when I went to France, but, to my surprise,
the Scots soldiers nearly always spoke of it when I was talking with
them. They had seen the paragraphs in the papers, and I soon realized
that it loomed up as a great thing for them.

"Aye, it's a grand thing you're thinking of, Harry," they said, again
and again. "Now we know we'll no be beggars in the street, now that
we've got a champion like you, Harry."

I heard such words as that first from a Highlander at Arras, and from
that moment I have thought of little else. Many of the laddies told
me that the thought of being killed did not bother them, but that
they did worry a bit about their future in case they went home maimed
and helpless.

"We're here to stay until there's no more work to do, if it takes
twenty years, Harry," they said. "But it'll be a big relief to know
we will be cared for if we must go back crippled."

I set the sum I would have to raise to accomplish the work I had in
mind at a million pounds sterling--five million dollars. It may seem
a great sum to some, but to me, knowing the purpose for which it is
to be used, it seems small enough. And my friends agree with me. When
I returned from France I talked to some Scots friends, and a meeting
was called, in Glasgow, of the St. Andrews Society. I addressed it,
and it declared itself in cordial sympathy with the idea. Then I went
to Edinburgh, and down to London, and back north to Manchester.
Everywhere my plan was greeted with the greatest enthusiasm, and the
real organization of the fund was begun on September 17 and 18, 1917.

This fund of mine is known officially as "The Harry Lauder Million
Pound Fund for Maimed Men, Scottish Soldiers and Sailors." It does
not in any way conflict with nor overlap, any other work already
being done. I made sure of that, because I talked to the Pension
Minister, and his colleagues, in London, before I went ahead with my
plans, and they fully and warmly approved everything that I planned
to do.

The Earl of Rosebery, former Prime Minister of Britain, is Honorary
President of the Fund, and Lord Balfour of Burleigh is its treasurer.
And as I write we have raised an amount well into six figures in
pounds sterling. One of the things that made me most willing to
undertake my last tour of America was my feeling that I could secure
the support and cooperation of the Scottish people in America for my
fund better by personal appeals than in any other way. At the end of
ever