Part 9 (2/2)

We have already seen that the building that bears the red triangle of the Y M C A at the front is at once the soldier's club, his home, his church where his own denomination holds its services, his school, his place of rest, his recreation center, his bank and postoffice where he writes his letters, his friend in need that stands by him at the last and meets his relatives who are called to his bedside in the hospital.

If there is anything which safeguards the physical, social, and moral health of the men who are dying for us, can we do less than provide it for them? While billions are being spent for destruction, must we not at least invest an infinitesimal fraction of one per cent of our expenditure, in construction, in that which is the greatest a.s.set of any nation--its moral manhood? Can we not provide a home away from home for our own sons and the other boys with them whose parents may be too poor to do so?

Here is a unique contribution which America can also make to her hard pressed allies who have been exhausted by three terrible years of fighting. Britain has already set us a wonderful example and will not need our help. But there is France to which we owe so much and whose war weary soldiers sorely need just such centers for recreation and rebuilding. General Petain, the Commander in Chief, and the French authorities have asked for the help of our Movement in their camps.

General Pers.h.i.+ng, after surveying the field, has declared that the greatest service which America can _immediately_ render France, even before our own men can reach the trenches in large numbers, is to extend the welfare work of the Y M C A to the entire French Army. Can we do less than this for the nation that gave all that Was.h.i.+ngton asked in our own hour of crisis? Then there is Italy, with all her deep need and great possibilities. What can we do to minister to the wants of her great army?

But let us turn to Russia, which represents the deepest need of all--the nation which has undergone the greatest suffering, both within and without its borders, of any of the belligerents. Think of its vast area, greater than all North America, or one seventh of the land area of the entire globe. Think of its population, almost twice our own, and more than one tenth of the entire world. Think of these people, who have the greatest capacity for suffering of any nation on earth, suddenly released, like their own prisoners, with steps unsteady and eyes unaccustomed to the blinding light of freedom. Think of what such a movement of hope and cheer and re-creation may mean to troops hard pressed or demoralized, facing another winter in the trenches.

Add to all these the suffering prisoners of war, and we have over 24,000,000 men who deeply need the ministry of this Movement, and need it now. Here are millions who have already suffered or who are going forward ready to make the great sacrifice for us. What sacrifice shall we make for them?

[1] See World Almanac 1916, p. 488.

[2] The cost of the war has been calculated by various writers on both sides of the Atlantic. Mr. Wm. Rossiter writes on ”The Statistical Side of the Economic Costs of the War,” in the _American Economic Review_ for March, 1916. Mr. Edmund Crammond's paper in _The Journal of the Royal Statistical Society_, Sir George Paish in the various issues of the _London Statist_, and others, have given careful estimates of the direct cost of the war to nations and individuals.

During the first and cheapest year, according to Mr. Rossiter, the total cost of the war, not including the economic value of the lives lost, rose to forty billion dollars. That is equal to all the national debts of the world.

[3] See Appendix II on ”The Treatment of Armenians,” by Viscount Bryce.

[4] Publishers' Note: The whole problem of the meaning of suffering and its relation to the present war, especially for those who have suffered bereavement, is dealt with by the author in his book, ”Suffering and the War.”

[5] ”For France and the Faith,” Letters of Alfred Eugene Casalis, a.s.sociation Press.

APPENDIX I

EXTRACTS FROM ”ETERNAL PEACE”

BY

IMMANUEL KANT

”No conclusion of peace shall be held to be valid as such when it has been made with the secret reservation of the material for a future war.

No State having an existence by itself--whether it be small or large--shall be acquired by another State through inheritance, exchange, purchase, or donation. A State is not to be regarded as property or patrimony, like the soil on which it may be settled.

Standing armies shall be entirely abolished in the course of time. For they threaten other States incessantly with war by their appearing to be always equipped to enter upon it. No State shall intermeddle by force with the const.i.tution or government of another State.

”No State at war with another shall adopt such modes of hostility as would necessarily render mutual confidence impossible in a future peace--such as the employment of a.s.sa.s.sins or poisoners, the violation of a capitulation, the instigation of treason, and such like. These are dishonorable stratagems. For there must be some trust in the habit and disposition even of an enemy in war.

”The civil const.i.tution in every State shall be republican. The law of nations shall be founded on a federation of free States. People or nations regarded as States may be judged like individual men. If it is a duty to realize a state of public law, and if at the same time there is a well-grounded hope of its being realized--although it may be only by approximation to it that advances ad infinitum--then perpetual peace is a fact that is destined historically to follow the falsely so-called treaties of peace which have been but cessations of hostilities.

Perpetual peace is, therefore, no empty idea, but a practical thing which, through its gradual solution, is coming always nearer its final realization; and it may well be hoped that progress toward it will be made at more rapid rates of advance in the times to come.” [1]

[1] English Edition--Pages 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 76, 81, 127.

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