Out To Win | Page 7

affection for the dollar, bugling across the Atlantic her
shrill challenge to mailed bestiality. Germany has made the grave
mistake of estimating human nature at its lowest worth as she sees it
reflected in her own face. In every case, in her judgment of the two
great Anglo-Saxon races, she has been at fault through
over-emphasising their capacity for baseness and under-estimating their
capacity to respond to an ideal. It was an ideal that led the Pilgrim
Fathers westward; after more than two hundred years it is an ideal
which pilots their sons home again, racing through danger zones in
their steel-built greyhounds that they may lay down their lives in
France.
In view of the monumental stupidity of her diplomacy Germany has
found it necessary to invent explanations. The form these have taken as
regards America has been the attributing of fresh low motives. Her
object at first was to prove to the world at large how very little
difference America's participation in hostilities would make. When
America tacitly negatived this theory by the energy with which she
raised billions and mobilised her industries, Hun propagandists, by an
ingenious casuistry, spread abroad the opinion that these mighty
preparations were a colossal bluff which would redound to Germany's
advantage. They said that President Wilson had bided his time so that
his country might strut as a belligerent for only the last six months, and
so obtain a voice in the peace negotiations. He did not intend that
America should fight, and was only getting his armies ready that they
might enforce peace when the Allies were exhausted and already
counting on Americans manning their trenches. Inasmuch as his
country would neither have sacrificed nor died, he would be willing to
give Germany better terms; therefore America's apparent joining of the

Allies was a camouflage which would turn out an advantage to
Germany. This lie, with variations, has spread beyond the Rhine and
gained currency in certain of the neutral nations.
Four days after President Wilson's declaration of war the Canadians
captured Vimy Ridge. As the Hun prisoners came running like scared
rabbits through the shell-fire, we used to question them as to conditions
on their side of the line. Almost the first question that was asked was,
"What do you think about the United States?" By far the most frequent
reply was, "We have submarines; the United States will make no
difference." The answer was so often in the same formula that it was
evident the men had been schooled in the opinion. It was only the rare
man of education who said, "It is bad--very bad; the worst mistake we
have made."
We, in the front-line, were very far from appreciating America's
decision at its full value. For a year we had had the upper-hand of the
Hun. To use the language of the trenches, we knew that we could go
across No Man's Land and "beat him up" any time we liked. To tell the
truth, many of us felt a little jealous that when, after two years of
punishment, we had at last become top-dog, we should be called upon
to share the glory of victory with soldiers of the eleventh hour. We
believed that we were entirely capable of finishing the job without
further aid. My own feeling, as an Englishman living in New York, was
merely one of relief--that now, when war was ended, I should be able to
return to friends of whom I need not be ashamed. To what extent
America's earnestness has changed that sentiment is shown by the
expressed desire of every Canadian, that if Americans are anywhere on
the Western Front, they ought to be next to us in the line. "They are of
our blood," we say; "they will carry on our record." Only those who
have had the honour to serve with the Canadian Corps and know its
dogged adhesion to heroic traditions, can estimate the value of this
compliment.
I should say that in the eyes of the combatant, after President Wilson,
Mr. Ford has done more than any other one man to interpret the spirit
of his nation; our altered attitude towards him typifies our altered
attitude towards America. Mr. Ford, the impassioned pacifist, sailing to
Europe in his ark of peace, staggered our amazement. Mr. Ford, still the
impassioned pacifist, whose aeroplane engines will help to bomb the

Hun's conscience into wakefulness, staggers our amazement but
commands our admiration. We do not attempt to understand or
reconcile his two extremes of conduct, but as fighters we appreciate the
courage of soul that made him "about turn" to search for his ideal in a
painful direction when the old friendly direction had failed. Here again
it is significant that both with regard to individuals and nations,
Germany's sternest