t has stood a
hell of a lot for two years." The crowd roared--officers and men alike.
I wanted to get up and fight the whole outfit; but what could I have said
in defence of this nation? America--our country here--has become a
vulgar joke in men's mouths.'

He stopped abruptly, and poured himself out a glass of water. No one
made a sound. There was hot resentment on nearly every face, but they
would hear him out without interruption.

'The educated classes of England,' he went on, 'are different in their
methods, but they mean the same thing. They say it is America's business
to decide for herself, but the Englishman conveys what he means in his
voice, not in his words. When I was hit, I swore I would come back here
and find out what had changed the nation I knew in the old days into a
thing too yellow to hit hack. Mr. Chairman, you said I had fought in a
cause that is not yours. I beg to differ. There are hundreds of
Americans fighting to-night in France. They're with the
Canadians--they're with the French--they're with the British. Ask them
if this cause isn't ours. I lay beside a Princeton grad. in hospital.
He had been hit, serving with the Durhams. "I'm never going back to
America," he said. "I couldn't stand it." As a matter of fact, he
died--but I don't think you like that picture any more than I do.'

Bringing his fist down on the table with a crash, Watson leaned forward,
and with flashing eyes poured out a stream of words in which reproach,
taunts, accusations, and pleading were weirdly mixed. He told them they
should remove the statue of Liberty and substitute one of Pontius Pilate.
In a voice choking with emotion, he asked what they had done with the
soul left them by the Fathers of the Republic. He pictured the British
troops holding on with nothing but their indomitable cheeriness, and
dying as if it were the greatest of jokes. In one sentence he visualised
Arras with refugees fleeing from it, and New York glittering with
prosperity. With no relevancy other than that born of his tempestuous
sincerity, he thrust his words at them with a ring and an incision as
though he were in the midst of an engagement.

'That is all,' he said when he had spoken for twenty minutes. 'In the
name of those Americans who have died with the Allies, in the name of the
_Lusitania's_ murdered, in the name of civilisation, I ask, _What have
you done with America's soul?_'

He sat down amidst a strained sil