Part 23 (1/2)

There were our boys, in France. We'd no been ready. We'd no spent forty years preparing ourselves for murder. Sae our boys lacked guns and sh.e.l.ls, and aircraft, and a' the countless other things they maun have in modern war. And at hame the men in the shops and factories haggled and bargained, and thought, and talked. Not all o' them--oh, understand that in a' this I say that is harsh and bears doon hard upon this man and that, I'm only meaning a few each time! Maist of the plain folk i' the world are honest and straight and upright in their dealings.

But do you ken hoo, in a basket of apples, ane rotten one wi' corrupt the rest? Weel, it's sae wi' men. Put ane who's disaffected, and discontented, and nitter, in a shop and he'll mak' trouble wi' all the rest that are but seeking the do their best.

”Ca' Canny!” Ha' ye no heard that phrase?

It's gude Scots. It's a gude Scots motto. It means to go slow--to be sure before you leap. It sums up a' the caution and the findness for feeling his way that's made the Scot what he is in the wide world over. But it's a saying that's spread to England, and that's come to have a special meaning of its own. As a certain sort of workingman uses it it means this:

”I maun be carfu' lest I do too much. If I do as much as I can I'll always have to do it, and I'll get no mair pay for doing better--the maister'll mak' all the profit. I maun always do less than I could easily manage--sae I'll no be asked to do mair than is easy and comfortable in a day's work.”

Restriction of output! Aye, you've heard those words. But do you ken what they were meaning early i' the war in Britain? They were meaning that we made fewer sh.e.l.ls than we could ha' made. Men deed in France and Flanders for lack of the sh.e.l.ls that would ha' put our artillery on even terms with that of the Germans.

It didna last, you'll be saying. Aye, I ken that. All the rules union labor had made were lifted i' the end. Labor in Britain took its place on the firing line, like the laddies that went oot there to ficht.

Mind you, I'm saying no word against a man because he stayed at hame and didna ficht. There were reasons to mak' it richt for many a man tae do that. I've no sympathy wi' those who went aboot giving a white feather to every young man they saw who was no in uniform. There was much cruel unfairness in a' that.

But I'm saying it was a dreadfu' thing that men didna see for themselves, frae the very first, where their duty lay. I'm saying it was a dreadfu' thing for a man to be thinking just of the profit he could be making for himself oot of the war. And we had too many of that ilk in Britain--in labor and in capital as well. Mind you there were men i' London and elsewhere, rich men, who grew richer because of their work as profiteers.

And do you see what I mean now? The war was a great calamity. It cost us a great toll of grief and agony and suffering. But it showed us, a'

too plainly, where the bad, rotten spots had been. It showed us that things hadna been sae richt as we'd supposed before. And are we no going to mak' use of the lesson it has taught us?

CHAPTER XXIII

I've had a muckle to say in this book aboot hoo other folk should be acting. That's what my wife tells me, noo that she's read sae far.

”Eh, man Harry,” she says, ”they'll be calling you a preacher next.

Dinna forget you're no but a wee comic, after a'!”

Aye, and she's richt! It's a good thing for me to remember that. I'm but old Harry Lauder, after a'. I've sung my songs, and I've told my stories, all over the world to please folk. And if I've done a bit more talking, lately, than some think I should, it's no been all my ain fault. Folk have seemed to want to listen to me. They've asked me questions. And there's this much more to be said aboot it a'.

When you've given maist of the best years of your life to the public you come to ken it well. And--you respect it. I've known of actors and other artists on the stage who thought they were better than their public--aye. And what's come tae them? We serve a great master, we folk of the stage. He has many minds and many tongues, and he tells us quickly when we please him--and when we do not. And always, since the nicht when I first sang in public, so many yearst agane that it hurts a little to count the tale o' them, I've been like a doctor who keeps his finger on the pulse of his patient.

I've tried to ken, always, day in, day oot, how I was pleasing you-- the public. You make up my audiences. And--it is you who send the other audiences, that hae no heard me yet, to come to the theatre. To- morrow nicht's audience is in the making to-nicht. If you folk who are out in front the noo, beyond the glare of the footlights, dinna care for me, dinna like the way I'm trying to please you, and amuse you, there'll be empty seats in the hoose to-morrow and the next day.

Sae that's my answer, I'm thinking, to my wife when she tells me to beware of turning into a preacher. I mind, do you ken, the way I've talked to audiences at hame, and in America and Australia, these last twa or three years. It was the war led me to do it first. I was surprised, in the beginning. I had just the idea of saying a few words. But you who were listening to me would not let me stop. You asked for more and more--you made me think you wanted to know what old Harry Lauder was thinking.

There was a day in Kansas City that I remember well. Kansas City is a great place. And it has a wonderful hall--a place where national conventions are held. I was there in 1918 just before the Germans delivered their great a.s.sault in March, when they came so near to breaking our line and reaching the Channel ports we'd held them from through all the long years of the war. I was nervous, I'll no be denying that. What Briton was not, that had a way of knowing how terrible a time was upon us? And I knew--aye, it was known, in London and in Was.h.i.+ngton, that the Hun was making ready for his last effort.

Those were dark and troubled days. The great American army that General Pers.h.i.+ng has led hame victorious the noo was still in the making. The Americans were there in France, but they had not finished their training. And it was in the time when they were just aboot ready to begin to stream into France in really great numbers. But at hame, in America, and especially out West, it was hard to realize how great an effort was still needed.

America had raised her great armies. She had done wonders--and it was natural for those folk, safe at hame, and far, far away frae all the turmoil and the stress of the fighting, to think that they had done enough.

The Americans knew, you'll ken, that they were resistless. They knew that the gigantic power of America could crush half a dozen Germanys-- in time. But what we were all fearing, we who knew how grave the situation was, how tremendous the Hun's last effort would be, was that the line in France would be broken. The French had fought almost to the last gasp. Their young men were gone. And if the Hun broke through and swept his way to Paris, it was hard to believe that we could have gathered our forces and begun all over again, as we would have had to do.

In Kansas City there was a great chance for me, I was told. The people wanted to hear me talk. They wanted to hear me--not just at the theatre, but in the great hall where the conventions met. There was only the one time when I could speak, and I said so--that was at noon.

It was the worst time of all the day to gather an audience of great size. I knew that, and I was sorry. But I had been booked for two performances a day while I was in Kansas City, and there was no choice.

Well, I agreed to appear. Some of my friends were afraid it would be what they called a frost. But when the time came for me to make my way to the platform the hall was filled. Aye--that mighty hall! I dinna ken how many thousand were there, but there were more than any theatre in the world could hold--more than any two theatres, I'm thinking. And they didna come to hear me sing or crack a joke. They came to hear me talk--to hear me preach, if you'll be using that same word that my wife is sae fond of teasing me with.

I'm thinking I did preach to them, maybe. I told them things aboot the war they'd no heard before, nor thought of, maybe, as seriously as they micht. I made them see the part they, each one of them, man, and woman, and child, had to play. I talked of their president, and of the way he needed them to be upholding him, as their fathers and mothers had upheld President Lincoln.

And they rose to me--aye, they cheered me until the tears stood in my een, and my voice was so choked that I could no go on for a s.p.a.ce. So that's what I'm meaning when I say it's no all my fault if I preach, sometimes, on the stage, or when I'm writing in a book. It's true, too, I'm thinking, that I'm no a real author. For when I sit me doon to write a book I just feel that I maun talk wi' some who canna be wi'