MERCIER FUND; to MR. TALCOTT WILLIAMS, MR. ROBERT UNDERWOOD JOHNSON,
MR. DANIAL FROHMAN; to THE BRITISH WAR MISSION, THE FRIENDS OF
FRANCE AND HER ALLIES COMMITTEE, and to THE RUSSIAN AND SERBIAN
CIVIL RELIEF COMMITTEES. To ALL we give our heartfelt thanks.

THE EDITORS.





Preface




This beautiful book is the expression of the eager desire of all
of the gifted men and women who have contributed to it and of the
members of the Militia of mercy to render homage to our sailors,
soldiers, nurses and physicians who offer the supreme sacrifice
to free the stricken people of other lands and to protect humanity
with their bodies from an enemy who has invented the name and created
the thing "welt-schmerz"--world anguish. But we want it do more
than extol their heroism and sacrifice, we want The Defenders of
Democracy to help them win the war. It has been the thought of
those who planned the book to meet three things needful, not only
to the army at the front, but to that vaster army at home who watch
and work and wait (and perhaps we need it more than they who have
the stimulus of action)--to strengthen the realization that our
soldiers of sea and land, though far away, are fighting for a cause