was calculated to stagger the imagination and intimidate the heart.  The reason for this was that the supposed eye-witnesses rarely saw what they recorded.  They had usually never been within ten miles of the front, for only combatants are allowed in the line.  They brought civilian minds, undisciplined to the conquest of fear, to their task; they never for one instant guessed the truly spiritual exaltation which gives wings to the soul of the man who fights in a just cause.  Squalor, depravity, brutalisation, death—­moral, mental and physical deformity were the rewards which the American public learned the fighting man gained in the trenches.  They heard very little of the capacity for heroism, the eagerness for sacrifice, the gallant self-effacement which having honor for a companion taught.  And yet, despite this frantic portrayal of terror, America decided for war.  Her National Guard and Volunteers rolled up in millions, clamouring to cross the three thousand miles of water that they might place their lives in jeopardy.  They were no more urged by motives of self-interest than were the men who enlisted in Kitchener’s mob.  It wasn’t the threat to their national security that brought them; it was the lure of an ideal—­the fine white knightliness of men whose compassion had been tormented and whose manhood had been challenged.  When one says that America came into the war to save herself it is only true of her statesmen; it is no more true of her masses than it was true of the masses of Great Britain.

So far, in my explanation as to why America came into the war, I have been scarcely more generous in the attributing of magnanimous motives than my Hollander.  To all intents and purposes I have said, “America is fighting because she knows that if the Allies are over-weakened or crushed, it will be her turn next.”  In discussing the matter with me, one of our Generals said, “I really don’t see that it matters a tuppenny cuss why she’s fighting, so long as she helps us to lick the Hun and does it quickly.”  But it does matter.  The reasons for her having taken up arms make all the difference to our respect for her.  Here, then, are the reasons which I attribute:  enthusiasm for the ideals of the Allies; admiration for the persistency of their heroism; compassionate determination to borrow some of the wounds which otherwise would be inflicted upon nations which have already suffered.  A small band of pioneers in mercy are directly responsible for this change of attitude in two and a half years from opportunistic neutrality to a reckless welcoming of martyrdom.

At the opening of hostilities in 1914, America divided herself into two camps—­the Pro-Allies and the others.  “The others” consisted of people of all shades of opinion and conviction:  the anti-British, anti-French, the pro-German, the anti-war and the merely neutral, some of whom set feverishly to work to make a tradesman’s advantage out of Europe’s misfortune.  A great traffic sprang up in the manufacture of war materials.  Almost all of these went to the Allies, owing to the fact that Britain controlled the seas.  Whether they would not have been sold just as readily to Germany, had that been possible, is a matter open to question.  In any case, the camp of “The Others” was overwhelmingly in the majority.