France, more important than the ship-builders, more important than the
lawmakers themselves, more important even than the President, more
important than that great army of laborers which I saw in Pittsburgh,
more important than the artists and the Red Cross workers, and that
supreme and important part of the great "Services of Supplies" is the
father and mother, the wife, the child, the home, the church, the great
mass of the common thinking, feeling, suffering, praying, hoping people
of America. If these fail, all fails. If these lose faith and courage
and hope, all lose faith and courage and hope. If these grow
faint-hearted, all before them lose heart. These are they who furnish
the real sinews of war. These are they who must furnish the morale,
the love, the letters, the prayers, the support to both government and
soldier. Yes, the common folks over here at home, I have seen clearly,
are the most important part of the great division of the army that we
call "The Services of Supplies." May we never fail the boy in France.

These are the Silhouettes of Service.




VIII

SILHOUETTES OF SORROW

I wondered at his hold on the hearts of the boys in a certain hospital
in France. It was a strange thing. I went through the hospital with
him and it seemed to me, judging by the conversation with the boys in
the hundreds of cots, that he had just done something for a boy, or he
was just in the process of doing something, or he was just about to do