighting chance 
 to stand or fall on their own merits when awakened 
 industry finds its stride. This much they demand as 
 a right, by the recognition of which they will largely 
 judge the new America that they find. More than 
 
^02 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 ! I 
 
 this would be charity, which above all else they 
 dread. 
 
 America, then, has a duty to the returning soldier, 
 whose fulfillment may require radical legislation be- 
 fore the end of 1919. In return, there is much that 
 the one-time soldier may and should do for his 
 country. His position will enable him to wield, in 
 the aggregate, a powerful influence on public senti- 
 ment — and herein lies both a promise and a menace. 
 In so far as his opinions are reasoned, careful, and 
 based upon impartial observation, they will be an 
 asset to the nation; in so far as they are emotional, 
 impulsive, and coloured by purely personal griev- 
 ances, they will be dangerous. It is natural for the 
 man who has borne his share in the fray to feel that 
 his personal experience entitles, him to speak with 
 authority; but the very weight which his words will 
 carry in his own immediate circle entails upon him 
 the obligation to analyse his statements, and to 
 guard against sweeping generalisations for which he 
 has insufficient grounds. 
 
 Such generalisations, when they appear, will be 
 found usually to be "against" something; because 
 the mood of resentment brought about by personal 
 grievances is not likely to confine its charges to spe- 
 cific causes. The man who has been "over there" 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 203 
 
 may have seen flagrant examples of inefficiency and 
 waste in government methods ; but this does not enti- 
 tle him to say that America's war work was poorly 
 handled as a whole, and that thousands of lives were 
 intentionally sacrificed. He may have been mis- 
 treated by his particular military superiors ; but such 
 an experience does not justify an attack upon the 
 whole officer class. He may have seen real merit and 
 service go unrewarded while drunkenness and in- 
 competency were dragged into higher places; but he 
 does not know that nothing but ''lodge membership 
 and hand-shaking" entered into army promotions. 
 He may have been overcharged by a Y. M. C. A. 
 secretary; but he has no right to condemn on that 
 account the work of the whole organisation in 
 France. He may have been cheated by several 
 Frenchmen; but that does not qualify him to pass 
 judgment upon France's motives in calling for an 
 amendment to the League of Peace. His range of 
 experience has after all been narrowed both by 
 natural human limitations and by the restriction and 
 censorship of military life. When there is a worthy 
 point to be gained by an attack upon some person 
 or practice deserving of it (and there will be many 
 such), he should not hesitate to criticise, but so far 
 as he is wise he will avoid the rather common tend- 
 
«04 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 ency to indulge in bitter, unreasoning complaints 
 against conditions for which he could not have 
 named a remedy. 
 
 Fortunately, the evils of such blanket charges, 
 bom as they are of undirected resentment, will prob- 
 ably be far more than counterbalanced by the pos- 
 itive, useful facts and ideas which have in most cases 
 been impressed upon the soldiers by their experience 
 in Europe. The average olive-drab-clad visitor from 
 the States had had no conception of the immense 
 difference between his own people and the civilised 
 peoples of Europe. He had been prepared for a 
 change, but for nothing like the complete new world 
 into which he suddenly found himself transplanted. 
 He found peasants farming as their grandfathers 
 had farmed, and apparently not looking for a better 
 way of doing it; he found the idea of sanitation 
 practically unknown; and last, but not least he 
 found the sum total of those elements which are 
 forced to work under cover in a respectable Puritan 
 community flaunted openly in his face. The result 
 was that his esteem for America mounted skyward 
 with a tremendous leap, while from his first impres- 
 sions, his regard for Europeans fell correspondingly 
 toward the zero point. Longer acquaintance tended 
 almost always to modify this judgment in favour of 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 205 
 
 Europeans; but it could scarcely be expected that 
 the average unphilosophical American soldier could 
 in so short a time as a year learn to understand and 
 appreciate all or the best features of a civilisation 
 so utterly like his own as that, say, of the French. 
 As a matter of fact, the American soldier's final 
 judgment of any of the Latin nations he may have 
 visited, even as mellowed and modified by later dis- 
 coveries or unsuspected virtues, will probably con- 
 tinue to suffer in fairness because of imperfect under- 
 standing. However, time and the general trend of 
 interpretative literature will make amends for this 
 injustice, and in the meantime Europe's loss is Amer- 
 ica's gain. His increased pride in his own country is 
 going to make the returning soldier more solicitous 
 of its welfare. While he has grown impatient of cer- 
 tain army methods, his overseas experience has 
 taught him the value of the fundamental form of 
 government back of the objectionable details, so that 
 his criticism will not on the whole be destructive of 
 more than non-essentials. So far from creating a 
 spirit of Bolshevism, A. E. F. experience in general 
 will tend to a stauncher and more enlightened Amer- 
 icanism. 
 
 Nor will the Americanism thus intensified be 
 tinged with a belligerent and narrowly nationalistic 
 
206 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 spirit. Militarism — the doctrine that a certain 
 amount of war is a good thing in itself — will not 
 find an echo in the heart of the average man who 
 has seen service. He knows war for what it is, and 
 no amount of shouting and of "spread-eagling" can 
 make him believe it glorious. He knows its attend- 
 ant privations and far-reaching misery, its hatred- 
 breeding, its abnormal temptations and consequent 
 wide-spread lowering of moral standards, and its 
 excessive waste of life and wealth for vanquished 
 and victors alike. He is impressed, if he be of a 
 thoughtful type, by its illogical cleavage of society 
 on moral issues without a corresponding sifting of 
 individuals on the basis of personal merit (for not all 
 his nominal ''friends" are fit personally to associate 
 with a few official "enemies," in spite of the far 
 greater justice of the former's causes). Knowing all 
 this, he will naturally welcome any device which will 
 tend to make wars less frequent. More than this, he 
 will take an intense personal interest in those affairs 
 of his country which in any way involve the possibil- 
 ity of war. His interest in the nation's internal af- 
 fairs will be as keen if not keener than ever; but it 
 will be profoundly modified by his awakened sense of 
 the international significance of these affairs. He has 
 been out in the world and has seen its jealousies and 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 207 
 
 friction at first hand, and he realises that the time 
 has come when his country must take them always 
 into account. In other words, he will be not less a 
 citizen of the United States, but much more of a 
 citizen of the world. 
 
 The problem thus resolves itself into a question, 
 first, of the resourcefulness and generosity of 
 changed America, in providing for her returning 
 sons, and secondly, of the good sense and judgment 
 of those changed sons in the use of their acquired 
 knowledge and influence. Both factors in the reac- 
 tion will fall short of perfection; but no one who 
 believes in democracy can doubt that the result will 
 be beneficial, on the whole, both to the nation and to 
 the men who battled so unselfishly for its ideals. The 
 path of duty for both is clear; and the sound core 
 of the A. E. F. opinion may be relied upon, for its 
 own part, not to endanger the "great experiment 
 in democracy" to which America is pledged. 
 
XXVI 
 
 Monte B. Wellman, 
 
 Cpl. Hdq. Co., 76th F.A., 
 
 APO 740, Kottenheim, Germany. 
 Home Address: Catlettsburg, Kentucky. 
 
 "When I go home I intend to " So begins 
 
 the soldier when he talks of the day when he will 
 set foot once more upon the soil of the United States 
 and receive his discharge from the Service. Many 
 and varied are the avowed intentions of these men. 
 
 Many have already made plans for a rousing good 
 time to be had on the money saved during the period 
 spent in the Army. As a rule these men are ones 
 whose parents are living and are keeping the home in 
 readiness for the return of their Hero. They expect 
 their soldier boy to enjoy a few weeks of rest and 
 in a way it is nothing more than his due. It must be 
 considered, however, that this boy has a home await- 
 ing his return. His own room, his own bed. Every- 
 thing just as he left them to go to War kept neat 
 and tidy by a Mother's loving hands. This soldier 
 is going home and what the future holds forth wor- 
 ries him not a particle. 
 
 'Home, That word to me has always conjured up 
 208 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 209 
 
 pictures of a long, snowy, cloth covered table. A 
 stout, jolly elderly man sits at the head of that table 
 wielding a carv^er, while facing him at the other end 
 is seated a smiling comfortable appearing matron 
 who listens to the chatter of her brood as they dis- 
 cuss merrily across the width of napery the happen- 
 ings of the day. When the meal is ended, Father 
 seeks his paper and an easy chair. Mother prepares 
 to hear the lessons of her youngest while Big Brother 
 disappears within the upper regions of the house to 
 don his most attractive tie in honour of a certain 
 charming young feminine visitor in the neighbour- 
 hood. Sister reclines gracefully in a wicker chair on 
 the vine covered porch awaiting the appearance of 
 some one else's Big Brother. 
 
 That is Home to return to. Father, mother, sister, 
 brother, and there might be a sweetheart just across 
 the way. 
 
 But what of the man who previous to entering 
 the Service did not know or had not known for 
 many years the real meaning of the word home*? 
 This man belonged to the order of the wandering 
 foot. North, South, East and West had he drifted. 
 Parents dead and no immediate relatives, or at least 
 no one who would welcome him "Home" and make 
 that home real to him. 
 
210 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 During his stay overseas his longing for home had 
 grown stronger and stronger until he would reiterate 
 with pathetic emphasis the fact that "When we got 
 Home," etc. He knew then down deep that he had 
 no home, but he wanted one and wanted it so hard 
 that it hurt. 
 
 It will be that want and that hurt that will delude 
 many of our discharged soldiers to accept offers of 
 false friendship which last only as long as the dol- 
 lars do. There comes the critical moment in his 
 career and it is only a matter of a few days before 
 it can be determined whether or not he will become 
 a useful citizen of his country, a worker, a home 
 builder and the father of sturdy upstanding young 
 Americans. 
 
 If the former soldier allows the "good time" idea 
 to predominate in his mind he is taking great chances 
 of "coming to" in some dive down Tenderloin way 
 without a dollar in his pockets. As his befuddled 
 brain strives to readjust itself he will have those 
 drowning man flashes of remembrances of what he 
 should have done. The new civilian clothes he 
 should have purchased. The position he was to have 
 acquired. Too late. 
 
 In desperation he may turn to the Army, dis- 
 gusted with himself, every one else and with life in 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 211 
 
 general. In that condition of mind he would hardly 
 make a good soldier. So his career is entirely spoiled. 
 
 Judging from the experiences of thousands of 
 soldiers who have been recently discharged in the 
 United States it is evident that the first step after 
 receiving final payments and bonus money should be 
 the immediate purchase of civilian wearing apparel. 
 The articles do not necessarily have to be expensive 
 for as long as they are neat they will answer the pur- 
 pose any way for the time being. Shoes will be 
 another important item. The ex-soldier could not 
 do better than to provide himself with a pair or two 
 of russet or (as popularly known in the Army) gar- 
 rison shoes. It is understood that these shoes may 
 be purchased in army camps at about $5.50 a pair. 
 They shine easily and really present a very nice 
 appearance. 
 
 The next step is to locate a respectable boarding 
 house and there pay for at least two weeks' board and 
 lodging. There is nothing that will give a man more 
 courage when tackling a strange (and it will seem 
 strange) proposition than the knowledge that he has 
 a meal awaiting him and a place to lay his head 
 after a hard day. Quite naturally many men will 
 hesitate at parting with two or three weeks' board 
 money in a lump sum, especially if the amount of his 
 
212 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 funds is low, fearing that "a fellow can't have any 
 fun without beaucoup jack." That is not true. 
 
 It is possible, even in these mercenary times, to 
 find a boarding place conducted by a Vv^oman who 
 really has the interest of her boarders at heart. She 
 will welcome the returned soldier, not particularly 
 for monetary reasons, but because she may have a 
 boy of her own and, if not, had always longed for 
 one. Every one in the house will, in all likelihood, 
 try to make things pleasant for him and some will 
 be in a position to help in many ways until the 
 stranger gets back into civilian stride. And too, there 
 may be a nice girl who will be interested in hearing 
 of his experiences. It will not be expected that this 
 should develop into a love affair, though if she is a 
 real, honest-to-goodness girl, and he has become able 
 to "stand alone," there are far worse things that 
 could befall him. 
 
 When once started in civilian employment it 
 would be well to appreciate the fact that wages or 
 salaries are not the only things to consider. If the 
 work is unfamiliar, the former fighter will not be 
 worth much to his employer but if he buckles down 
 to it and sticks to it, he is simply bound to make 
 good. Once that feeling is acquired that *T am 
 making myself useful to my employers and I will go 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 213 
 
 through with this just as we did over there no matter 
 how hard the going," then the battle is fairly won. 
 
 Home — then what'? It is a great sporting propo- 
 sition if one cares to look at it in that light. To go 
 back to civilian life under entirely new conditions. 
 To overcome the drawbacks of these conditions. To 
 surmount all obstacles and carve a niche for oneself. 
 
 The first experience will be like that of the small 
 boy learning to swim, a plunge — a gasp — then fran- 
 tic motions of feet and hands to the result of much 
 lost labour and apparently no success. It is not long, 
 however, before the beginner finds himself and has 
 little or no trouble keeping on top and making good 
 headway. 
 
 After the first plunge into civilian life and the 
 novelty wears away, the former wanderer will un- 
 doubtedly feel the urge of the Wanderlust. The 
 desire to stroll along strange by-ways and to visit 
 new scenes will be strong upon him. A sure cure 
 for that feeling is to recall the hike into Germany. 
 There is little doubt that the soft white bed will 
 seem much more soft and desirable to the ex-soldier 
 that night. Stick-to-it-iveness seems to be the key- 
 note of success. The soldier well knew how that 
 quality worked during the war. It will apply just as 
 well with a man's own personal fight for the good 
 
214^ HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 things of life. After success comes the possibility 
 of home. A home of your own, a wife, children. 
 Can a man ask more'? Home and then — it is up to 
 us. 
 
XXVII 
 
 Sergeant, Medical Department. 
 
 We have standardised cars, breakfast foods, text- 
 books, styles, hymns, houses and ideas. We have 
 got to be careful or we shall before long find our- 
 selves standardised men. After that, a long fare- 
 well to any life worth the living. Already things 
 have come to such a pass that if you view with 
 jaundiced eye the editorials of the "Morning Yel- 
 low" you are regarded with alarm by your friends. 
 And this cried-up standardisation is not democracy, 
 as too many seem to think, nor even a distant friend 
 to democracy. It is in fact its worst enemy. The 
 substantial hope of any rule by the people is always 
 for a higher and higher level both of thinking and of 
 living. The reassuring thing in all the turmoil is 
 that democracy seems to rise superior, especially at 
 critical moments, to the mouthings of sloppy senti- 
 mentalists who pose as the friends of libert}'. In 
 spite of standardisation, it is always the super-stand- 
 ard men who exercise the ruling influence, the indi- 
 vidualities, never the crowd. We shall get on better 
 
 if we recognise that primar\^ fact. Make it possible 
 
 215 
 
216 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 to multiply the few men in America who really save 
 us from stagnation by a hundred or a thousand, and 
 you can move the world. Ask Wilson. He knows. 
 
 As to what happens to a nation, or person, that 
 allows itself to be stultified, cajoled, bullied into 
 standardisation, ask Wilhelm, Der Zweite. He 
 knows. . . . 
 
 Two years in the army should have made some 
 millions of Americans a bit more introspective, more 
 interested in all sorts of things, more honest with 
 themselves than ever before. And from my own ob- 
 servations I should say it has. We must — there is 
 no escaping the imperative — we must take accurate 
 stock of our minds and of the things that, surround- 
 ing us, are part of ourselves. That means throwing 
 away hypocrisy, pretense of any kind, having an 
 eye single to the happiest way to a higher plane of 
 life. Not because it is higher but because it is rea- 
 sonably nearer to that estate of freedom of spirit 
 where all admirable things may have happy issue to 
 the light. 
 
 More directly: How are you going to free the 
 spirit of my neighbour who sleeps, not considerately, 
 but too well o'nights, is the father of four, mows 
 his lawn regularly and seems altogether a decent and 
 contented person? 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 217 
 
 When it comes to thinking, what does he know 
 about the exciting interests that fairly hum in the 
 air nowadays — woman suffrage, international and 
 home-grown politics, pictures, books, education, mu- 
 sic, capital and labour *? Does he care about any or 
 all of them'? Does he understand as he should that 
 the right to vote in a republic carries with it as many 
 duties as it does privileges, indeed more of them*? 
 Therefore, he must concern himself with these mat- 
 ters if he and the nation are to count in this eternal 
 struggle for progress that we are always talking 
 about so glibly. If he is a tired business man, let 
 him become familiar with the notion of being more 
 tired. If he is not interested in the world as it is, 
 how compel him to be'? That is the question. 
 
 Perhaps he is a little too prosperous about the 
 waist-line to be a fit subject for intensive cultiva- 
 tion of spirit, or morale, as it is called of late. The 
 answer is, begin not on the father, but on the four 
 he has fathered. And there is the nearest answer, 
 nearest in point of practicability to most "burning" 
 questions — education. 
 
 Education is almost a fetish among us Americans. 
 It is a subject on which you can always get a hear- 
 ing, and also many responses. There lies the dif- 
 ficulty. There are too many cooks to produce a 
 
218 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 strengthening broth. No experiment seems too silly 
 to be tried, somewhere, on some unoffending mem- 
 bers of the newer generation if only the sponsor of 
 the "movement" calls his nostrum progressive. 
 Methods and madness are near allied. What though 
 the youngsters can neither spell, write or read if they 
 can dance agreeably about the May-pole or delineate 
 whole constellations in cut paper. Throw mental 
 discipline to the dogs. Few people really believe 
 in the eighteenth century dictum that all men are cre- 
 ated free and equal. Biologically impossible. But we 
 may presume that all of them are born with rudi- 
 ments of brains of some sort. The best approxima- 
 tion, then, to the ideal is to give them free and equal 
 opportunity. There is insistent need of this in a 
 republic. In a monarchy a certain stratum is al- 
 ways ready and more than willing to supply head- 
 liners to this, that or the other service of the State. 
 It keeps, as it were, stars on tap. With us we trust 
 too much to luck. We must reduce so far as possible 
 the chances for disaster by tempting, even daring 
 everybody to show whether he has, or has not, some- 
 thing valuable in him. If he has not, he will at least 
 form part of a sound foundation for the more showy 
 towers and pinnacles. 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 219 
 
 Is it, then, to be a different America when we get 
 back, or the same as before'? Here's to the newer, 
 arising America, free as never before, intelligently 
 aiming at the stars; unafraid of portentous words 
 and pretentious politicians; afraid of hypocrisy and 
 ignorance ; keen-eyed before her own defects, no less 
 critical of Europe and Asia; glad in health, strength, 
 sanity; guarding always the sacredness of her own 
 soul which is also that of all her men. 
 
SELECTED EXTRACTS 
 FROM UNPUBLISHED ESSAYS 
 
 "What greater opportunity have we, than now 
 to instill that feeling of being your neighbour's help- 
 er and help preserve the unity not only of ourselves 
 as individuals but as a nation*?" 
 
 "The men of the A. E. F. must pull together if 
 the future generations of America are to be benefited 
 by our efforts and trials on this side of the water.'' 
 
 (A soldier whose name indicates that he is prob- 
 ably a Pole, writes a letter in perfect English and 
 excellent penmanship from which the following is 
 a brief extract:) 
 
 "The only school I had in America was a night 
 school which I was able to attend two years. I had 
 six years of public school in Europe but that is alL 
 Please let me know if there is anything wrong about 
 this letter." 
 
 220 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 221 
 
 "I have Service 4 year in U S A Army and I want 
 say that this has made some men. Better than they 
 ever was in there whole life. If army men get in 
 trouble it His own fault and now body But Him 
 that Cause." 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 '1 am going home to fight for better schools and 
 churches." 
 
 a • • • • 
 
 "On my return home it is my duty to help raise 
 the morale of the men to its highest standard and 
 to co-operate in creating good will and fellowship 
 toward all, and I will use my influence to the best 
 of my ability to make my community a better place 
 to live in." 
 
 « • • • • 
 
 "This great war has woke the People of America 
 up. I have learned a good deal since I have been 
 in France and I would never want to see America 
 come to what France is to-day." 
 
 • • • • • 
 "This war has made me love my mother more, 
 
 and is making me restless to tell the folks in America 
 the lessons I have learned." 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 "Who can be a true soldier without some pride 
 in himself and his fellowmen*?" 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 "Each soldier should ever be mindful that in 
 after-war years it is still his duty to his God, his 
 country and himself to be a good soldier, helping 
 each and all as he did when he was upon the battle- 
 field." 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 "Let no one curse Columbus for having discovered 
 America. An immigrant is a guest who does the work 
 we don't want to do ourselves or want done by our 
 children. We should be grateful to him. Either 
 prevent immigrants from coming to America or kill 
 those who are already there or leave them alone or 
 educate them and make Americans out of them. 
 The word American to hostile ignorant foreigners is 
 not sympathetic. Comrade is the word that they 
 understand. That means something to every one." 
 • • • • • . 
 
 "One of the most tragic facts about the war is 
 that it has gone on in Christendom. The picture in 
 the 2nd Psalm has been reversed. The African 
 heathen has asked 'why do the Christians rage^' 
 Wars must be prevented in the future by a control 
 
HOME — THEN WHAT? 223 
 
 f. "^^^^^^^^ 
 
 of international life and this may best be accom- 
 plished through a 'League of Nations.' " 
 
 "The war is over. But is war over^ To the sol- 
 dier who is inclined to farming there is still a war 
 between man and the insects; to the soldier who is 
 inclined to medicine there is still a war between man 
 and disease; to the soldier who is inclined to 
 philanthropy there is still a war between man and 
 ignorance; to the soldier who is inclined to preaching 
 there is still a war between man and sin." 
 
 "Higher education without a soul is more than a 
 farce — it is a very 'sorceress of Hell' itself. We 
 must get away from German ideas of education be- 
 cause education must become synonymous with 
 civilisation. That may appear simply a personal 
 statement, but I assure you it is the opinion of most 
 of our boys." 
 
 "If we allow the subtle teachings of 'Kultur' to 
 influence our minds we shall at last come to the place 
 where we do not know what we believe, nor believe 
 what we know — a condition of despair closely akin 
 to the divine madness which began the war." 
 
224 HOME — THEN WHAT? 
 
 "We have seen a Nation stampeded by lies and 
 propaganda, and we are for universal truth." 
 
 "Home means that Heaven hallowed spot where 
 is the family hearth be it where the spreading mead- 
 ows and trickling brook delight the eye and enlarge 
 the soul, or where is that snug little bungalow by 
 the side of the street where the children of men go 
 by. The first place that we will begin our work is 
 at home and rightly so, for the home is the founda- 
 tion of our whole social and political system. Those 
 of us who have not homes of our own, expect to 
 have some day and we do not expect that some day 
 to be very far off in many cases. And let me whis- 
 per a secret; the boys of the A.E.F. do not have any 
 conception of a real happy home without there being 
 children there." 
 
 "We can but answer to our comrades who lie 
 'where poppies grow' the good arm of American 
 youth shall forge a link with the hammer of comrade- 
 ship, and of the anvil of justice and fair play, a link 
 whose strength shall not break faith with the cause 
 for which they gave themselves a sacrifice, and a link 
 whose workmanship shall stand the criticism of the 
 artist Tim.e." 
 
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 
 
 0026666685 
 
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